Invercargill

OK, by now I'm supposed to be in Sydney, but instead I'm penning this from, of all places, Invercargill (eat your heart out Damian et all!) I've gotten quite attached to the place now, and am heading into the Frog and Firkin momentarily. I arrived here via a fairly circuitous route. In Queenstown I hung out with Clare who took over Damian's spot in my dorm at the black sheep, and decided to accompany her to Dunedin as I had pretty much done everything I wanted to in Queenstown - including finishing off the Thrilogy with easily the scariest bungy of the lot, the Nevis high wire, and doing the Rungway,


a Via Ferreta system normally used to move troops around the alps, but used here to give a good feel for rock climbing without having to get superman fingers and lose 10 kilos (it was really excellent) and also fly by wire, which involved flying a mini Aeroplane around while tethered to a length of cable - a bit gimmicky to be honest.


In Dunedin we went on a wildlife safari to see Penguins, Albatross, Seals and Sea-lions, which was really good even though this was my second time doing it, and I decided at this point I wanted to extend my time in NZ and see some of the Catlins and Steward Island, so I bought a ticket on the bottom bus and we headed off to the deep south.



The Catlins is one of the less touristy spots in the country, and also one of the least populated - the main town has 350 people - which can be a bit of a problem when you need to hitch to the nearest town which is 30k away (took 6 hours return, including meeting a crazy American, Tom, who had been hitching recently for 3 years, and was definitely on the run from something). Certainly an interesting day, and topped off with spotting more Penguins. Today I went surfing some really nice waves just outside our hostel, excellent until the wind picked up, at one stage it blew by board into the air and over my head, which I've never had happen before.
Tomorrow I'm off to Steward Island hopefully to see a Kiwi (bird) in the wild, and then I'm hoping to complete another of the NZ great walks from Te Anu, the Kepler track.
Hasta,
Sean