Down at the end of the South Island is Invercargill, a town about the size of Longmont. It’s an odd town, very spread out, with an old, dying main street that looks like many Midwest main streets, with lots of empty stores, sex shops and some cafes. The newer shops are on streets one or two blocks out from the main street. The town planners here really need to rethink things because the old buildings on main street could be really beautiful with a bit of work. The town has a huge and lovely botanic garden, and nice museum which also specializes in raising a rare lizard, the Tuatara. On Friday afternoons, it’s a big deal to watch the lizard keeper throw maggots to the lizards, which we of course we had to see. These lizards have long lives and they believe that Henry, who is quite famous, is about 120 years old. There is also a technical college here that offers free tuition to New Zealanders and they have students from all over the country. Apparently, the town controls all liquor sales, including those at restaurants and bars, and so reaps lots and lots of money to put toward gardens, museums and schools.

Our little studio in Invercargill.

But our real reason for being here was Burt Munro. Don’t remember Burt Munro? The World’s Fastest Indian guy. I’m not sure what came first, the chicken or the egg, but this is a town that loves speed. There were more guys revving motorcycles out on the streets, and there are a couple of different raceways out toward the beach, with a big race going on the day we were there. I believe I read that there were about 9,000 attending the race that day. Our host had two big garages, containing two very old Hillman’s, one of which was outfitted for racing, and a couple of other race cars under construction. But the highlight was E Hammer, a truly bizarre local hardware store. Envision McGuckin’s – your very big, local hardware store. Take out every other aisle of stuff and instead, put in a collection of very old motorcycles, and in the housewares section, add old cars and old trucks. And add the original World’s Fastest Indian motorcycle and various related Burt Munro motorcycles and stuff. The hardware store owner is a collector and has decided to display them in his hardware store, free of charge, in between all of the hardware goods. Spencer was in his element, as were a number of men of similar age wandering around the store, gawking and taking pictures – right next to the pots and pans aisle.

This hardware store was amazing.  The owner was clearly a good friend of Burt’s but also a lover of old, unique things.  There was one whole cabinet of old wood working tools which is also a love of mine.

This is it.  The REAL Munro Special.  The one that set and still holds several speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

The real deal from the front.

The real slip steam body.

This is the beach that was in the movie and the beach on which Burt did his test runs.

This is the old Chevy that Burt (Anthony Hopkins) bought in L.A. for the movie.

Burt, I mean Spence in the Worlds Fastest Indian.  This is actually a display in the Invercargill museum.  Yes it said you could climb aboard and take pictures.  Seeing all of the World’s Fastest Indian stuff and learning about Burt Munro was a real treat for me.

In addition to this, we went out and hiked around a large estuary and down to the ocean before driving down to the beach where Burt used to test his motorcycle. It is very hard sand and there must have been 50 cars parked out on the beach with people swimming in the surf. Burt would have had no room to ride out there now. So all in all, it was a slice of real New Zealand – not really a tourist town and fun to wander around before heading out on the ferry to Stewart Island.