This three-day trip started with two straightforward goals: eat a Bluff oyster, and stand at Stirling Point. Since that alone didn’t quite fill the itinerary, I added a couple of extras:
- Visit the world’s southernmost Starbucks
- See a tuatara (New Zealand’s rare, ancient reptile) in Invercargill
Small ambitions, big trip. And as it turned out, the journey had plenty in store — including the kind of low-key, very New Zealand mishaps that are genuinely funny in hindsight.なっては笑える思い出になっています。限りません。
今回も“ニュージーランドらしいゆるいハプニング”が連続し、今となれば笑える思い出になっています。
Day 1: Midnight Departure from Dunedin — Starting with a Suffer-fest
Fresh off a solo trip around the North Island, I decided to push my luck and head to Invercargill — the southernmost city on the South Island. When I told friends, every single one of them said don’t do it. Even locals told me it wasn’t worth the trip. Why? That’s a story for the next article.
I went anyway. And booked a midnight bus from Dunedin, because apparently I had fully lost the plot. The roads through the South Island at night are genuinely, completely dark — no streetlights, almost no other cars, just endless highway. Right on schedule, I arrived in Invercargill at 3 in the morning.
And that’s when the real problem started. Nothing was open. The accommodation wouldn’t take me until check-in time. The city was completely, utterly asleep — no cafés, no warmth, nowhere to go.
So I walked. For three hours, I just walked around a dark, empty city.
Around 5am, a McDonald’s showed signs of life. I walked toward it and was almost immediately hassled by a group of sketchy guys hanging around outside. I turned around and kept walking. Looking back, the whole night was objectively reckless — but I made it through without anything serious happening, and that counts for something.
Then at lunch, walking into a pizza place to finally eat something, I had what I can only describe as the worst experience of discrimination I have ever personally faced. Travel can surprise you in ways you don’t expect and don’t want. But it’s part of the story now, and I can talk about it without flinching.
Day 2: Invercargill → Bluff
Goal #1: The Bluff Oyster — Was It Worth It?
The next day, I made my way to Bluff — the whole reason I was here. The Bluff oyster is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated seasonal delicacies, harvested from the cold southern waters nearby. I had been looking forward to this for the entire trip. How did it taste? Full details in the Bluff article.
Goal #2: The Stirling Point Signpost
Just outside Bluff sits Stirling Point, marked by the iconic yellow signpost pointing toward cities around the world with their distances. London: 18,958 km. New York: 15,008 km. Standing there, at the end of a road that truly goes no further, you feel the weight of how far you’ve come — and how far away everything else is. More on this in the Bluff piece.
Next up: a deeper dive into Invercargill itself. Stay tuned.
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