Bluff

View point along the Southern Tourist Route

After leaving Dunedin, we followed the Southern Tourist Route to Bluff where we spent the night and caught the ferry to Stewart Island for the next two days. It was a long drive so we just stopped for lunch in Balclutha and at a couple of pullouts along the road. New Zealand has done a great job of identifying several scenic routes for tourists with special maps, signage, and tour guides pointing out special places to stop and take in the sights. Unfortunately, Google and Apple mapmakers haven’t figured this out yet and we were again forced to fool Google by breaking the trip up into smaller segments. In fact, we really just followed the paper map and the signs along the way.

Southern Tourist Route Landscape

We had hoped to stop in Invercargill at the tourist information building, but arrived too late. As it turned out, this was a good thing as we really did not need the tours we would have paid for. Thanks to our hosts at the Bay Hotel on Stewart Island, who gave us better advice. We’d been concerned that tours might sell out, but we are still early enough in the season that there would have been room on any tour we might have chosen.

Views from the hilltop

Aluminum plant in the background

Bluff is a small town of about 1000 population at the southern tip of the South Island about 15 miles from Invercargill, a much larger city of 50,000. It seems that most people stay in Invercargill rather than Bluff on their way to Stewart Island. We stayed at the Foveaux Hotel, the best in town, and were joined by only one other guest. He stayed one more night and then the proprietor closed for two days for some R&R of her own. We were glad to stay in Bluff since the ferry leaves from here. We were able to leave our car in the hotel parking lot and walk just one block to the ferry landing. It really doesn’t seem to make sense to spend the night in Invercargill when this option is available. Our guess is that travel agents prefer Invercargill, but since we made our own plans we missed out on that advice.

Heading anywhere?

Lighthouse

Shelley Shelton, our host, is a retired organist who spent 15 years playing and leading the music program at the Auckland Cathedral. She told us she has been here four years and plans to stay one more before selling the hotel and spending more time traveling. We spent about half an hour talking to her about our lives and the town. Even though an aluminum plant dominates the skyline, the town has not recovered from losing a fish processing plant. It is working to build up tourism, but that is a slow process so as we drove around town we saw both very nice houses and some derelicts. For sightseeing, we drove up the hill to a 360 degree viewpoint. As we drove up, we saw what looked like a water tower dominating the hilltop, but it turned out to be a spiral walk up to an even better view. Several signs along the way highlighted some history of the area and its flora and fauna.

The Chain

From there we drove to the south end of town for a good look at Foveaux Strait. Another small B&B and restaurant appeared to be closed, but the view was spectacular. We were intrigued by an aluminum chain leading out into the strait. We would learn on our Stewart Island tour that this piece and its counterpart there were designed using local aluminum to show the connection between Stewart Island and the mainland.

An Art Deco House

One of the several Art Deco buildings along the main street

The best food in town seemed to be the fish and chips place next to the hotel given the number or people we saw getting their take-away dinners. We had some cheese and crackers left from Oamaru, so we walked two doors down to the store for a bottle of wine and had that for dinner while watching TV.

Our hotel

After brekkie at the hotel, we gathered our bags and walked over to the ferry landing for our windy and bumpy ride to Stewart Island. 

St. Mary's Basilica in Invercargill