We awoke to a very cool strong westerly wind which was rather chilly, however, the sun shone later in the day. We travelled south leaving behind the mountains which had surrounded us for the last week. The Southlands are not nearly as picturesque, but we found some bays and coves which had beaches covered in debris that had been washed in by the sea. For the ‘twitchers’ we saw a huge flock of mutton birds (sooty sheerwater) flying just off the beach in quite a stormy sea, which was very impressive. We also saw fields and fields of sheep - something we had expected to see more of during our travels. Apparently the number of sheep overall in NZ has halved in the last 30 years (they still nevertheless outnumber the population by a large margin!). We eventually arrived at Bluff, the most southerly town in NZ, which is an important port and has the ferry terminal for Stewart Island where we are going tomorrow. There was a very good high lookout point showing the harbour and coastline around Bluff and beyond.
We are staying the night in the city of Invercargill about 20 miles from Bluff – the police had a roadblock just up from our motel with a big sign saying ‘breath testing’; they were also pouncing on drivers who pulled up before reaching it!
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