Things to do in Central Southland
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Duo
The elegant Duo has good-value lunch specials and a more expensive evening menu. Standouts include smoked salmon, herb-and-feta-crusted pork steaks, and oven-baked blue cod. The wine list travels mainly to nearby Central Otago for some hard-to-find boutique tipples. Booking for dinner is recommended.
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Tillermans Music Lounge
Tillerman’s is an alternative live-music/DJ venue, with live music ranging from local thrash bands to visiting rock or reggae talents. DJs spin mostly dub and house. Decrepit black couches and a battered old dance floor prove its credentials.
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Fowlers Oysters
To buy fresh Bluff oysters, visit Fowlers Oysters on the way into town on the left.
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Anderson Park Art Gallery
In a 1925 Georgian-style manor, this excellent gallery contains works from many NZ artists. The landscaped gardens are studded with trees and trails, and include a children’s playground and wharepuni (sleeping house). The gallery is 7km north of the city centre; follow North Rd then turn right into McIvor Rd.
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El Tigre
Sick of small-town restaurants that all basically serve the same meal? Stop with the crazy pills and hunt out this funky little restaurant (slightly tricky to spot from the street). The menu is eclectic, with interesting touches such as ratatouille with your ostrich, or apricot sauce with your lamb backstrap. Sit near the kitchen at your peril – the smells from within can quickly drive you insane with hunger. Hip, distressed interior, lounge music, atmospheric lighting and service that cares make it our top pick in town.
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Invercargill Brewery
Tastings are free of charge, and if you’re a real beer buff, the staff may be able to show you around the brewery. Phone ahead to check. Our favourites are the crisp Biman Pilsner and the hoppy Stanley Green Pale Ale. Regular seasonal brews include the Smokin’ Bishop, a German-style rauchbier made with smoked malt.
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Buster Crabb
Inexplicably named after a British navy frogman who went missing in 1956, Buster Crabb overcomes a silly name to transform a spacious heritage-listed villa into a cosmopolitan dining experience. Local farming types – doing very well thank you – crowd in for scallops, pork belly, venison and blue cod. A tiny deck is a late afternoon suntrap, and it’s one of the only places in town that serves the Invercargill Brewery’s excellent Pitch Black stout on tap.
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Stadium Southland
Stadium Southland is home to Invercargill’s extremely successful and popular Southern Steel women’s netball team (www.southern steel.co.nz; season April to July). You can try out rock climbing here from $5 (7pm Tuesdays and Thursdays) and there’s also New Zealand’s only indoor velodrome. Come along Tuesday at 5.30pm for the opportunity (per hour $10) to get high on the wall on two wheels. Coaching is provided.
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Louie’s Café
This cosy cafe-bar specialises in tapas-style snacks ($12), and there’s also a concise blackboard menu (mains $20 to $30). Relax near the fireside, tuck yourself away in various nooks and crannies, or spread out on a comfy padded sofa and enjoy the chilled-out music. There are occasional live gigs.
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Three Bean Café
Some of Invercargill’s best coffee and casual eats are at this cosmopolitan main-drag cafe. Kick your day off with a salmon bagel, and leave room for a baked slice of something sweet.
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Devil Burger
Tasty gourmet burgers and healthy wraps, including lots of vegie options. On weekends, expect crowds of hungry burger fans from upstairs at Tillermans Music Lounge.
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Seriously Good Chocolate Company
This sunny spot a short walk from central Invercargill specialises in individual artisan chocolates (around $1.50 each). Order a coffee and then abandon yourself to the difficult task of choosing flavours. The chilli and peanut cluster variations were both good enough for us to return a second day. Like it says on the tin…seriously good.
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One Blue Dog
Advertising four Jäger and Red Bulls for 30 bucks when we dropped by, this compact upstairs bar has free pool tables and a raucous devil-may-care, don’t-waste-the-weekend atmosphere. DJs and occasional bands kick in later at night. It’s definitely not sophisticated, but after four Jägerbombs, will you really care?
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Zookeepers Cafe
The Zookeepers is easily spotted by the giant corrugated-iron elephant on the roof. Staff are laid-back and friendly, and the meals are good value and tasty. Tuck into a warm balsamic beef salad or sip an Invercargill Brewery beer. Try the Wasp lager, a southern honey-infused spin on a traditional Pilsner.
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Saints & Sinners
This is the nightclub that ate Invercargill – an intricate collage of bars, pool halls, dance floors and flashing lights. Maybe take a GPS with you. While entrapped, you’ll discover Saints & Sinners, the preferred live music venue for touring Kiwi bands, and the raucous Players Entertainment Venue.
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Speight’s Ale House
Big-screen TVs for live sport, and Speight’s brews south from Dunedin. Grab an outside table to watch Invercargill’s after-dark cavalcade of annoying boy racers in their hotted-up Mazdas. What would Burt Munro think?
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EuropaNZ
Great-value Bavarian-style breakfasts – look forward to an $8 feast of egg, potato and sausage – and Invercargill’s best baked cheesecake feature at this German-owned deli-bakery. The daily soup and sourdough special ($5) is almost too affordable. There’s a play area for the kids, too.
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Rocks & Shop 5
Tucked away in a shopping arcade, this stylish candlelit bar with a couple of dining areas is a laid-back choice for a tasty meal. Lunch highlights are decent burgers, pasta and salad, and later at night the focus shifts to pork belly, Moroccan chicken and Stewart Island salmon.
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Fat Indian
Tucked away down a sneaky cobblestone alleyway, this snug little restaurant is fairly basic, but famous among travellers and locals for its large, good-value vindaloos, kormas and baltis. If you just can't decide, go for the ‘tandoori sampler'. Takeaways available.
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Kiln
Stylish bar with hanging lampshades, underlit bar and Great Aunt Edith’s wallpaper. Easily the most civilised drinking option in town and surprisingly good food too. Try the parmesan-crusted blue cod with a Summer Ale.
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Gallery Takeaway
Next door to Foveaux Hotel, Gallery Takeaway does arguably the planet’s finest fish and chips, and has a small tribute to the sadly lamented Bluff paua-shell house. If fresh oysters aren’t in season, try a Blue Cod meal ($13).
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City Gallery
In town, the City Gallery showcases talent from NZ’s south, including sculpture, photography and paintings (most of which are for sale). If you’ve been travelling in the South Island, you’ll definitely recognise some scenes.
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Bluff Maritime Museum
Kids will enjoy the small Bluff Maritime Museum and clambering over a century-old oyster boat, while steam nerds will love the big old 600hp steam engine. Interesting displays on Bluff’s history complete the exhibition.
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Southland Museum & Art Gallery
The art gallery hosts visiting exhibitions from contemporary Maori and local artists and occasional international shows. If you’re headed for Stewart Island, visit the museum’s ‘Beyond the Roaring Forties’ exhibition.
The museum’s rock stars are undoubtedly the tuatara, NZ’s unique lizardlike reptiles, unchanged for 220 million years. If the slow-moving 100-years-old-and-counting patriarch Henry is any example, they’re not planning to do much for the next 220 million years either.
You’ll find Henry and his reptilian mates in the tuatara enclosure. Feeding time is 4pm on Fridays, and outside opening hours, there are viewing windows at the rear of the…
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Drunken Sailor Cafe & Bar
Up on the hill above the signpost at Stirling Point, this seafood restaurant’s huge curve of windows offers magnificent views of the ocean, the islands beyond, and the forested curve of the bluff itself.
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