After leaving Dunedin, we drove along the Southern Scenic road to Invercargill. The road is well named, and we stopped several times to take a closer look at the stunning coastal scenery, including Kaka Point (S Africans reading this will be amused...), Nugget Point with a dramatic lighthouse and hundreds of seals, and the 65m high Purakaunnui Falls. The latter involved a walk through the temperate rainforest, with bird song in the unusual podocarp trees and tree ferns. Beautiful. Part of the road was unmetalled and Bruce did not enjoy the experience of driving whilst slipping and sliding through the mud and sand.

All over New Zealand we saw wild Kniphofias ("Red Hot Pokers"). There were some spectacular ones on this stretch of the road.

My collegue Phil said we should speak to people in this area, as they were very interesting. We stopped at Waikawa for lunch in a cafe that had been a church. The lady there was indeed fascinating...The day had obviously been a little slow and she had pies that she was trying to shift. It proved very difficult but we weren't having any! The Germans who followed us ten minutes later got the pies even though they protested that all they wanted was soup!