Nev & Jo NZ2018 South Island

nev

Super Térrarist
Day 4 Dunedin

The weather forecast for this day was going to be nasty everywhere in NZ, so alternatives to riding needed to be sought. I booked us on the historic railway up the Taieri Gorge, a 4 hour train ride. A good way to spend a miserable day.

Dunedin Station

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One of the many viaducts along the gorge

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And a few tunnels. Most were only built a few cm larger than the tran carriages so the train must almost slow to walking pace to proceed. The longest was about a mile long.

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The following images are taken on the last shared rail/road bridge in NZ.
Just prior to the bridge, the road intersects with the rail line.

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It is a single lane bridge, trains have priority. On the other side of the bridge the road branches off to the left.

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A former home of a railway worker. This house is owned as a holiday house by a family who purchased it from the railways company in the 1930s. It is only accessible by rail, or by a dirty railway road which stops 500 metres prior to the house, and then walking the final ½ km, which includes through one of the railway tunnels.

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Williamson

Part of the furniture
Some very nice pics there Nev. I especially liked the old Scottish (?) style architecture in Dunedin when we visited there back in 2014.
 

nev

Super Térrarist
Day 5 Dunedin to Invercargill.

The weather forecast was for the rain to stop during the morning in Dunedin and then for the day to be lovely by the time we arrived in Invercargill. It was still coming down when we woke up, but right on cue, as we carried our luggage out to the bikes the rain stopped. The first couple of km out of Dunedin was on wet roads, but they dried progressively. Almost immediately out of town we turned off the main Hwy and followed some backroads along the coast, which progressively turned to gravel, but which wasn’t too water affected, and thanks to the rain, no dust.

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After Lunch in a cafe in Balclutha we headed off the hwy again. This time we struck a passing shower, but I decided against the detour down to the Nugget Point Lighthouse as the rain seemed quite intense in that direction.

Next stop was near Fortrose. Along the banks of the rivers in this part of the Island were little huts every 25 metres or so. A bit of a google search identified them as whitebait fishing huts. Whitebait patties and whitebait sandwiches were on the menu in many pubs and cafes in NZ, and as we discovered, they were delicious.

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After checking into our motel, we wandered around the corner to the Hayes Hardware store to check out their collection of cars and motorcycles on display among the other shop items.

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Invercargill had a very impressive memorial to the Boer War casualties, something you don’t see in many places.

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After dinner that night we went for a walk through Queens Park which was also right near our motel

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nev

Super Térrarist
Day 6 Invercargill

We took another non-riding day in Invercargill to spend some more time in the town. The town is setting itself up as the transport capital of NZ, being home to several museums. The most recent is the Motorcycle Mecca which is a two level museum in the main shopping strip in town.

The collection was assembled by an American millionaire living at the other end of the island in Nelson. He started the collection in 2008 and by 2016 when he sold it the collection contained around 300 motorcycles mainly from the first half of the 20th century. The collection was whittled down to around 200 bikes. All are immaculately presented. Many are restored to almost showroom condition.

We spent a couple of hours in here gawking.

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nev

Super Térrarist
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Some highlights included a Britten V1000, 1 of only 10 ever built. If you wanted one, you’d probably need at least a million dollars, and then you’d need to wait about a million years until one of the current owners finally decided to sell.

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If you’ve never heard of John Britten then read his wikipedia page. He’s probably comparable to Erik Buell in terms of his nouse for design and looking at completely different ways to achieve outcomes in motorcycle engineering, but then exceeds him in every possible direction by doing it all in his garage at home, rather than with factory backing.

Some of John Brittens other race bikes on display

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Here’s a link to a short TV documentary video on John Britten designing and building the V1000.. well worth a watch.

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/britten-backyard-visionary-1993

A lovely mockup combi rolling down the main street

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nev

Super Térrarist
Day 7 Invercargill to Queenstown

Today is just a quick hop, a straight rup up the hwy from Invercargill to Queenstown, only about 200km.

Somewhere north of Invercargill

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We stopped for morning tea in Winton. Next stop is just before 11am in Lumsden. Today is 11 Nov, the 100th anniversary of the WW1 Armistice and the local Returned Services club is having a ceremony at the war memorial in town. We stop to pay our respects. The army has even supplied a small gun (the type which is towed behind a vehicle) to fire off some shots as part of the ceremony.

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The southern arm of Lake Wakatipu

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Devils Staircase lookout.

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We head through Queenstown on the Glenorchy road to the lookout to get some more photos of the northern arm of the lake.

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A busker on the queenstown waterfront,

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Looking across the lake from the wharf to the Queenstown Gardens.

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