Monkey

Our last morning in Te Anau was somewhat sullied by the local youth celebrating something of great importance. To be fair, they may not have been the local youth - in fact at first I took them for English tourists, but their accents were distinctly antipodean. They arrived in the Cafe Barbara had selected for breakfast just as we were sitting down having ordered. Eight in number, they were all male and all in their early twenties. Whilst two of them went up to the canteen in search of beer, one of the others proceeded to strip down to his underpants - not a nice awakening. They continued to shout at each other, despite (or probably because of) the disapproving glances of all the other Sunday morning breakfasters. The waiting staff ignored them completely, apart from providing them with food and beer.

To be fair, these louts were no trouble other than their noise. They didn't try to pick fights with each other, or anyone else; they didn't try to steal food; they didn't even light up cigarettes inside, instead going out into the cold for that particular vice. But they managed to spoil the ambience enough that we hurried our breakfast and paid for it with dyspepsia later.

Later was somewhere near Clifden on the Southern Scenic Route. We stopped to look at Clifden Suspension Bridge, then hurried for the South Coast. Our route took us through Tuatapere, apparently the 'Sausage Capital of New Zealand', although we didn't see a single weiner, no savaloy, salami, wurst or snag. There weren't even any bangers, or those horrible shiny things that Walls used to make, which my brother Peter once described as 'pink with preservatives'. In short, not a sausage. So we passed on through, lunchless, to Bluecliffs beach for a stroll. I couldn't find anyone to explain why the beach was called this, since the cliffs above it were a sandy brown colour, so to this day I'm none the wiser.

The route from Te Waewae bay to Invercargill is crisscrossed with confusing signs advertising the Riverton heritage trail. Following one of these took us down miles of gravel track, eventually to the sea and Monkey Island. Opinion is divided as to whether there were ever monkeys on Monkey Island. Certainly not enough to produce any decent prose, though they might have managed to whip up something more interesting than this travelogue. The island can be reached at low tide along a short causeway, but since it wasn't low tide when we got there we could only stand at the water's edge and imagine what it would be like to cross.

Next: Sleepytown and Oysters

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