Invercargill and the end of the road

From the Catlins to NZ's most southerly city - Invercargill. We hadn't had big expectations of Invercargill from what we had read in the guidebook and heard from others, but it was quite a nice wee place. Maybe people expect too much of it because of it's 'city' tag, but we have been in NZ long enough to know what is meant by 'city'.

Apart from other things, Invercargill has a beautiful park with a massive walk-through aviary and the best kebab shop in NZ. (Kebabs here are nothing like in the UK - they're almost a health food and there are kebab shops everywhere).

To get to Stewart island you can either take the ferry from Bluff ($103 return) or take the plane from Invercargill ($105 return for a stand-by seat). Call us silly, but we decided to take the ferry as I wanted to head down to Bluff anyway. We did have to endure two rather bumpy crossings (tip - throw up over the back of small boats, not the side) but I did get to see the signpost at the southern end of State Highway 1.

It felt like we have come a long way since we saw the northern end of SH1 all the way up in Cape Reinga. A long way.