Invercargill, New Zealand - Step back in time and add dinosaurs

“One of Henry’s ladies is out!” an elderly man standing behind me excitedly shouts aloud. We are both looking at the shy Tuatara reptiles through the glass window of the Tuatarium located behind the Southland Museum and Art Gallery.

I can see Henry motionlessly staring off into space, outside his hole in the dirt. Easily mistaken for a toy figurine but he blinks his eyes occasionally. Two baby Tuataras ran around the display but I can't see any other fully grown creatures to be considered an adult. For a dinosaur 110 years of age, Henry is small. He has some mean looking bony spikes from head to tale. Tuatura survive only on a few tiny New Zealand islands after dying out over the rest of the world 60 million years ago. So Henry and his harem of “ladies” are survivors on public display.

Henry

Behind the Tuatarium is the 160 year old Queens Park. I walk away from Henry into the greenery of the surrounding gardens. On alert for stray golf balls hitting me on the head as a golf-green nearby reminds me the park includes an 18-hole golf course.

I smell Spring-time as the roses, rhododendron’s and Azalea's perfume the overcast morning air. Two friendly senior citizens nod “good morning” to me as I stroll by. They are discussing how abundant the pink Azelea flower on a bush.

Joggers puff as they run by on the path as I look up to see an Air New Zealand Bombardier coming in low to land at the nearby airport.

Pre-school age children are running, climbing and screeching around Wonderland Castle hidden in a park corner. The park has plentiful playground equipment and a group of mothers sit nattering as they sip hot drinks from the nearby park cafe.

A lady in black walks her white Maltese terrier around the bird cages at the aviary and stops in front of a 'Campbell Island Teal', which I was admiring. I am relieved that the dog doesn’t bark at the ground-based waterfowl, although its head popping above a low wall startles the bird.

I continue around a section of the 200 acres (80 hectares), and find another free atraction - the animal reserve. A farmyard with various domesticated animals including “Toot” the feral goat and an impressively large, hairy pig lolling in the knee-deep mud.

I rest on the rail of a wooden platform to admre the white stones groomed in a circular pattern in the Japanese Garden. Opened in 1997 the gardens are a token nod towards Invercargill’s Japanese sister city Kumagaya.

Besides the golf course, Queens Park also caters for tennis, cricket, lawn bowls, hockey and even the lost posh game of croquet. Planned and landscaped by Scottish settlers in 1856, it is my favourite attraction in Invercargill.

Southland Museum and Art Gallery

I head back to the white pyramid which houses the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, and Harry with his family. Inside I start at the Nature gallery where this is a well-preserved fossil of the extinct flightless Moa bird with clumps of hair still on it.

The Roaring 40°s gallery is a highlight, refering to the windy latitude of sub-Antarctic Islands. Here you can stand on a moving deck of the wooden ship General Grant with an audible voice over simulating the wreck smashing on rocks in 1866 off Auckland Islands, on route from Melbourne to London and loaded with gold prospectors and their loot.

A seal pops up under a light in a forest themed hallway, tosses head growling. I admire the Albatross taxidermy.

Immortalized by Sir Anthony Hopkins in the movie “The World's Fastest Indian” (2005), local motorcycle fanatic Burt Munro broke the land speed record at age 68 on the sandflats south of Invercargill. On display in the museum is an Indian South bike, although the local E.Hayes & Sons tool shop claims to display the original world record breaking bike.

I go into the museum café for a bite to eat and drink and sit with old people sitting having a cuppa. The same man, who was earlier excited about Henry's ladies, smiles at me and says “Hello” as he passes me with a friend progressing slowing with a walking frame.

Southland Museum and Art Gallery

All photos by myself.