Southern Scenic Route Part 1

Riverton Golf Club was our stop for the night after leaving Invercargill on Saturday and we played the following day pleased that the threatening rain was holding off. It is a sheltered links course which we quite enjoyed playing on despite the rough, patchworked greens and no view of the adjacent sea. One has the feeling that there is not much money to spend on the clubhouse and probably not many members although membership is cheap at only $85 for a new member, a little more for subsequent years.
The amenities are rather sad but the men's side did have a shower so I, once again, made myself an honorary man once there was no sign of life around the clubhouse.
Sunday we had a wander through the town which is also rather sad with the historic buildings now housing a mishmash of arty- crafty shops and other assorted things.

Got to be a good buy!

Len was very taken with the old Masonic Lodge building in the main street which is on the market for $75,000 and, seeing an Open sign outside, thought that it was on Open Home for viewing when they were actually referring to the gallery inside which just consisted of one room. With a bit of cheekiness, he managed to see quite a bit of the property and I have to say that the girl sitting in a little office area was hardly perturbed! Anyway, the building has a beautiful facade but needs lots of work behind the scenes, thank goodness.
With a population of about 1900 and being the oldest European settlement in the South Island Riverton is no longer thriving and work must be hard to come by. Despite this they have recently spent a lot of money trying to build a focus point in the town which consists of an elaborate viewing platform overlooking the river at the end of steps and a long ramp. The ramp ended about 18 inches below the viewing platform so they had spent even more money providing an electrically operated lift so wheelchairs could make it the whole 18 inches higher to be level with the small viewing area. Poorly designed and I hate to think how much all this must have cost the local community.
The fairly new museum close by could have been worth a visit but we have been to a few of these now, the last one being on Stewart Island, so we opted out of that.

Riverton Rocks!

We felt more heartened when we drove around the peninsula to Taramea Bay at the end of Riverton Rocks Road. There is nicer housing in this area as well as safe swimming, surfing, good walks and great views on a clear day out to Stewart Island and over to Invercargill and Bluff.