I like being places where I can see just blue water and/or blue sky with little that is man-made or non-blue in my field of vision. For that reason, I tend to be drawn toward rocky points, lands ends, and mountain tops.

I also like being places with little or no artifice but lots of heart. For that reason, I have always been drawn to small towns and farms, as well as to the folks who populate them.

For those reasons and many others, I have been greatly looking forward to visiting Southland.

Invercargill's Mayor, Tim Shadbolt, introduced the Ambassador to Invercargill’s cultural achievements such the “World’s Fastest Indian’, a film by Roger Donaldson about local hero Burt Munro.

The Ambassador was in Invercargill at the invitation of the Federated Farmers to give a speech at their annual conference.

The Ambassador also visited:

- Ruru School, a special needs unit catering for juniors through to 2I year olds, run by devoted principal Erin Cairns and staff. The school performed a proud welcome haka and there was a performance from the school rock band.

- Southland Girl’s High School

- Alfons Zeestraten’s state of the art ‘wintering shed’. His very large herd of dairy cows do not have to be sent away to drier pastures in winter, they get to stay at home in open plan luxury accommodation (complete with automatic rotating brush back scratchers).

- Fonterra milk powder plant which is capable of handling 15 million litres of milk a day.

- New Zealand’s first earth worm based sewage treatment farm and a leading ‘environmental engineering’ project.

- Bluff: hosts and quota owners Willy and Karen Caulder along with Graeme Wright from Barnes Oysters had the Ambassador eating raw and cooked oysters by 9.45am! The Ambassador also toured Willy and Karen’s boat ‘The Argosy”. Original public domain image from Flickr

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