No Fixed Abode: Fiords or Fjords

Thu 7th January 2016 - Around the southern tip.

Another beautiful morning with breakfast taken watching a spoonbill sweeping his head from side to side in the rising waters of the estuary. Today is a day of travel from Catlins, round the southern tip of South Island and the beginning of our journey up the west coast.

After a short stop in the tiny settlement of Tokanui to service the van, buy milk, post a letter and for Yvonne to shower - we've now figured out it’s best to drive a short way to heat the water fully before showering in the morning - we set of for Invercargill, NZ’s most southern city.

At Invercargill we resupplied with food and found a McDonalds with internet access where we spent a couple of hours drinking tea, eating cakes, catching up with email and posting the last four days of the blog - the things we endure for our readers.

The terrain around Invercargill is flat and featureless so we motored through without stopping. Lunch was taken at monkey island, an island about 10m diameter, where we had considered spending the night. The camping area was very busy with all sorts including a campervan done out like a pirate ship complete with poop deck and some young guys in a tent who’d even brought a chainsaw with them to ensure the efficacy of their campfire. After about 30 secs of deliberation we decided to push on for Fiordland.

We completed our journey to Manapouri, the southern most town in Fiordland and the start of our kayak trekking adventure in a view days. Having checked the place out we returned to open country to find the freedom camping spot indicated by our atlas/travelguide and settled in for the night.

Around 23.30 we were awoken by banging on the side of the van and Glenn wearily pulled himself from bed to investigate. A conversation ensued through a partly opened window with a guy from the local anti freedom camping stazi during which it transpired that our location was not in fact an approved spot and we were directed to another location a few miles away. The guy was nice enough and didn't give us a fine but we were in the middle of nowhere, off the road and inconveniencing no one so were not sure what the fuss was about. Anyway, Glenn drove to the the new site, which was in a strikingly similar location to where we left, with Yvonne still in bed and settled down for an unsettled night.