The World’s Southern-most Venti Mocha Frappuccino

It seems that we tourists are forever preoccupied with the Biggest, Longest, Tallest, Highest and generally Most Extreme that a place has to offer. Well then, welcome to Invercargill (Google Map), a bustling metropolis on the southern end of New Zealand’s South Island that did not disappoint our Guinness-book-of-world-records quest.

It may not be the most difficult-to-pronounce name in all of creation (well almost), and it may not be the city with the most sheep in all of New Zealand. But Invercargill, Ladies & Gentlemen happens to be the proud home to:

The World’s Most Southern Starbucks

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, that’s one more extreme checked off our list, baby!

Rush Hour in the Catlins

I suppose every traveller to New Zealand has some sort of experience like this. Nevertheless, we’ll force you to chew up your bandwidth and download a picture of our version of the story!

Let's just say that we ran into quite a slowdown while driving the side roads in the Catlins (Google Map), way down at the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island.

MooooooOOOOOO!!!!!

Or: mooooove over!, as it were! And by the way, that’s my forehead in the rear-view mirror…

BAAAAAA!

One thing about New Zealand, there sure is a lot of sheep! While we were down in the Catlins, we caught a pretty glimpse of a few of the 40,000,000 furry critters, just as the sun was going down:

Rainbows on Milford Sound

The southwest corner of New Zealand’s south island is Fjord Country. We were up at the crack of dawn for the long drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound (Google Map: Te Anau to Milford Sound)

The weather changes every five seconds in Milford Sound, from overcast, to raining, to sunny, to pouring-down rain, etc. There’s so much water in the air, that you can’t help but see a few rainbows. As we arrived in the parking lot, things were looking good:


Once out on the boat, the captain took us right against the fjord walls to catch some spray right from the waterfalls as they fell hundreds of meters into the sound. According to Mauri legend, if a women bathes her face in the spray of this particular waterfall, she will look years younger. See/judge for yourself!



To see just what our crazy captain was up to, you can see another boat cruising under a waterfall, just as we did.


Our boat was considerably smaller, and we recommend that visitors to Milford Sound book the smaller boat. It’s a cheaper deal, the boat is more maneuverable, and it just feels so much more intimate than the big boat, with its hundreds of tourists.

Kayaking the Abel Tasman

The Abel Tasman National Park (Google map) in New Zealand's South Island is a great place to hike, camp, jet-boat, swim, and kayak.

Yes, we did a bunch of hiking and some swimming in the beautiful, blue ocean.

Guess what else we did?

Google-mapping New Zealand’s Catlins

As we rounded the southern bend of New Zealand’s lower island, we couldn’t help snickering at the road signs to the thriving metropolis of Gore (population = 13,279), and thinking of our beloved Democrat Haters (and Lovers) back home. Big hugs to all, by the way.


As we made jokes ’round the table that night about how the internet must have been invented in NewZealand, a Kiwi chimed in to let us know that the plot was even thicker than we had imagined: check this out!

Yes, the last time we tried this route, George Dubbya and his chads stood in the way, but the inconvenient truth is that road from Clinton to Gore is and was only 41.4 kilometers!

Backpacker Hostels in New Zealand

If you are staying in New Zealand for any appreciable amount of time, you should get to know the friendly blue-green BBH-kiwi logo below, and learn about the Budget Backpacker Hostels New Zealand accomodation network. They offer a huge network of lodgings on both the north and the south island, many of which are of excellent quality.

If you were planning on staying in hotels -- something a lot of older travellers seem to do -- you might want to look at our "advantages" list. If you are already sold on the idea, then have a look at our "tips" list.

BBH Advantages

• It's Cheaper
  We paid around NZ$50 per night for a double room, mostly with shared bathrooms. This turned out to be a non-factor after a few nights. You get used to it fast -- it's just like living at home.
• You Learn More
  When you sit around the dinner table together, or share coffee in the living room on a rainy evening, you get to meet a lot of interesting people, all of whom have travel advice and tips that are hard or impossible to glean from your Lonely Planet guide. Frankly, it's just a lot more fun to get info by talking to folks rather than sticking your nose in a book.
• Home Cookin'
  The BBH hostels in New Zealand all have shared kitchens. That means you don't have to go out to a restaraunt every night. That means you save money, and probably save time and energy. Eating out every night actually seems more tiring to us -- somehow you have to behave for the wait-staff, and wait around a lot. Cooking for yourselves just feels more "like home". It was also nice to be able to haul provisions along in the car to the next place. We could bring our vinegar and oil along in the boot of our car!
  
• Practice Your German
  Neither one of us is german, but we lived in Munich for four years. We were a bit worried about losing our language-skills, but soon found out that the germans are far and away the #1 travellers in New Zealand. We spent many wonderful evenings time talking to great people in our second-favorite-est language : )
  
  

BBH Tips

• Buy the BBH Card
  The BBH system allows you to buy a membership card for NZ$40. With this card, you save NZ$3 per night on your accomodation. So the card pays for itself in just over 13 nights. The card also includes NZ$20 worth of calling-card credit, which can also be figured in to your ROI calculus.
• Telephone Card Gotcha
  20 bucks worth of telephoning sounds nice, but you need to call a local access-number to get the card to work. This is a bit of a problem because:
  
  1) Not every BBH hostel offers a phone where you can make local calls for free, so you have to buy a Telecom card that charges 70 cents for the local access-call, upon which you can use your BBH card to call home.
  
  2) Not every part of New Zealand is within local-calling range, so you may have extra charges to just to get to the card's nearest access-number.
  
  
• Look For No TV
  We found that backpackers with no television, or extremely well-separated television rooms were much more peaceful, better run, and better kept. We also found that people were more likely to socialize without a television.
  
• Look For "No Shoes" Policy
  We also found that our favorite hostels had a "no shoes in house" policy. These places were well cared-for, and the people who stayed in them were conscientious, friendly and cleaned up after themselves.