More Car Repairs and the Southern Coast

First thing in the morning we headed straight to ‘All Tyres’ to meet Cody, the contact Chris told us to get in touch with to fix our car. Cody assessed the damage and told us that we are going to be spending the day and possibly another night in Invercargill. He needed the time to weld our wheel back together and to fix the damage to the body underneath the car (which was found in an assessment by a mechanic per our request). He calmed John down by giving him jelly beans

The shop was nice enough to give us a loaner car to explore the city. We headed out to the free Museum in town. It was more interesting than we thought. We saw Henry the Tuatara (a type of endangered lizard) who is over 110 years old! And he produced offspring in 2008! There were also a few interesting natural history exhibits and Maori history exhibits.

After the museum it was off to the Queens Garden for lunch. We ate our sandwiches and took a walk around. There were many pretty flowers and to Maya’s excitement there was an Aviary!





We were finishing off the day by checking a few things online at a café. Around 4:30 we were going to see another site when our friend Cody called to give us the good news. The car was fixed (even with an alignment) and we didn’t need to stay another night! We went back got the car, John even got more jelly beans and headed out of town. THANKS CODY!!



Finally, we were back on the Southern Scenic Route. First stop, the Shipwreck Ino. It is not too impressive anymore because most of it has washed away. Here it is with Marian:



Also, Marian found this shell she was impressed with and wanted to share with everyone.



Next on the list is the southernmost point in New Zealand, Slope Point. It was as expected, a long drive down a dirt road, a short walk out to take a picture so we can say we’ve been there and than leave. Here we are at Slope Point:



Finally, we headed out to our last destination Curio Point. Here we will see a petrified forest from the Jurassic Age.



It was interesting but we found the real main attraction to be the yellow eyed penguins. There is a small colony of yellow eyed penguins that inhabit the slope just above the Petrified Forest. The DOC actually has volunteers stationed by the colony to assure that people don’t get to close. Kathy was on duty when we arrived. She was nice and even let us use her binoculars to get a better view.





We then went in set up the campsite for the evening. Here is a view from the campsite onto Porpoise Bay, which was beautiful.

At night John took a couple of pictures of the full moon and he found his first living possum.