The Road to Invercargill

Baby tuatara at the museum in Invercargill.

The trip to Invercargill, the departure point for this trip, mirrors my trip to Ushuaia last year, the departure point for my other Subantarctic/Anatarctic trip (see previous blog entries). As in the previous effort, fairly substantial delays were involved due to my originating plane’s engine troubles. Last time I watched three mechanics crawl into the jet cowling as we sat in the plane at the gate. Yup, missed that connection.

This time, we sat on the tarmac for a bit while the captain repeatedly tried to start the 2^nd engine. Back we go to see if it’s the switch or the engine. I think if she’d said it was the switch and “all aboard, here we go”, I’d be reluctant to re-board so I was relieved when she announced we should get on another flight. Yup, 14 of us missed our connection to Invercargill. As we raced to the service desk in Christchurch hoping we might be able to board a flight soon, I explained to the agent that our engine failed. The look a passenger gave me while checking-in at a nearby kiosk was priceless. I quickly explained it didn’t happen during the flight!

Two options: wait seven hours for the next flight to Invercargill, or leave (right now!) on a flight to Queenstown and take an Air NZ-provided bus to Invercargill, arriving about 5 hours earlier than the all-flight option. Yes please to the bus for several reasons: Queenstown is beautiful, the 2-hour bus ride would be pretty and more comfortable than a plane, I’d arrive in time for the getting-to-know-everyone dinner at the hotel, and the Queenstown airport has a Patagonia Chocolates shop serving the best chocolate gelato I’ve ever had (it played a starring role in my South Island trip with a store in Wanaka and free wifi). 

On our departure day, we had some time to visit the museum, where they breed tuataras (baby tuataras are precious!), and pick up a few items for the trip. I’d already stocked up on Sea Legs / Bonine and Scopolamine patches in Auckland but now I added soda crackers and ginger snaps to the stockpile of items that would hopefully keep me feeling good and looking at birds and scenery vs. ill in my cabin. 

The mandatory lifeboat drill in the lee of Stewart Island. Not seasick yet!

Port side cabin passengers in one of the two lifeboats. The 22 crew and 6 staff were not stuffed in for the drill but you get a sense of how cozy it would be with 14 more people in here.