Road Trip: The Southern Scenic Route

A beat along from Queenstown’s Remarkables ski fields stands a smudgy brown road sign. Like much of the South it’s no nonsense and to the point: ‘Southern Scenic Route starts here. Follow symbol’.

With no itinerary and no reservations, this doubles as a wonderfully concise summation of what could loosely be dubbed my plan – over three days I will simply follow the symbols and see what happens.

The deep blue of Lake Wakatipu which accompanies you out of Queenstown soon vanishes, leaving only the grey road to divide the ginger-stained grassland. The surrounding fields casually lull into pudgy squat mounds, all covered in haphazard and irregular indentations, like some clumsy potter has left his oafish paw prints all over them. Further back, the snow-capped ranges resemble a bowl of vanilla ice cream slowly melting over a big ol’ scoop of chocolate. With this thought in mind, I pull over at a cafe in Garston and head straight for the freezer.

The clashing mix of procedure and chaos suggested by the Wilderness Scientific Reserve appeals. There’s no one around – scientific or otherwise – and the place screams in solitary silence. According to a sign in the observational tower the view hasn’t changed since the Ice Age, 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. The place feels old and exotic and strange, and not at all how New Zealand usually feels. It is unusually disconcerting, so I leave.

In an immaculately quaint cemetery, just shy of the Tuatapere Scenic Reserve, I discover the answer to one of the most head scratching questions of the modern age. I’ve stopped for a bit of a snoop when, suddenly, a cocky chook darts out from behind a tombstone, giving me one heck of a fright. It zips across the grass, glances back at me, then struts coolly across the tarmac. What happens next is astounding, but what that chicken does when it crosses the road is a secret that shall remain with Tuatapere’s graves.

The place feels old, exotic, strange. And not at all how New Zealand usually feels. It is unusually disconcerting.

There’s something about the stretch of road where Fiordland’s farmlands dissolve into the rough and tumble of the Southern Ocean that compels you to take a break. The exact spot is on the right, halfway up a languorous incline that follows the coast just outside Orepuki. It’s called McCracken’s Rest and it marks the extreme south-western point of New Zealand’s highway system. This is neat, but the real attraction is the view it affords over the wild ocean waters of Te Waewae Bay. I hang around a while. The lone traveller on the lone road, sombrely reflecting in dusk’s hazy glow, looking for answers in the ocean’s endless horizon. But then a truck roars past obnoxiously, breaking my reverie and signalling it is time to crack on to Invercargill before the south drowns in deep stouty darkness.

Leaving Invercargill is glorious. This is no slight, but rather comment that day two of my journey is an absolute beaut. The beaming white sun illuminates the landscape brilliantly and I wonder if the bitingly brisk air is somehow accentuating the light. The farmlands zipping past the window are a lush, vibrant green, and are filled with white marshmallow sheep that look like they’ve just been dropped into a bowl of lime jelly. It’s an incredibly pleasant segue into the windy mountains of the South’s famed Catlins.

After falling victim to some typically dry Southern humour at New Zealand’s very own Niagara Falls, I drive over to the neighbouring Curio Bay. From a hilltop vantage point, I watch frothy white breakers lash violently at the rocks, flip-flopping bunches of thick murky seaweed around with each pounding. Up here the heavy air is thick with salt and wind and, although I know it will be much worse at the bottom, I decide to venture down to the shore to see some of the Bay’s attractions.

Having no idea what a petrified forest looks like, it comes as a surprise to realize I’m standing in one and not just on loggy looking rocks. The forest piques my interest but I'd clambered down to the shore to try and spot the yellow-eyed penguin colony that makes its home in this part of the bay. During my descent there are plenty of instructional, bossy signposts (‘Do not approach’, ‘Keep distance’), so my hopes of seeing this rarest of species are high. And sadly misguided. After scaling and slipping over slimy rocks for a spell, then sitting quietly for a bit, my disappointment slowly grows as it dawns on me that I won’t be seeing dickybird. I get up, slip again, and leave.

There’s no more dismal a sight than when you’re sat in the driver’s seat of a brand new Motorsport BMW X3, cruising happily along the open road, and you see a sluggish logging truck up ahead, wheezing its way up a steep, windy hill. Rather than torture myself by trailing slowly behind the brute, I opt to leave the Southern Scenic Route to its mundane business and go for a walk.

At first you don’t notice the silence. Then all you hear is the ruckus. Birds chirping above, weird scurrying noises deep in the thicket, the gentle crunch of your ridiculously inappropriate footwear on the loose gravel path, and an ominous thunder growing fearsomely in volume with each step. It’s easy to let your imagination run wild on the path to Matai Falls. Aside from the obviousness of the walkway, the rest of the surroundings look positively prehistoric or tribal. A charging dinosaur or chucked spear both seem entirely plausible. The damp hangs heavy, only the most determined of sunbeams able to force their way through the towering canopy of this regenerating podocarp/broadleaf forest. There are two waterfalls to see along this one path. Both are spectacular, both are thunderously loud. I watch the water tumbling down, incessant and reckless, and wonder if, like a human doing a bungie, the lunging water is white due to its fear.

After 10 minutes walking along a narrow trail through shoulder-high grass and hurtling winds, you’re dumped unceremoniously onto the golden sands of Surat Bay. I should be more impressed, but my attention is on the many wind-bent trees growing awkwardly sideways, like a grotesque Dr Seuss caricature of how a tree should look. When wind conquers wood, you begin to suspect you may be in for some trouble...

The sand is soft and clumpy. In the distance is the peculiar groaning of a sea lion colony. After being gypped by the penguins earlier in the day, I’m determined to see one of these beasts in the wild. The wind howls in protest – or, perhaps, warning – and continually whips sand up from the ground where it should be and into my face where it shouldn’t. It stings. But I am determined. Through squinting eyes, I spot a noir blob lazing by the water far, far ahead. It fills me with purpose and I press on. After a slow-going eternity I reach what I judge to be the halfway point, a wooden sign pointing out to sea. I wonder if it’s by accident or design that the signpost resembles gallows, its hangman’s beam perpetually pointing to the spot where the sailing ship Surat was shipwrecked in 1874, giving the bay its name. The place suddenly feels very macabre.

I tramp on, leaning heavily forward to combat the strength of the unrelenting wind that is now positively shrieking and throwing everything it has at me. I can see the sand slithering through the air towards me like some unholy apparition. And every now and then a strained wail rings out. The sound of a sea lion no longer fills me with hope.

The sand slithers through the air like an unholy apparition. Every now and then a strained wail rings out.

I stand and watch the ocean wrap and unwrap itself around a large rotund log that’s glistening black in the wet of the incoming tide. From this distance I can barely make out the Surat’s ghoulish memorial. From deep in the thick of the impenetrably grassy dunes that enclose the bay I hear the mocking cough of a sea lion. I begin the slow dredge back to the car.

Balclutha is dark and cold and mostly closed by the time I drive into town. I dismiss the notion of popping into the main street’s domineering Hotel South for a pint in favour of bunkering down in my hotel with some greasy fish’n’chips, a blazing heater and a reality show about a family of American gun makers. It’s not very adventurous or intrepid of me, but it is frightfully cold outside.

Awaking to a dilemma, I make an entirely unreasonable and irresponsible decision. What I should do is turn around, double back along SH1, hit SH96 through Gore and get the BMW back to the Queenstown dealership on time. But I don’t. With this particular trip the journey is the destination and I am determined to see it through, to reach its official end in Dunedin. I point the car towards Milton and drive out of town.

Everything is grey and wet; the sky, the ocean, the day. The only upside is that the lousy weather actively discourages any stopping, as for the first time on my journey I feel the weight of a ticking clock. The turbulent sea feels much closer than is safe, as it collides up against the roadside’s edge, frothing at the rocks and occasionally spitting at me as I trundle along, winding with the coastline.

There’s no fanfare for completing all 610 of the Southern Scenic Route’s kilometres. I’ve been on the lookout for a bookend, a smudgy brown road sign declaring the end of the road. But there isn’t one. What there is is a set of traffic lights at the bottom of a steep hill on the outskirts of Dunedin. It seems an unfitting end to such an inspiring stretch of New Zealand. The majestic disappearing unsung into the mundane, its wild variation and oscillating landscapes abruptly halted by a bright red spot, a gradual build-up of metal and starkly glistening concrete.

Sitting at the lights I search for a metaphor, something to make sense of or reflect on. But, then the light changes green and I drive on, leaving the route and its wonders behind, as I try to figure out where I should stop for lunch.