4/18/26: Onto Southland's Invercargill & Henry the Tuatara!

 

After several days in and around the South Island's adventure capital of Queenstown, Steven and I headed on the Southern Scenic Route toward Invercargill in the Southland area of the island. 

Devil's Staircase Lookout Point, located on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, offered a stunning view of the lake and the surrounding mountains, with rugged cliffs and lush greenery stretching as far as the eye could see. The lookout was named after the very windy road that led down to the lake from the hills above. 

The lake, the third largest in New Zealand, was described as looking like a thunderbolt!

We had yet to encounter any part of the country that wasn't beautiful, and much of it was absolutely spectacular.

These images from the small farming town of Lumsden caught my eye. I just discovered that the 1950s-style Americana diner had an authentic vintage car, a 1955 Dodge Kingsway, parked inside!

Of all the places we've been to in the world, we've never seen an outdoor laundromat before!

We've also seen hundreds of markets around the world, but Lumsden was the first to have an exclusively plant market. People gather on the first Saturday of the month to sell their plants.

Winton was the biggest town we had driven through since leaving Queenstown two hours earlier. For some reason, gas in Winton was only 0.60 NZD per liter, the cheapest we'd found anywhere in the country. The Railway Hotel on its main street was constructed in 1912.

As we drove into Invercargill, I thought about having to take back my words about how stunning we'd found the South Island, as the city was quite run-down.

 The All Saints' Anglican Church:

The Invercargill Cenotaph served as an "empty tomb" for those who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War I.

Downtown, there were several buildings of architectural interest. One was the historic former Bank of New Zealand building, built in the 19th century.

The imposing Civic Theatre was a historic Edwardian Neo-Baroque building completed in 1906. The major landmark and theatrical venue has a capacity of 1,015! I wonder if that was where Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones performed in 1965, and prompted him to use famously unflattering words to describe Invercargill as "the arsehole of the world." I read that a local responded, " He'd certainly know!"

It was good to park the car and stretch our legs before exploring the city's historic area.

I hadn't realized until we saw the local 'Y' that there were branches overseas as well as in Canada and the US. There was also a huge one in Taipei, Taiwan, that we saw much later in our trip.

Around the corner stood the historic Masonic Hall, renowned for its impressive Greek Revival architecture, which was completed in 1926.

Close by was St. Mary's Basilica, another landmark building known for its Italian Renaissance design and large copper dome. It opened in 1905.

The ornate Alexandra building, with its Queen Anne style architecture and Elizabethan and Arts and Crafts elements, was constructed in 1901.

The city had a vibrant arts scene, judging by its wide array of impressive street art.

We were surprised to see the many Art Deco-style commercial and residential buildings in Invercargill.

When the historic Invercargill Water Tower was completed in 1889, it was designed to pressurize the city's water supply. The most ornate water tower we'd seen now serves as a backup system.

Next door was the much plainer Water Works Control Building, constructed in 1888.

Though we hadn't been terribly impressed by our initial views of Invercargill, the more we saw of the city's heritage buildings and vibrant murals, the more we liked it. Away from the downtown core was Queens Park, a magnificent public park.

You may recall that I recently wrote about the tuataras we saw in Queenstown's Kiwi Birdlife Park. They are an ancient species of reptile native to the islands of New Zealand that were around during the time of the dinosaurs. Invercargill's most famous "Henry" is Henry the Tuatara, a rare, 135+-year-old reptile believed to be the world's oldest living tuatara, which was the only reason we visited Te Moutere, aka Tuatara Island, in the park.

Tuataras are named for their appearance: tua means back, and tara means spiny. The "living dinosaurs" once lived throughout mainland New Zealand, but only a few wild populations survive after invasive Polynesian rats drove the reptiles to extinction on New Zealand's two main islands centuries ago. When the park's purpose-built tuatara habitat opened in 2024, it was shaped like the tuataras' spiny crest and designed to replicate a natural habitat.

Henry, believed to have been born in the late 1800s, was moved to the park in 1970 and had a cancerous tumor removed in 2000. We were excited to see him awake and easily visible when we visited, as we'd never thought we'd see an animal whose relatives had lived with dinosaurs!

The animals are nocturnal, so they like to bask in the sun outside their burrows during the day and hunt for insects at night. 

As the tuataras are territorial, they prefer to have their own space. Each, therefore, had its own underground burrow with tunnels for moving inside and out. 

Invercargill is a major motorsport destination, largely thanks to speed-bike racer Burt Munro, who set motorcycle land-speed records in the US in the 1960s. He inspired the 2005 movie The World’s Fastest Indian, starring Anthony Hopkins. For petrolheads, Invercargill's top highlight is the hardware store, E. Hayes & Sons, a classic Art Deco building where, among the aisles of bolts and screws, there were over 100 items of motoring memorabilia.

We're not motorcycle enthusiasts, but I love discovering new and unusual things when we travel, and this place certainly fit that to a T. This was a 1956 Morris J Commercial Van that the store purchased new and used as its delivery vehicle. It has been lovingly restored over the years and cared for as an extended member of the store's family.

The 2005 Mk II Mini Race Car was custom-built by two store directors. The Mini marque was originally produced by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The Mini was voted the second-most influential car after the Ford Model T, and ahead of the Volkswagen Beetle. The performance versions of the race and rally cars won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964, 1965, and 1967. 

The 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air Sedan was the actual car featured in the film The World's Fastest Indian, depicting Munro's journey to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. 

I loved reading the story behind the 2004 BMW GS 1150cc Adventure that its owner, Bob Dolven, called Andiamo, which is Italian and generally means "hurry up." Dolven, a commercial airline pilot, left his home in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2009 astride his Andiamo to begin an epic adventure that took him and his Andiamo more than 130,000 km around the world. 

Bob and his two-wheeled friend visited such far-flung sites as Dracula's Castle in Romania and the ruins of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, as they traveled through blistering deserts, struggled through howling winds, and ankle-deep snow in North, Central, and South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. In January 2023, Bob and Andiamo took their final ride together from Christchurch to Invercargill, where the motorcycle was generously donated to the E Hayes Motorcycle Collection. 

The 1918 Indian Power Plus 1000cc had a 3-speed gearbox with early rear swing-arm suspension. 

This was a replica of Munro's famous Streamliner made for the 2005 film.

I just realized that while I knew the hardware store's most famous motorcycle was the 1920 Indian Scout bike Munro rode when he broke the world speed record in 1967, I stupidly didn't take a picture of it. All I can say is that, while we'd come to see it, I was too taken with all the other vehicles in the independently owned shop!

Photo of Munro's motorcycle, which he donated to the store, courtesy of 10 of the Best Things to Do in Invercargill:

Before leaving the hub of Southland, we admired two hotels, one another heritage property, and the second, a new property with a distinctive patterned exterior.

We saw a lot more later that day, as we traveled through the enchanting Caitlins to look for trees that were millions of years old, yellow-eyed penguins, and whales. I'll leave that drive to the next post, though.

Next post: See above!

Posted on June 25th, 2026, from a surprisingly soggy Littleton, as most of the state has been under stringent water restrictions due to the dire lack of snow this past winter. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.