Invercargill, Stroud of New Zealand

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Hello, and welcome from Invercargill! Turns out that there isn't too much here. One street with shops and a Starbucks, followed by miles of industrial estates that seem to be mostly unused. It was about time New Zealand showed us something that wasn't simply just incredible!

Yesterday we made the long drive down from Dunedin, and decided to visit what is the tourist attraction of Invercargill, the Bluff. This is the furthest South I have ever been, about 4000km from the South Pole, and I was greeted with a sleepy fisherman's town with a giant port and an oyster bar. 10 minutes later and Bluff was done, and we headed back to Invercargill via a stupidly steep hill to the view point, which to be fair showed a pretty good view back onto New Zealand's mainland and down the coast.

Last time we left you with the news that we were about to go canyon swinging. This was awesome. 3 second free fall and a 155km/h swing close to the cliff face. This was probably the best thing we've done all trip! We had 2 jumps each including the second one where we were suspended out from the platform and told to turn upside-down, before looking down and being dropped on 4 from a countdown of 5. Swearing ensued! 3 seconds doesn't sound like a long free fall, but it's enough to convince you that the rope isn't attached and you are plummeting towards a overly sharp rock face before bouncing ungracefully into a grade 4 white water rapid!

That night, we decided to try out Queenstown's infamous nightlife, and signed up to a pub crawl. Details probably ill-advised but involved highlights such as a man being accidentally set on fire and other members of our expanding travel group wearing less that the normal amount of clothes in the Ice bar!

For those following the news, this crawl started in Altitude bar, which is of course the location of the entirely fabricated indiscretions of Prince Tindall. The New Zealand media is now ripping into the bouncer that released the CCTV,our favorite phrase so far describing him as being something along the lines of a "traitor and scumbag". Thanks radio rock 98.2 fm.

To the weekend. Now this is the tricky part, as it sort of all turns into some sort of mysterial haze (we are blaming it on the weather). Lots of rugby watched, chants of Ireland!!, a pint with the Georgian rugby team, a pint with a portion of MAN CHIPS!!, a pint with some English fans dressed in spacesuits, a pint whilst standing about 20m from Ashton's swallow dive and a pint whilst being 2 rows off catching the subsequent conversion, and a pint or two for good measure in the bar after the game.

Next on our schedule is a probably unfruitful attempt to find some surfboards to hire along the south coast, apparently New Zealand people think it's too cold this time of year which is frankly ridiculous. Then we are up to Te Anu and on to Milford Sound before the long drive back to Dunedin for this weekend's rugby.

Over and out!
Andy and Tom x

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