Good bye Stewart Island

So we got up early this morning, had our coffee, and trundled over to wait to be driven to our airplane. They actually wait till the airplane has taken off from Invercargill before driving us up to the airstrip. So we go up there, watched the plane fly in over us, and then we all boarded. We didn’t really think we were going to get a student pilot again, but we were somewhat shocked to see an elderly woman with white hair in the co-pilot’s seat.
We finally figured out that she was just a lucky passenger who got to sit up there and have a good view. We landed back in Invercargill, got a short term rental car, and proceeded to drive down to Bluff on the tip of the South Island. We were in search of the highly regarded Bluff Oysters. Along the way we saw the other end of the anchor "holding" Stewart Island to the South Island, we went up some hill and looked out over some of the worst weather we had encountered, we walked out to a lighthouse with the Southern Ocean in all its fury, and then finally found a landmark - the mileage to everywhere sign.

If it looks like we are dressed for one of our mountain tramping expeditions, it is because this weather was worse. Fortunately, just up the hill from the sign there was a little restaurant. So we ducked in there and had our oysters while looking out at a beautiful, but very stormy, view. The oysters were good, but different from ours. We couldn't say better or worse (well, yeah, we can. Ours are better of course). But they were really good. At the end Mom, a la (insert any one of the grandmothers names here, or even the name of someone else's grandmother), edged a couple of oyster shells to the edge of the table and then dropped them in her paper napkin to quickly go into her purse.

Then it was back to Invercargill to see the oldest Tuatara lizard (he wouldn't come out of his hole) and the fastest Indian motorcycle (much easier to see). The motorcycle was in a hardware store that looked like something we would have gone into in the 60's maybe. They had an amazing collection!!

Not only the real fastest Indian motorcycle that set the record at Bonneville Salt Flats (read earlier posts about the movie - or see the movie) you see above, but a bunch of other really cool old motorcycles from all over the world. They even had some German ones from World War II. We even found the one we think Grandfather Williamson had when he was younger and Mom had her picture taken by it.

And with that, it was time to get on our plane home. The flight was somewhat eventful. Our plane was grounded, but another plane was diverted to Invercargill so we "borrowed" it to fly to ChristChurch where they have their only in-country security checkpoint. We just made our flight from there back to Wellington and then we drove home. Time for a rest now and of course, work tomorrow.