Joel MacManus attempts to travel from the bottom to the top of the country without a car or plane. Today: Invercargill to Dunedin and beyond.
The mission: Get from Stewart Island to Cape Reinga as fast as possible using only public transport. Wherever I can, I’ll travel by train. In areas that are too rural or too watery for trains, I’ll take buses and ferries.
Why? That’s a great question. I’m honestly not sure. I hope to learn something about New Zealand and gain new insight into the country I call home.
When New Zealanders travel around their own country, public transport is usually an afterthought. Decades of underfunding have left our inter-city rail slow, expensive, and infrequent. I want to find out what it is really like.
The itinerary:
- Ferry from Oban to Bluff
- Bus from Bluff to Invercargill
- Bus from Invercargill to Dunedin
- Bus from Dunedin to Christchurch
- Train from Christchurch to Picton
- Ferry from Picton to Wellington
- Train from Wellington to Auckland
- Bus from Auckland to Paihia
- Bus to Cape Reinga (part of an 11-hour sightseeing tour of the Far North)
The cost: $1,052 in total for the tickets. If everything goes to plan (which it probably won’t), it will take me 150 hours. By comparison, riding the entire length of the Tranz-Siberian railway from Moscow to Vladivostok, which is five times longer than New Zealand, takes 147 hours.
I began yesterday in Oban and am now starting day two in Invercargill. Join me as I continue my journey north to Cape Reinga and enlightenment.
I’m going to Dunedin
My plans have been slightly disrupted by my delay in Invercargill, but I can make up some time by pushing straight through to Wellington rather than spending a night in Picton.
Today, I’m taking an Intercity bus to Dunedin. It would be possible to get all the way to Christchurch in one day, but it wouldn’t actually save me any time because the Christchurch-Picton train doesn’t leave until Thursday. So, I’m taking the opportunity to visit my old stomping ground.
Dunedin is a city dear to my heart. It’s where I went to university and where I fell in love with journalism. I started out writing columns for the student magazine Critic Te Arohi as a hobby, something interesting to do while I ignored my coursework. I soon became obsessed, and before long, I was spending far more time in the Critic office than in class. In my final full semester of law school, I did not attend a single lecture. But luckily, it paid off: I won a couple of student journalism awards and became the editor of Critic – which all led, many years later, to me working at The Spinoff and pitching a ridiculous story idea about travelling the length of the country by public transport.
Up the Back 9!
Yesterday afternoon, Spinoff Member Rose Hanley-Nickolls left a comment on my story asking if I wanted to play social football. My immediate response was: “Sure, I’ve got nothing else to do”.
Rose is a Department of Conservation worker doing incredible stuff to save kiwi and eliminate pests across Southland and Stewart Island. In her spare time, she is a football referee. She even offered to lend me her car if I wanted to visit the beach, which is an insanely generous thing to do for a stranger. But of course, I had to say no, because that would have ruined the whole “using only public transport” thing.
I filled in for a work team from Back 9 Creative Studio. Our match was a thrilling contest that ended in a 3-3 draw when an opposing striker blasted a shot over the fence into the neighbour’s backyard. It took about 5 minutes to locate, and by the time he retrieved the ball, the game was over.
I didn’t miss the bus!
The bus to Dunedin has just arrived and I made it here on time. The trip is back on!
The longest commute hits the airwaves
This morning, I achieved a lifelong dream by making my AM radio debut on the Gold Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly.
I’ve been a guest on FM radio before, and I’ve even appeared on a few podcasts – but nothing compares to the pure audio experience of Amplitude Modulation Radio.
We discussed the inspiration for my trip, my day in Invercargill, and the woeful state of New Zealand’s trains.
You can listen to the interview here.
Bidding a sad farewell to a fine southern city
I never thought I would say this, but I am genuinely sad to be leaving Invercargill. An unexpected delay turned into a wonderful day. A big thank you to Rose and the team at Back9 for allowing me to join their football team, and an even bigger thank you to Fat Bastard Pies for giving me a life-changing culinary experience.
Passing through Mataura
I knew two things about Mataura before today: it has the cheapest house prices in New Zealand, and the old paper mill was full of toxic waste until it was cleaned up a couple of years ago. It’s the hometown of Justin Marshall and Cardigan Bay.
Mataura is larger and nicer than I anticipated. There are two cool playgrounds and a massive RSA.
Me oh my I have enjoyed that yes boy.
The gay capital of New Zealand
Gore is the epicentre of the homosexual community. The first gay man in New Zealand was born here in Gore in 1872, and there’s still a huge, thriving underground community of gay people who just don’t tell anyone. Gore: The G’s for Gay.
Source: Wells, J. (1999). Havoc and Newsboy’s Sellout Tour.
The presidential highway
In 1992, the road from Gore to Clinton was nicknamed “the presidential highway” due to the coincidental names of US President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
According to this BBC story from 1999, Clinton hung a photo of the road sign in the White House, pointing out the direction of their respective offices.
Two gooey cheese rolls and a pineapple lump slice in Balclutha
The bus stopped for a 30-minute break in Balclutha, the “Big River Town.” The slogan isn’t wrong—it is indeed a town and there is quite a big river.
After my unsuccessful efforts in Invercargill, I finally found a cheese roll. The Rosebank Cafe & Grill sold me two of the delectable treats, slathered in an absurd amount of butter, for $7.
Southland cheese rolls are simple but magical. They’re one of the few great culinary traditions that is uniquely Kiwi. They’re so much better than a mere cheese toastie because more time and thought has gone into the filling.
Cheese is melted and mixed with evaporated milk (and sometimes cream), creating a smooth, gooey consistency that oozes delightfully with every bite. The addition of onion soup powder, mustard powder, and lemon juice elevates the flavour, making it heartier and more savoury than pure cheese. Sometimes, fancy cafes use long slices of bread to create thicker rolls, but Rosebank kept it simple with classic white sandwich bread rolled into a tight little package. They were toasted with precision, just enough to add a wee golden crunch without the crusts becoming hard and dry. I ate them as slowly as I could and savoured every mouthful.
Sitting on the counter next to a bowl of tomato sauce sachets was a single, Glad-wrapped treat labelled “pineapple lump slice”. I’m not sure if it is a common thing, but I have never seen one before. I was so curious I had to try it. It looked like a perfect combination of two of New Zealand’s great sweet treats: pineapple lumps and lolly cake. I’m a strong supporter of both, so I was eager to observe their marriage.
My concern was about the hard, tacky consistency of a pineapple lump—nothing like the soft, dissolvable quality of a Pascall’s Explorer or a fruit puff. As it turns out, Rosebank hadn’t used a traditional pineapple lump but rather a sort of pineapple-flavoured marshmallow, which had half-melted into a sweet, syrupy goo. To be honest, I found it sickeningly sweet – even more so than a lolly cake. It wasn’t for me, but I’m grateful for the experience.
Gettin’ kinky in Milton
This is the Milton Kink, one of New Zealand’s great transport anomalies. For no apparent reason, State Highway 1 curves sharply in the middle of Milton and then continues straight again as if nothing happened.
Here’s a photo of me being thrown against the window as the bus went around the kink.
In exact terms, the northern end of the road is offset by 12.07 metres west of the southern end.
There is an urban legend that the road was built from the north and south simultaneously, and they didn’t realise their mistake until they met in the middle.
Keith Lynch (who was my first editor when I started as a junior reporter at Stuff) investigated the mystery in this story from 2021. He discovered that the kink was not a State Highway 1 construction mistake. In fact, the kink predates State Highway 1 by decades. It is almost as old as the country itself.
The Milton Kink appears to have resulted from a mistake in Jesse Drake’s first survey of the area in 1847. He was simply trying to plot the land and mark it out into sections, but for whatever reason, the borders of two large blocks didn’t quite line up.
That simple mapping error has remained ever since and is now a point of pride for Milton: The Kinkiest Town in New Zealand.
Dunedin! The Edinburgh of the south
I have arrived at the glorious Dunedin Railway Station. It is New Zealand’s most impressively beautiful building, a testament to the immense value of rail transport in the early 1900s.
Today, sadly, it is much more of a tourist attraction than a functioning train station. There are no long-distance passenger trains or local commuter trains in Dunedin. The only passenger trains that operate are a handful of scenic round trips.
Wikipedia claims it is New Zealand’s most photographed building and the second-most photographed building in the southern hemisphere, a statement that cannot possibly be true (The Sky Tower, anyone? The Beehive?). But if it makes the people of Dunedin happy, I think it’s OK to let them believe it.
This is the passenger platform. It is mostly used for the Saturday farmers’ market. For some reason, there is a semi-abandoned Capital Connection train. It must have got lost somewhere between Wellington and Palmerston north.
Back to school
I’m messing around campus, reliving old memories. This is the Leith River, where I once vomited after a full Sunday beer pong tournament. Behind me is the clocktower, which loudly woke me up with a hangover many times.
Bang Bang
I sweet-talked my way inside the Clocktower building to the University Council room. They let me sit in the Chancellor’s chair and bang this fancy gavel.
Hanging with the mayor and saving the hospital
I’m here with Dunedin mayor Jules Radich, who invited me into his office to talk about the proposed cuts to Dunedin Hospital.
His comms advisor and former journalism legend Chris Morris, gave me this T-shirt. I asked if I could try on the mayor’s chains and was told, “Hard no.”
Radich is heading to Wellington tomorrow to hand in a petition by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation calling for the government to reverse the announced cuts, which had more than 34,000 people.
Here’s our brief Q+A:
When you first heard the news of potential cuts to the hospital build, how did you react?
I thought, ‘What the heck?’ We had election promises to get on with the job, and work had started and was proceeding very well. I was shocked, very shocked. It was a kick in the guts.
How has it affected the people of Dunedin?
They were equally shocked because the hospital has been reviewed, peer-reviewed, and value-managed. It’s had a lot of pushing and pulling, but the key thing is that the plans and the scope of the hospital services are the right size. Over seven years, five hundred clinicians have been consulted on this hospital. It is designed to be operationally efficient.
And you say that this isn’t just about Dunedin?
It’s about the much wider region. It services 350,000 people, not just the population of Dunedin. It’s Southland, Otago, and increasingly, South Canterbury.
What’s the plan for tomorrow?
Tomorrow we go to Wellington. Cliff the ambulance is already there. We’re going to present a petition from the nurses on the steps of parliament and talk to as many politicians as possible.
What’s the one message you would like to communicate to any minister in this government?
They made a promise, and we expect them to keep their promise—and they haven’t broken their promise yet. I understand they’re looking for extravagance and trying to trim the hospital’s costs. However, there should be no cuts to services and facilities promised because this hospital has been designed to be the right size. The capacity of this hospital is critically, vitally important to his region.
All done for day two
Thanks again for following along. I’m clocking off to go have an Emerson’s Pilsner. I’m starting bright and early tomorrow with a 7:30am bus to Christchurch.
