New Zealand Vacation

Thursday, February 1:
Manapouri - Dunedin

Farewell to the West Coast, and off to Dunedin. Tempus is fugiting, and we will bypass Invercargill and the South Coast in order to make Geraldine by Saturday night. Stopped for gas in Lumsden, and thought to check the air in the tires (tyres?). They’ve got air. They’ve also got steel mesh coming through the tread. Shoestring Rental’s maintenance policy: The cars get maintained when they break. Bought two new tires (hopefully) on Shoestring’s dime. We’ll see when my credit card statement comes.

We were amused to bypass the road from Clinton to Gore. (The road not taken?)

We left the pavement to traverse a long (30 miles?) gravel road to Waipuri: Figured to break in those new tires. We encountered maybe 5 cars on this stretch. The road ran through rolling but fairly dry and brown country. The sheep on the far slope looked like maggots. The pastures were bordered by decorative hedgerows of pines, poplars, and other trees all carefully spaced and trimmed to identical heights. Sometimes tall and squat trees would be planted alternately, giving a lacy effect on the horizon. Sometimes it was dense growth trimmed in topiary shapes. More gorgeous gorges, more logging-road switch-backs, more beautiful countryside. Ho hum. Bring on the dancing girls.

Dunedin: civilization & traffic lights at last. Also driving on the left side of the road in urban traffic. Actually, it was worse on empty roads. Pulling out of a driveway or gas station, with no one else on the road to orient me, my instincts took me to the right until I ran into (poor choice of words) another vehicle to set me straight. It happened 3 times during the trip. Got to audibly reminding myself “Left!” every time I pulled out of a driveway.

Here, Backpackers found a real interesting place to set up a hostel: in the carriage house of Lanarch Castle. This was a late 19th Century banker’s fancy that he had the funds to make real. The main building is a fairytale come to life. The building sparkles with lights and gingerbread and wrought iron railings around verandahs. The garden & views are magnificent. It’s currently been bought by a rich family that owns the place, but keeps it available for public viewing.

The guide book mentioned there was a New Edinburgh Folk Club that met on Friday nights, and gave an address of 4 Carlyle Street. We stopped by there, and there wasn’t a number 4 on Carlyle Street. The phone book gave a number for the club, but dialing it gave a fascinating and informative message about a Festival they were running on December 30th – 31st. I left a message, which was never returned. I later inquired at the town center Information office. They gave me two names and numbers, which I called and left unreturned messages. Not too interested in having folks find out about them, were they? I later ran into a couple of the people from the club at the Waihi Bush Festival.

The Palm batteries starting to run really low. I’m going to have to do something about this.