Before leaving Te Anau, we stopped at the Te Anau Wildlife Centre where enclosures house birds enabling close up views. Our driver yesterday told us that they are incubating eggs from the Takahe which was once thought to be an extinct flightless bird, but was discovered in Fiordland.  

We weren't able to get photos of the birds through the cages, but I did get a couple of photos of Bob in his new All Black Rugby shirt which we found in Wanaka for much less than the real McCoy was in a Queenstown store.

We drove to Manapouri where we had departed for our Doubtful Sound overnight cruise three years ago, so I snapped a photo of Lake Manapouri for old times sake. Then we proceeded on the Southern Scenic Route, the long way there, but as they say, "It’s the journey, not the destination."  

We noticed some elk farms, which makes a lot more sense to me than the red deer farms. After all, elk meat is tastier, there is more of it on the animal, and elk are more like cattle, being grazers rather than browsers like deer.

We followed the Waiau River, where in the Lord of the Rings, the fellowship of hobbits were filmed while they being chased along the river.

We went through the town of Blackmount and saw large fields filled with many, many sheep. Then we came to Clifden where there is a suspension bridge built in 1902, which at the time was the “longest span in the land.”  The rock here is limestone and there is a cave system near here that can be explored.

We stopped in Tuatapere, famous for sausage, for some …......sausage. I’ll let you know.

We came to the sea and stopped at McCrackens Rest which is a lookout on the cliffs above the Te Waewae Bay. You can see Monkey Island which can be walked to when the tide is out, and you can also barely see Stewart Island, which is one of the NZ islands.

We came to Orepuki along the coast where the trees grow sideways due to the strong southerlies. We took a side road to Cozy Nook, where Mullet Bay has a rocky coast. We spotted a bush falcon there.

The next town was the lovely seaside village of Colac Bay. We stopped at The Pavillion for a late lunch and I enjoyed a glass of Astrolabe Chardonnay, the boutique wine I was introduced to aboard the Akaroa Dolphin cruise.  

Our waitress at The Pavillion was from Canada. She is living in NZ for awhile and she said, "I love it here. The people are so nice." She's correct. I asked her if they sold wine glasses, because I broke mine yesterday. She asked her manager, who brought me a wonderful glass as a gift. What a nice gesture!

Then, we drove through Riverton, one of the oldest European settlements in the country. It started as a whaling and sealing town. Now, they refer to the town as the “Riviera of the South.”  That may be kind of a stretch.

We arrived at our campervan park in Invercargill. This feels like coming home to us; we enjoyed a couple of days here on our first trip. It is a great little campground.