Rubin Trek: The South Scenic Route

After leaving Te Anau, we spent a wonderful day driving in the Catlins along the South Scenic Route, stopping briefly at various places. Beautiful views, farmland and gigantic mountains behind us.

Here's some of the highlights of what we saw:

A shot of Clifden Suspension Bridge built in 1899:

We then stopped and walked into a forest to see the 1000 year old Totara tree:

The surfing bay was pretty at Colac Bay, but the highlight for us was this cool 3-D surfer-sign:

Interesting coastline at Riverton Rocks:

We had a real thrill once arriving at Invercargill. We read somewhere that this was the hometown of Burt Munro who was a motorcycle fanatic, especially with his 1921 Indian cycle which he modified for speed over the years and broke records at Bonneville Salt Flats in the 60's and 70's. (Anthony Hopkins starred as Burt in the 2005 movie "The World's Fastest Indian"). Not only did we see an exhibit about his life at the Heritage Museum, we went to Hays Hardware Store in town where the owner was a motorcycle collector and bought Burt's beloved Indian in the late 1970's shortly before Burt died of natural causes. So there it was, the original Indian. Wow. Miles was in cycle-heaven.

Burt Munro with his precious Indian