More motorcycle and other topics

That's me, from the waste down....


Munro lived near here, about 15 minutes away. Invercargill is about as far south as you can get, except for a few islands and Antarctica.

When you drive to the coast, not far, you can see the long stretches of beach where Munro did his testing. Why are the cycles here in a hardware store? The guy (Hayes) who owns the store is a motorcycle buff, and when Munro had a stroke in the mid 70's, Hayes bought the cycles from Munro who wanted them to stay in town. If Hayes hadn't bought them, they would probably be in Las Vegas.


We also saw a lot of sea lions which just hauled themselves up to the beach and plopped down within a few feet of us. Amazing.

A few days ago we were at Milford Sound fjords. We took the boat trip up the fjord, which was just stunning..we may publish pictures, but if you do a web search, you will find some very good views of Milford sound. We've seen a fair amount of wildlife... we saw 2 Kea birds.... large parrots... at a rest stop. They are not afraid of people, and just hop up to you, and walk around on top of your car. Lots of seals and sea lions, and Hector's dolphins, tiny dolphins about 3 feet long, which are nearly extinct. Only 20 left, and they all live in a little bay east of Invercargill. If you swim to them they will come near. But it was too cool for me to go swimming.

There are a fair number of birds which either live on the ground, can't fly, or nest on the ground. Originally, there were no preditors here. People brought rats, dogs, stoats and then finally possums (not what we think of as 'possums). The possums have very nice fur and were introduced to start up a fur industry. I think we call them wombats, not possums. They are very cute, but they are all over the place, and certainly, like their American near-namesake, all over the highways in two dimensions. At any rate, they have wreaked havoc on the Kiwis, and other ground birds, which are being actively relocated to remote islands, where they are doing better.

All for now...