No Hobbits, Amazing Landscape - Part Three

[rickps]

Time Shift Note:  Yeah, I'm not being timely with these posts, live with it.

Photographic Evidence:  I'm even closer to posting some truly poor pictures to Flicr.  For now, visualize.



Back in 2003 when I visited Queenstown, I was struck by the quaintness of the city and its spectacular placement along Lake Wakatipu (hey, I don't invent these names!) surrounded by snow capped mountains.  The city is a favored spot for tourists and for those searching for a unique sports venue.  Queenstown is reputed to be the birthplace of bungee jumping and is quite popular with the hang gliding addicted.  It was my impression that in the intervening five years since my first visit, the city has gone horribly commercial.  Trendy boutique shops, many of whom you'll find in US shopping malls now line the streets.  After days of the simple elegance of a landscape populated by warm sincere people, this place was a jarring reminder that we live in a world where the "on sale" tag is king.  Still, the view from my modest hotel room was incredible. 

The other oddity was that the entirety of Queenstown seemed to be under renovation.  From parking structures to stores, even to my hotel, scaffolding was ever present, cranes competing for sky space with the mountains.

I left town early the next morning slightly disappointed and eager to see my buddy John who lived a couple of hours south not all that far from Invercargill, New Zealand's southernmost city.





I've been remiss in mentioning my driving companion, Phoebe.  She's of the Garmin GPS persuasion, a bit of a classic soul in her dated Streetpilot garb.  Phoebe, so named for her clipped British accent, faithfully guided me to each destination.  She seemed undaunted by my struggle to comprehend New Zealand's traffic signs and town names.  She never laughed when I missed a turn, never yelled when I did something patently boneheaded.  Except for once when she insisted that I drive 1.2 kilometers into the Pacific.  But I thought better of her advice.  Upon reflection, I have to wonder if I'd finally gotten to the end of her electronic patience and she had decided to take herself and me to a final watery grave.  I'll never know for sure.  She never mentioned it during the remainder of our travels together.  And I didn't either.





Whenever someone says that you can't make real friendships over the 'net with people in distant lands, I point to my very good friend John.  Living in a small NZ farming town, John and I met online years ago, became fast friends, and have stayed in touch ever since.  When I visited Australia and NZ in 2003, John and I bummed around both countries terrorizing the citizens (or being terrorized by the citizens).  It was a treat to visit with him on this trip and catch up on the details of our respective lives.  He's still the automotively obsessed technogeek ex-sheep farmer that I've known.  A trifle more gray, an extra wrinkle or two perhaps but still one of the best people I know.  We should all have friends like John.

With my arrival at his house, the weather turned ugly.  Heavy rains (you haven't heard drumming until you've lived through a storm in a metal roofed house), nasty cold temperatures, wind, it rivaled the best that San Francisco can throw at ya.  But the company was warm and friendly, that's all that mattered.





After mooching off of John for as long as I dare (two days), I pointed Silver Skier's nose northward past Invercargill and along the eastern side of the island.  Much of this side of NZ is rolling countryside filled with sheep and cattle farms.  The ever visible mountains march along the western horizon in a nearly steady line.  It's a peaceful part of the island, a great place to contemplate life as I drove.  My destination was Dunedin, home of several universities and a good sized chunk of NZ's manufacturing industries.  I'm told that the city and its surroundings are much like Scotland.  NZ's Labour Day closed much of the city's businesses on the day I arrived dampening my desire to wander about.  The next day however I made pilgrimage to the Cadbury World factory, manufacturers of some 85% of NZ's prodigious chocolate production.  If I was expecting a tour something like the Hershey (Pennsylvania) tour I'd taken as a kid, I was sorely mistaken.  First, the hair net and snood for my beard (I'll post a pic).  Then the "tour" during which you rarely saw chocolate being poured into it's various shapes and formulations.  Rather, we'd be shown a humming machine and told "X is going on inside".  Not very educational.  But at least we got freebie products wherever we wandered.  I proved beyond any doubt that there is no chocolate I don't like.





Another long drive north.  This time through a legendary wind storm.  What I assumed was fog was indeed fine dust being blown about in the hurricane force winds.  I drove through NZ's 'desert'.  Scrub brush, plants struggling to survive.  It was a far cry from the lush landscape I'd gotten used to.  And then I rounded a corner... and it all changed.  Lake Tekapo is a tiny town (population 315) hard against the lake surrounded on three sides by snow covered mountains.  Breathtaking.  The winds died, the clouds hung low and then disappeared by the next morning.  Wow, simply wow.





I decided to spend my last two days in NZ again in Christchurch, exploring a bit more of the city.  My target was the cultural district, home of the city's museums, theaters, and art.  As I walked (and there was leg numbing walking) I ran across a quirky "memorial park to petroleum".  Strange but entertaining.  I'll let the pictures speak.

I could happily live in Christchurch.



Windshield Wiper/Directional Signal Confusion Incidents - Single digit goofs just in time to leave
Driving Terror Level - I dread returning to the highways at home after having succumbed to the left hand world.

Upcoming:  A long weekend in Sydney.  CubOz, Daddy Craig, Oz, JR, JC, Seumas, and a couple of major surprises to end the journey.

Comments

[cuboz.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm, Cadburys. Have you exhausted your supply yet? :-)

My elder brother and his wife live in Christchurch - it IS a very liveable city, I agree! :-)

[ricksf.livejournal.com]

I still have some Cadbury left but it's all earmarked for gifts to friends here.

The scary thing is that a US based cookie company, Pepperidge Farm, has apparently gotten some sort of franchise to sell Tim Tams here in the States. Packaging and taste seem the same. Is this the end of civilization as we know it? I think so!