We were thinking of going to Milford Sound for a few days, but the weather was forecast to rain for two of them so we decided to postpone the visit until after New Year when the weather will hopefully be brighter.

After consulting the map we opted to shelter from the rain in Invercargill, not a place we initially intended to go to, but we thought a town would be better than a muddy field when the heavens opened.

Invercargill is near the most southern part of mainland New Zealand. In the southern hemisphere being in the south is like north back home. Imagine we're in Inverness and you get the picture, although not as pretty as Inverness - Invercargill resembles an overspill of an industrial estate.

Our three nights in Invercargill were spent at the Timbertops Motor Camp. It was in an ideal location just a short walk from the shops. The owner was friendly and very chatty, she has been telling Richard about the terrible things guests get up to. The best was when she found an Australian woman digging up parsley from her garden. As the woman walked off she spotted some rhubarb and remarked "I wish I'd seen that, I'd have had some".

To warm our bodies up from the dreary weather Richard planned to cook up a beef stew and I decided to make a winter vegetable soup.

On a rainy Monday afternoon, we strolled around Pak n Save, a supermarket not too dissimilar to Lidl or Aldi, looking for vegetables and there we saw something to brighten up our day. This wasn't your ordinary broccoli or cauliflower but a combination of both, a brocciflower! Cauliflower in shape with bright green broccoli styled florets. However, when we went back to the supermarket the next day to buy one we thought we had dreamt it as there were none there. Richard even asked the assistant if they had any just to make sure this place wasn't turning us crazy. Brocciflowers did in fact exist, they had just run out, much to our disappointment.

On our last day in Invercargill we went to the museum where we saw quite a few living Tuatara. We'd never heard of them before, but apparently they are the last existing species of a type of animal that was around at the time of the dinosaurs. They look like lizards but aren't. One of the ones that we saw was Henry who was born at the end of the 19th century. He was looking pretty good for over 100 years old!

Driving around New Zealand you tend to come across campervan after campervan. Ninety percent of the vans have the rental logos plastered along the side. We have been surprised by how many different companies there are so I started to make a list, and the list keeps growing. Campervan.co.nz appears to be most popular, followed by Maui, Apollo, Britz and Jucy. Although our favourite has to be Wicked; these are scummy battered vans with rough art work all over them. The other interesting make is Spaceships. These are Toyoya Estimas (a bit like a Renault Espace), bright orange, and each has it's own sci-fi based name such as R2D2, NASA, Rimmer… The rear of the vehicle opens up, a bed is folded out and an awning is fastened around, looking like a tent sticking out the back of a car.

I promised you a list of campervan companies and here they are:
1. Ezy Rentals
2. Jucy
3. Cheapa Campa
4. Affordable Campers
5. Britz
6. Apollo
7. Maui
8. Wicked
9. Spaceships
10. Easygo Campers
11. Kea
12. Pacific Horizons
13. Campervan.co.nz
14. Rental Car Village
15. Explore More
16. Tui
17. Kiwi Campers
18. Backpacker
19. Awesome Campers
20. Hippie Campers
21. Sleepervans
22. Go Birdz
23. Cruzy Campers

…and counting.

Of these our Rental Car Village seems to be the cheapest, followed by Awesome Campers and then Sleepervans.

Katy