big south trip: day 3

Day 3
Dunedin to Invercargill

Our lovely lunch spot near Nugget Point

Instead of taking our tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory on a Sunday, when the factory would be closed and would offer only an abbreviated version of the tour, we opted to leave Dunedin slightly later than planned and scheduled our visit for 9 am this morning, a Monday. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before, having spent a good portion of the night trying to muffle the monstrous, reverberating snores emanating from the man in the corner bed. He was older than the typical hostel-dweller, perhaps mid-fifties, and had already been much more talkative than we had the energy for in the afternoon and evening. How distressing it was to find that we were allowed no moments of silence even at night! But we did not allow this to distract us from our chocolate mission, and soon perked up as our bags filled with free samples of chocolate fish (chocolate covered marshmallow fish - our British friend Simon assumed these to be actual fish when he first arrived in NZ), jaffas (like orange-flavored M&Ms), Pinkys (marshmallow, caramel, chocolate), and the like. I enjoyed the tour more this time than when I first took it in December with Bryan, when some of the rooms were devoid of all machinery, the company being in the process of a production transition that resulted in some Kiwi favorites now being made in one of the Australian factories, which (as you can imagine) was much lamented by the public.

Ann-Kristin on the short walk to Jack's Blowhole

So we left Dunners (local nickname for Dunedin - not sure if I can get away with saying it that way...) shortly before lunchtime and began following the Southern Scenic Route through the Catlins, a slightly longer but reportedly much more interesting route down to Invers (not sure if I can get away with that either). We stopped at many of the key sights, which meant lots of gravel roads and excruciatingly slow progress, but there were some lovely moments. The drive was nice enough, but I can't really say that I've seen anything in the Catlins that I hadn't already seen up in Northland last winter, and this time I felt a bit guilty because I didn't have to work for any of the pretty shots - I just rolled up in the parking lot and pulled out my camera. It was less satisfying than long days of hiking to reach some isolated, rarely-photographed spot.

Purakanui Falls

Our streak of beautiful, almost spring-like weather ended as we drove into the perpetual cloud of gloom that seems to hover over the southernmost city in NZ, Invercargill, so we drove the final hour on gravel roads in darkness and the rain. Fortunately, we had a cozy home and a hot dinner awaiting us, courtesy of the parents of our friend Dave. Our evening was spent spraying and sniffing dozens of French perfumes, samples from their pharmacy, from which they generously allowed us to select 2 or 3 favorites to bring home. Fell asleep with a hot water bottle at my feet and the rain pounding on the windows. Welcome to Invercargill.

-Rachel