Day 8: Invercargill

28 November 2020

Unfortunately Anne has to work today as it is Cardholder day at the Garden Centre and she hasn’t been able to get anyone else to cover her. I am happy to have a quieter day anyway – which starts with scrambled eggs for breakfast!

The weather is much better today and Donald offers to drop me in town when he goes in to pick up some things for his truck – Buster the chocolate ‘lab’ comes with us too.

Invercargill is the ‘capital’ of Southland and has a population of about 50,000. The town itself is very spread out so it appears to be much bigger than it actually is.

Donald drops me at one end of Queens Park, a 80 hectare park with everything from a museum and art gallery, sports fields, rose gardens, aviary, animals, band rotunda, cafe and even a golf course. I spend a lovely couple of hours exploring the park and have a cuppa in the cafe.

From there I walk back to Anne and Donald’s lifestyle block out on the West Plains which takes me a couple of hours, including a stop to surprise Anne at the garden centre.

Back at the farm I have a wander around taking photos as I didn’t have my camera when Anne showed me around last night. They have  been there a year today and have been very busy removing 60 or so overgrown trees that had completely overshadowed the house making it very dark.

They have chickens, a couple of calves, and several sheep including a couple of lambs. They also have 2 huge tunnel houses already containing lots of vegetables and even fruit trees, and a berry fruit enclosure.

Donald has just started a massive project to build a large multi-bay shed and yesterday gravel was spread over the area and he has been compacting it all down.

Anne’s youngest son Andrew (and also my godson) is staying with them at the moment whilst he is working in Invercargill and his girlfriend Greer has come down from Dunedin for the weekend. It is great to be able to spend some time with him as well.

When Anne gets back from work, there is a last minute decision to go and watch the Six60 movie that is playing in town. For those outside NZ, Six60 is a band that originally formed in Dunedin and became the first NZ band to ever play to a sell-out crowd at our largest stadium (they have now done that twice).

Meanwhile Donald has gone to his whitebaiting shed by the river with a friend to make the most of the end of the whitebait fishing season. We drop in to see them on our way home just as they are packing up, so that I could see their setup. I am very privileged to have fresh whitebait fritters cooked up for breakfast the next morning before my flight home.

Join me over the next few days to find out more about my adventures:

Day 1 New Zealand Southern Loop

Day 2 Queenstown to Te Anau

Day 3 Milford Sound

Day 4 Te Anau to the Catlins

Day 5 Catlins to Stewart Island

Day 6 Stewart Island

Day 7 Southern Coast

Day 8 Invercargill