Invercargill

We arrived in Invercargill on Tuesday evening, with two tasks to perform while we were in town. Firstly, we had tickets to see Rhys Darby (Murray from Flight Of The Conchords) perform stand up on Friday evening. Before that, though, we had an appointment at the Doctor's to get some injections to complete the courses of vaccinations that we'd need in order to be able to visit South East Asia in the new year.

Our accomodation for five nights was to be the Lorneville Holiday Park. When we arrived, we were met by the sound of a few incredibly noisy lambs bleating in the adjoining field. Our host Gary extended a freindly Kiwi welcome to us and asked if we'd like to help feed the lambs. This we did and great fun it was too.



We also fed one of the older sheep, a recently shorn ewe who looked very un-sheep-like what with not having much wool.



The next day, we headed into town for our injections. After a little confusion and after filling in a whole load of forms for about the third time, we were duly injected and vaccinated. As usual, this ended with me lying on the bed with the nurse worried that I was about to pass out. I tried explaining that I was well used to passing out and knew how to deal with it, after a growth spurt in my teenage years which gave me plent of experience of what a low bloody supply to the head feel like but she wasn't convinced. We waited around for twenty minutes, long enough to be sure that we weren't allergic to what we'd been given, before an uncooperative EFTPOS machine necessitated us handing over all (all!) of our New Zealand cash and then went on our way, to sample what Invercargill had to offer.

Invercargill is a strange place. It was founded by Scottish settlers and is awash with Presbyterian churches. It's windswept. There seems to be a shortage of people between the ages of 20 and 40 and the locals will tell you as much. It isn't really on the tourist trail. Still, it's a pleasant enough place with some lovely scenery nearby and friendly locals.

The only reason that we were staying in Invercargill at all was because we had tickets to see Rhys Darby's standup show. He was excellent, by the way. The start of his show consisted of poking fun at the town: "Where have you been, Rhys?" "I've been trying to do everything there is to do in Invercargill... Trying to fit it all in... You'd need a week!"

We weren't allowed to record Rhys's show, as apparently this would have been "copyright infringement" or something like that. Here is a sneaky picture of Rhys's logo (or log-oh, as the Kiwis appear to pronounce it):



Invercargill: it's actually alright.