The Sign Says It All

Baldwin Street in Dunedin is the world's steepest.

























View from the bottom. There's even a souvenir shop nearby!


















Encouraging! Really, however, you can turn right into a bit of driveway and turn around, even though the homeowner must get plenty sick of people doing it.



















It really is difficult to stand up straight.




















Looking back down.

Happy Holidays!

Lake Takapo Village. It got down to 5 degrees Centigrade last night, which is about 40 degrees Farenheit.

From Queenstown to Dunedin

Before I leave Queenstown completely, here is a shot of their famous gondola to a fancy restaurant & great views (or so I am told. I didn't justify the expense.).

Parasailing off the top of the hill is also quite popular. There is a tandem option, as I was able to film one morning as a couple drifted down into town.

The Remarkables across Lake Wakatipi, on which Queenstown is situated. The lake, not the mountains.

Now, Dunedin (dun-EEE-din). The name is Gaelic for Edinburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin). Here's a webcam site! (http://www.cityofdunedin.com/city/?page=webcams_list)

Settled by Scottish immigrants in 1848, the Otago peninsula and Dunedin were once the economic capital of New Zealand due to the immense gold strikes. The city currently incorporates over 3500 square kilometers, making it the largest city in terms of area within New Zealand. They city founders did this to be able to regulate and protect the watershed and to benefit from timber harvesting and mineral extraction on city land. New Zealand's first University was founded here, the University of Otago. It hosts about 25,000 students, constituting about one fifth of the city's population of 125,000.

Due to the popularity of The Lord of the Rings series, there are currently almost 1,000 American students attending this University.

From The Octagon, the center of the central business district. These are a church and the city hall, distorted by the camera lens.

This statue of Robert Burns is here because his cousin was one of the first settlers of the region.

Modaks was recommended by the Magic Bus driver (Scotty, again!) as having the best coffee in Dunedin. He wasn't kidding. It hits you like an electric shock but is very smooth.

The Speights Brewery is, as you might expect, extremely popular with the students. At the start of every school year, the upperclassmen march the frosh to the brewery, where they encircle the building as best they can, kneel before the structure, and without using their hands lean forward to kiss the bricks. Ah, reminds me of my introduction to the University of New Hampshire, and "Frosh Beanies." Gives me a shudder to think about it, however.

The brewery is situated on, or rather, in a hill, and is one of only two working gravity-fed breweries in the world (the other being the Anglo-Dutch Brewery in Dewsbury, England http://www.huddscamra.org.uk/anglodutch.htm).

The water used in the brewing process is critical to the taste of the final product. The Speights brewery became so well-known locally for the quality of their water that the townspeople virtually demanded access to it. So the brewery owners installed a special spigot on the outside of the building, and anyone can take as much water as they wish. One April Fools' Day, the local newspaper published a front-page story as to how the Speights engineers had mistakenly crossed some piping lines, and that now the spigot was dispensing free beer. The town council made it clear to the newspaper that they were never to do something like that again, because the queue extended for many, many blocks. Additionally, so the story goes, farmers emptied the truck-mounted water tanks that they used to supply water to cattle troughs, and waited in line to fill the tank with beer. There was a near-riot when those in line discovered the joke, because some had skipped work in order to stand in line!

Incidentally, Speights uses hops grown in the northern part of the South Island. These hops are considered the best in the world, and breweries compete for the yearly crop. Even Coors buys them when they can, as well as Guinness and other famous companies.

Here I am with the kiwis being grateful that this is the last brewery tour we will take.

Of course, I'm going back to Australia for 11 days, and there may be a brewery or two in Tasmania.

Another popular attraction is the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. Cadbury Schweppes is the largest candy manufacturer in the world (because they bought up lots of competitors!). http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&refer=uk&sid=aHz366QocpzE

We couldn't take cameras on the tour, supposedly because we might drop one onto some equipment. I think it was because of sensitive corporate secrets.

We got to climb up the purple silo - from the inside - to about 4 stories high. These silos are used to store "crumb," which is cocoa bits and cocoa butter compressed and dried. Hard as a rock but very, very delicious.

When one visits this area, one tours the Royal Albatross Center, which is dedicated to preserving the Royal Albatross. This bird has the largest wingspan of any in the world. I have video clips of one soaring, and it was fun to watch.

After the Center, we were driven further down the peninsula to a private beach. Along the way we saw spoonbills...

... and eventually arrived at our viewing site to climb down to the beach ...






















... to see sea lions. We got to within 12 - 15 feet of this big guy, as they are absolutely not afraid of humans. The younger males love to chase people off this beach! That's a fur seal in the background - note the pointed nose.

The actual goal of this trip was to view yellow-eyed penguins, one of the world's rarest.

These guys are actually forest penguins. However, there is little native forest left since the timber industry was proven so profitable. Remember, once the native treest were removed, pinus radiatus were planted. These non-native trees mature rapidly in New Zealand, and are harvestable in 25 - 30 years.

Here are a mating pair in their nest behind a screen

This nesting site was created last year, and luckily is being used at present. The penguin population here is climbing to over 200 due to the conservation efforts of the company that conducts the tours. These penguin share the beach with the sea lions, however, which hunt them!

Now, this next picture comes with a quiz. I took the shot facing south. How about an easy one, to get you started? What is the first landmass you would hit if you went south from the Otago Peninsula?

Right - Antarctica.


If you went to the left, which is east, what is the first landmass you would hit?








Chile.

If you traveled right (west), what is the first landmass you would hit? This is the trick question.

Argentina!

South America is the only landmass more southern to Antarctica than New Zealand.

Now, suppose you went straight through the earth, perpendicular to this point of land. Where would you emerge?

Spain!


Back to Dunedin.

The train station is one of the most photographed buildings in New Zealand.

The Taieri Gorge Railway train. It was a nice trip into the gorge to Pukerangi - all the further it went on this Saturday (http://www.taieri.co.nz/).

I only have a few still shots of the trip, as I concentrated on taking video clips. It's hard to get both stills and video of the same shot from a moving train, but here are two that give you some idea.

Moving water is one of the most powerful forces in nature. And, in this next picture, you can see the fault line dropping just below the lone tree on top of this hill. The gorge sort of follows the fault line, and one does not want to contemplate what would happen to the railway bridges if a major earthquake struck this region. (You may have heard about the 6.8 earthquake that struck just off the east coast of the North Island, near Gisborne and north of Napier, on 20 December of '07.)

And we even got to walk across a trestle! No, not because there was too much weight on the train - it's part of the adventure of the tour!

Finally, something from the upper echelon of adolescent humor, in an alleyway in Dunedin.

The 45th Parallel

I am at or near latitude 45 degrees south. This is halfway between the equator and Antarctica.

The 45th parallel north is roughly the US / Canadian border.

The reason I mention this is that the sun rises and sets late, and twilight lasts until 10:15 pm or later. It's also the summer solstice, here, and the longest day of their year.

It is a very interesting phenomenon to part the drapes and still see daylight at 10 pm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_parallel_north

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_parallel_south

Since there is a sign marking this point in Omaru, New Zealand, which is 120 km north of Dunedin, I'll have to rent a car to get there. Maybe I'll be able to make time to do this!

Tour to Milford

The rain has continued on the west coast of the South Island, for 10 days. On average, the total was 45 inches. Some places at higher elevation get over 470 inches a year! The day I selected to go on a tour to the Milford Sound, the sky cleared and the day turned out to be perfect. Due to the rains, the waterfalls along the way were spectacular, although the driver said we should really try to see them during a rain. (Huh?) The key word here is "see" them, and "try" is the critical qualifier. The tops of the ridges are in cloud during a rain, so ....

Anyway, as we started, I got a fairly good shot of The Remarkables - so named because they are only one of 2 ranges that run north to south (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remarkables) or, as our driver pointed out, are oriented to magnetic north. That, by the way, is hooey because magnetic north shifts and the mountains obviously do not. Would truly be remarkable if they did, I admit, but they don't.



















Our first stop was at the original bungy site. I mean, the very first in the world. You can imagine the permit process and the officials that needed convincing that people wouldn't be killed and local governments subsequently sued.























These are the men who did it, and they are revered by bungy enthusiasts, though not necessarily the young folk who roam the country seeking out bungy sites. Ah, the young, so blissful in their ignorance.























The bridge from whence it all began, and from whence it all still happens. At $160 a pop.



















Recognize these livestock? They are wapiti deer - what we call elk. Introduced as sporting game, they eventually became a pest and a bounty was placed on their tails. Also eventually, it was discovered that people would actually pay money for the meat, and now wapiti are raised just as any other livestock, and the venison sold mostly to Germany and North America. I didn't find much in the stores, surprisingly. Sort of like Colorado peaches, I think. Anyway, these does have a good life, and the bucks don't have to work hard to maintain or protect their harems, so I suppose it's all good.



















Te Anau, like Queenstown itself, is a jumping off point for several tramping tracks. The town only has about 1500 - 3000 people currently (seasonal variation) and land / housing is quite inexpensive. Based on scenery alone, I could live anywhere between Te Anau and Milford.


























































I'm so happy that I got to experience another of New Zealand's quintessential moments: moving sheep from one paddock (pasture) to another. This was a rather small herd, and obviously ready to be sheered. The car was one of the "herders," by the way.



















The kea, the world's only alpine parrot, is about the size of a pigeon. It's not its coloration that makes it interesting, but rather its behavior. It strips cars of their windshield wiper blades, door moldings, and other rubber parts. It doesn't eat them, but rather delights in the process of chewing it up. Many a tramper has returned to the car park to find their cars mysteriously altered.




















The Sound, from seaward. Captain Cook never saw this site, as from the Tasman Sea the entry is not evident because of the way the land juts out, creating a kind of curved pathway.



















Milford Sound is actually not a sound at all. It is a fjord- that is, carved out by a glacier. A sound is carved out by river action.

I didn't write down what the captain was saying as he described what we were seeing, because I was concentrating on taking pictures and video clips. I think this mountain, off to one side of the Milford Sound, is Buchanan.



















This waterfall was made all the more spectacular by the recent rains. The captain showed his sense of humor by running the bow of his ship right into the spray, potentially soaking those of us standing at the bow for photos. We ducked under the bulkhead until the laughing was over.
























Is the land end of a sound called the "head" or the "foot?" No matter, this huge waterfall bordered the appropriate appendage of the Milford. It is higher than Niagara, and once again in full bloom due to the rains.
























The intimidating Mitre Peak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitre_Peak_(New_Zealand) rises to 1692 meters (over 5551 feet), almost straight up from sea level.



















As we re-entered Queenstown, another shot of The Remarkables.

Wanaka

There wasn't much to photograph in Fox Glacier, and the few people who went on the glacier hike couldn't see the mountains, etc. I'm glad I didn't try.


The first Magic Bus tourist stop out of Fox was Thunder Creek Falls. Very impressive, with the amount of rain we've had. The sand flies impressed everyone, also. It was mostly shoot the picture and get the heck back to the bus.










































Looking back toward Fox Glacier village.

Lake Wanaka as we approached the town. Wanaka is a resort, and property values are starting to soar to what the locals regard as outrageous heights. We would find them comparable to a moderately upscale development = $450,000 and up.

View from the hostel. It got cloudier as the day progressed, and the area east of the mountains needs the rain, but none fell.





















Wanaka has been flooded at least 5 times, and the heights of these cylinders serve as both sculpture and reminders. Yup, that's a tavern in the background that happened to serve the local brews.






















One of the most popular local attractions is Puzzling World.





















These buildings at the right side of the attraction house the tilted rooms. They are cleverly constructed optical illusions, where a ball appears to roll uphill and water to flow uphill.




















At the entrance is a special clock tower.

The gentleman I asked to take this picture didn't get the handrail quite horizontal, but I think you get the idea. The room is tilted such that standing on the stairs makes it appear that I should be falling on my face.





















Lastly, there's a cleverly executed mural depicting what ancient Roman toilets were like. It's in an atrium with actual access doors to the men's and ladies' rooms. The mural wall is evident if you pay attention to where the windows are.





















And finally, for this post, the Paradiso Theater. Evidently, it's unusual in NZ to have a cafe and bar incorporated into a cinema. The sculpture on top was placed there some time ago when the movie Black Sheep (filmed in New Zealand: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0779982/) was released.