BAZflyer: Southern Soundings

Sounding is the action of evaluation. It was with this spirit foremost, along with it being the first Bazflyer sortie for 2022, that the trusty Comanche alighted on Invercargill airport. A southern sounding, so to speak. After all, it had been quite a few years since we had last plumbed the depths of this southerly latitude.

Invercargill is New Zealand’s most southern city and one of the southernmost cities in the world. In fact, it is only a mere 1,200 NM (2,200 km) from Invercargill down to the frozen continent of Antarctica. Its location deep in the ‘roaring-forties’, that band of strong westerly winds found in the Southern Hemisphere and greatly favoured in the era of sailing ships, resulted in the nearby harbour of Bluff being the earliest European settlement in New Zealand. The first settlers arrived in 1824.

The southern region of New Zealand is fortuitously sounded by rich farmland that has traditionally been the country’s largest meat producer, notably sheep meat. For over fifty years beginning 1915, New Zealand’s entire meat output was religiously purchased by the British government to help ensure a regular flow of food to the British public. Much of the meat was processed in abattoirs around Invercargill and an Australian man who lived there and worked a lifetime in the industry unwittingly became the impetus for our sortie to this southern city.

The man’s name is Ken, the cousin of a long-time Bazflyer friend in Australia. Ken died in 2016, aged 87 years and was buried together with his wife in the Invercargill soldier’s cemetery. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 travel restrictions and other constraints, the cousin had not been able to visit New Zealand since Ken’s death. Our southern sortie was to pay respects to Ken on behalf of the cousin.

Raised in working class Melbourne during the hard Great Depression years, Ken was considered something of a ‘larrikin’ when just a teenager in 1945 he enlisted in the Australian Army and served with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. Returning home to Australia Ken settled into the slaughterhouse industry, becoming a committed unionist. It was his role as a union official that ultimately saw him working in Invercargill, where he married Mavis and lived his life out.

The southern region turned it on in style for our visit and delivered near perfect weather. And as for our southern sounding….we can’t wait to go back again, and of course to say ‘hello’ to Ken and Mavis

Paying respects to Ken and Mavis.

Overlooking the town of Bluff, New Zealand’s southernmost and oldest European settlement.

The end of the road. One cannot drive any further south in New Zealand.

Victoria, a ‘Covid refugee’ from Germany departing Bluff on her 3000 km walk to Cape Reinga at the far north of New Zealand. On her own with just a backpack containing her belongings.