Sunday, December 28, 2008
roadside humor
The main north-south highway in New Zealand is highway 1, which goes right through Dunedin (and which I ride my bike on to get to the university). If you go south from Dunedin on highway 1 for an hour and a half, you'll come to the town of Clinton. A half hour further is the town of Gore. Sometime in the 1990s, that stretch of highway got christened the "Presidential Highway," complete with signs at both Clinton and Gore announcing the name.
tussock
In New Zealand you hear a lot about tussock, the native grasses that covered much of the eastern half of the South Island when Europeans arrived. On our way to and from Te Anau, we went through a red tussock conservation area. In the first photo, you can see some clumps of tussock in the foreground. The wind was blowing strongly, so the tussock is being blown to the right. The blades of grass are about 18 inches long and tussock always grows in clumps. In the background, the hillside has a lot of tussock growing on it.
In the next photo, that hillside in the upper left side of the photo is covered with tussock and you can see it in the right middle part of the photo also.
In the next photo, the tussock goes on and on, blurring into a brown color.
Much of the tussock grassland was lost to farming, so there's a move on now to preserve the grasslands that remain.
In the next photo, that hillside in the upper left side of the photo is covered with tussock and you can see it in the right middle part of the photo also. 
In the next photo, the tussock goes on and on, blurring into a brown color.
Much of the tussock grassland was lost to farming, so there's a move on now to preserve the grasslands that remain.A summer Christmas Day
What do New Zealanders do at Christmas in the summer time? We've been here 18 months, but we didn't experience a normal NZ Christmas last year. Last Christmas our son, Mike, was here visiting, and we went to Queenstown, a glitzy tourist town, for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. We stayed in an inner city motel, and spent Christmas day driving up Lake Wakatipu. It's a beautiful memory, but not a typical kiwi Christmas.
This year we rented a house for a week in Te Anau, a town four hours west and a little south of Dunedin. Te Anau is also a tourist town, the town closest to Milford Sound, but our house was in an ordinary quiet neighborhood. You can see just how ordinary the house is. The best part was the upstairs room, the living room, which had a deck with a view. Te Anau is a much more beautiful town than the house would indicate, and I'll do another blog post soon showing some views around town and from Dave's fishing spots.
The photo above was taken on Christmas Day, the only gray day we were there. The photo below was taken another day from the deck, and I've posted it just to give you an idea of the view from that upstairs living room. The tree in the foreground is a cabbage tree, a native New Zealand tree, which was blooming when we were there.
The upstairs living room had an electric heater and a small closed stove with a basket of coal beside it. By the outside door was a bin of coal (with Dave's fishing boots beside it). I read recently that more people in Europe and the US are heating their houses with coal. Lots of people in NZ and in our Dunedin neighborhood do it, and it makes for an odd smell outdoors in the winter. Dave grew up with a coal stove, so it reminds him of childhood. It's a smell I've never experienced before.
This year we rented a house for a week in Te Anau, a town four hours west and a little south of Dunedin. Te Anau is also a tourist town, the town closest to Milford Sound, but our house was in an ordinary quiet neighborhood. You can see just how ordinary the house is. The best part was the upstairs room, the living room, which had a deck with a view. Te Anau is a much more beautiful town than the house would indicate, and I'll do another blog post soon showing some views around town and from Dave's fishing spots.
The photo above was taken on Christmas Day, the only gray day we were there. The photo below was taken another day from the deck, and I've posted it just to give you an idea of the view from that upstairs living room. The tree in the foreground is a cabbage tree, a native New Zealand tree, which was blooming when we were there.
The upstairs living room had an electric heater and a small closed stove with a basket of coal beside it. By the outside door was a bin of coal (with Dave's fishing boots beside it). I read recently that more people in Europe and the US are heating their houses with coal. Lots of people in NZ and in our Dunedin neighborhood do it, and it makes for an odd smell outdoors in the winter. Dave grew up with a coal stove, so it reminds him of childhood. It's a smell I've never experienced before.
One of the funny things about our stay in Te Anau and our experience of Christmas is that our house was SO quiet six of the seven days we were there, but on Christmas Day someone close by played rock music with a very loud bass beat all day long. We could feel the throb of the bass throughout our house
Now, on to the question of what people in New Zealand do on Christmas Day (besides play rock music really loud). Barbecues are the tradition. On Christmas Day I walked over to the park right by our rented house and took pictures. The first picture shows a nearby house with a bunch of people barbecuing. Then the next five photos show people in the park. There was a group playing informal cricket, some people walking a dog, a father and his kids in a go cart, and another small family flying a kite.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Doubtful Sound
As I described in the previous post, to get to Doubtful Sound we drove four hours, rode across Lake Manapouri in a boat for an hour, then crossed a mountain pass in a bus, which took another hour. Near the top of the pass, they stopped the bus and let us pile out to take photos of this first glance of Doubtful Sound from about 2000 feet above the sound.
We drove down, down, down on a road with a gradient of one in five to the dock you can see below, where we got on a boat. The bus on the dock is one of three busses that brought people over the pass from Lake Manapouri.
The next two photos are taken from the same place. This is the only spot in Doubtful Sound where you can see out to the open ocean and also see back to Wilmot Pass that we came over. In the second photo, look for the notch in the hills in the background. That's Wilmot Pass.
Below is another photo with Wilmot Pass visible. It's one of about 50 pictures I took of the beautiful mountains, stacked up, gray on gray. I'll spare you the other 49, but I was entranced with the shapes.
The boat took us into one of the arms of the sound, then out toward the mouth. The photo below shows the mouth of the Sound.
As we approached the mouth of the sound, we could see the rocks that shelter the sound. Beyond those rocks is the open ocean, the Tasman Sea. The boat went briefly out into the Tasman. The swells were huge, and I immediately turned green. I was grateful we didn't stay out there very long or I would have been very sick.
The rocks at the mouth of Doubtful Sound are covered with New Zealand fur seals, as you can see on the next photo. We also saw a fjordland crested penguin, a small light colored dot on a different rock, which Dave could make out pretty clearly with his binoculars. We also saw blue penguins swimming in a group near the mouth of the sound.
Because of my propensity to get motion sick, I stayed on the outdoor deck the whole trip. People kept coming up to keep me company from time to time. The next photo shows me with Carol, our friend who was visiting from the US.
On the way back toward the dock, they cruised into one of the arms of the sound and turned off the engine. The next photo shows the place where we stopped. They asked people not to walk around and not to take photos, so everyone could enjoy the silence. It was amazing. We could hear the wind on the waves and birds in the trees a long distance away. Pristine, primordial silence.
We got to see a few waterfalls. It rains most days at Doubtful Sound, so we were really lucky that all we had were clouds that day (especially me, who stayed outside the whole time). Because it wasn't raining, we didn't see a lot of waterfalls, but below is one of the tallest ones we saw. Because there is almost no topsoil, when it rains the water rushes off the hills in waterfalls, and when the rain stops, the waterfalls stop pretty much immediately.
There was a naturalist on the boat who explained a lot of things. One of the most interesting was learning about tree avalanches. The fjords were carved by the last ice age, leaving bare rock. Very little soil has accumulated, so the trees are growing precariously. If a tree gets sodden and heavy, it falls down, crashing into the trees below it. They uproot, fall, and create an avalanche of trees. We saw a lot of them, or more accuately, we saw the results of a lot of them. In the photo below you can see how the avalanche was started by one tree at the top, then widened as the trees crashed into trees below.
The next photo shows two tree avalanches. The one on the right is about three years old, the naturalist said, and you can see the moss starting to grow on it. He said the one on the left was less than a week old.
Below are a few more views of tree avalanches at various points on Doubtful Sound.
We drove down, down, down on a road with a gradient of one in five to the dock you can see below, where we got on a boat. The bus on the dock is one of three busses that brought people over the pass from Lake Manapouri.
The next two photos are taken from the same place. This is the only spot in Doubtful Sound where you can see out to the open ocean and also see back to Wilmot Pass that we came over. In the second photo, look for the notch in the hills in the background. That's Wilmot Pass.
Below is another photo with Wilmot Pass visible. It's one of about 50 pictures I took of the beautiful mountains, stacked up, gray on gray. I'll spare you the other 49, but I was entranced with the shapes.
The boat took us into one of the arms of the sound, then out toward the mouth. The photo below shows the mouth of the Sound.
As we approached the mouth of the sound, we could see the rocks that shelter the sound. Beyond those rocks is the open ocean, the Tasman Sea. The boat went briefly out into the Tasman. The swells were huge, and I immediately turned green. I was grateful we didn't stay out there very long or I would have been very sick.
The rocks at the mouth of Doubtful Sound are covered with New Zealand fur seals, as you can see on the next photo. We also saw a fjordland crested penguin, a small light colored dot on a different rock, which Dave could make out pretty clearly with his binoculars. We also saw blue penguins swimming in a group near the mouth of the sound.
Because of my propensity to get motion sick, I stayed on the outdoor deck the whole trip. People kept coming up to keep me company from time to time. The next photo shows me with Carol, our friend who was visiting from the US.
On the way back toward the dock, they cruised into one of the arms of the sound and turned off the engine. The next photo shows the place where we stopped. They asked people not to walk around and not to take photos, so everyone could enjoy the silence. It was amazing. We could hear the wind on the waves and birds in the trees a long distance away. Pristine, primordial silence.
We got to see a few waterfalls. It rains most days at Doubtful Sound, so we were really lucky that all we had were clouds that day (especially me, who stayed outside the whole time). Because it wasn't raining, we didn't see a lot of waterfalls, but below is one of the tallest ones we saw. Because there is almost no topsoil, when it rains the water rushes off the hills in waterfalls, and when the rain stops, the waterfalls stop pretty much immediately.
There was a naturalist on the boat who explained a lot of things. One of the most interesting was learning about tree avalanches. The fjords were carved by the last ice age, leaving bare rock. Very little soil has accumulated, so the trees are growing precariously. If a tree gets sodden and heavy, it falls down, crashing into the trees below it. They uproot, fall, and create an avalanche of trees. We saw a lot of them, or more accuately, we saw the results of a lot of them. In the photo below you can see how the avalanche was started by one tree at the top, then widened as the trees crashed into trees below.
The next photo shows two tree avalanches. The one on the right is about three years old, the naturalist said, and you can see the moss starting to grow on it. He said the one on the left was less than a week old.
Below are a few more views of tree avalanches at various points on Doubtful Sound.
Lake Manapouri
Some wonderful friends from the U.S. recently came to visit, and we took the opportunity to go on a trip to Doubtful Sound, one of about a half dozen fjords on the west coast of the South Island. You've probably heard of Milford Sound, the easiest fjord to get to and thus the best known. Doubtful Sound is the only other fjord that can be reached from the east, but it's definitely complicated to get there, involving a boat ride across a lake and a bus ride across a mountain pass. To start our trip, we drove a couple hours southwest from Dunedin on the most gorgeous day. Then we turned west and drove another two hours, watching the mountains get closer and closer. Below is what we saw as we approached the mountains and the lake.
We stayed in a cottage in the small town of Manapouri, right on the edge of Lake Manapouri, the gateway to Doubtful Sound. After we arrived, Dave spent a couple hours doing a lovely painting of the lake.
It stayed clear into the evening, and we had a wonderful time watching the sun set over the lake.
You can hopefully see from the map below the challenge of getting to Doubtful Sound. Manapouri is on the right hand side of the map. From Manapouri, you take a one-hour boat ride across Lake Manapouri. At the west end of the lake there’s a gravel road, marked in red on the map, across Wilmot Pass (about 2,000 feet high) that drops down to Doubtful Sound. The road was built to bring equipment to the power station on the west end of the lake. The turbines and other equipment was brought by boat into Doubtful Sound and then trucked (very slowly) over the slippery, muddy pass. At the east end of Doubtful Sound we got on a boat which took us all the way out to the ocean, the Tasman Sea. We were on the boat about three hours, then took the bus back over the pass to have a tour of the power station and take the boat back across Lake Manapouri.
The boat ride across Lake Manipouri was beautiful because of the clear weather. The lake has quite a few islands in it, and the next few shots show the views from the boat as we crossed the lake.
In that previous photo, you can see Dave with our friend, Steve. Note how Dave is a bit hunched over. It was FREEZING on the outdoor deck of the boat. It was a cold day with a strong wind. Because I get motion sick, I always stay outside on boats. I had on four layers that day and was still chilly, but I was so absorbed in the views that it didn't matter.
The last photo on Lake Manipouri (below) shows the power station at the west end of the lake. In the background are the mountains we would cross in a bus to get to Doubtful Sound. You can see the clouds clustered to the west over Doubtful Sound. Our beautiful clear weather ended here, and the rest of the trip was in clouds. Those mountains in this photo are a rainforest, and we were really lucky on Doubtful Sound because it didn't rain. Doubtful Sound will be in the next post.
This power station is fascinating because it generates hydro power without a dam, probably New Zealand's greatest engineering feat. Holes were drilled through the rock down to the level of Doubtful Sound, which is about 800 feet below the level of the lake. The water flowing downhill to the sound turns 7 huge turbines. This hydro power station was built in the 1960s primarily to power the aluminum smelter near Invercargill, and 85% of its power goes there, providing lots of jobs for the south end of the South Island. There was a huge controversy when the power station was built because some water from nearby rivers has to be diverted into Lake Manapouri to keep the level of the lake high enough.
It stayed clear into the evening, and we had a wonderful time watching the sun set over the lake.
You can hopefully see from the map below the challenge of getting to Doubtful Sound. Manapouri is on the right hand side of the map. From Manapouri, you take a one-hour boat ride across Lake Manapouri. At the west end of the lake there’s a gravel road, marked in red on the map, across Wilmot Pass (about 2,000 feet high) that drops down to Doubtful Sound. The road was built to bring equipment to the power station on the west end of the lake. The turbines and other equipment was brought by boat into Doubtful Sound and then trucked (very slowly) over the slippery, muddy pass. At the east end of Doubtful Sound we got on a boat which took us all the way out to the ocean, the Tasman Sea. We were on the boat about three hours, then took the bus back over the pass to have a tour of the power station and take the boat back across Lake Manapouri.
The boat ride across Lake Manipouri was beautiful because of the clear weather. The lake has quite a few islands in it, and the next few shots show the views from the boat as we crossed the lake.
In that previous photo, you can see Dave with our friend, Steve. Note how Dave is a bit hunched over. It was FREEZING on the outdoor deck of the boat. It was a cold day with a strong wind. Because I get motion sick, I always stay outside on boats. I had on four layers that day and was still chilly, but I was so absorbed in the views that it didn't matter.
The last photo on Lake Manipouri (below) shows the power station at the west end of the lake. In the background are the mountains we would cross in a bus to get to Doubtful Sound. You can see the clouds clustered to the west over Doubtful Sound. Our beautiful clear weather ended here, and the rest of the trip was in clouds. Those mountains in this photo are a rainforest, and we were really lucky on Doubtful Sound because it didn't rain. Doubtful Sound will be in the next post.
This power station is fascinating because it generates hydro power without a dam, probably New Zealand's greatest engineering feat. Holes were drilled through the rock down to the level of Doubtful Sound, which is about 800 feet below the level of the lake. The water flowing downhill to the sound turns 7 huge turbines. This hydro power station was built in the 1960s primarily to power the aluminum smelter near Invercargill, and 85% of its power goes there, providing lots of jobs for the south end of the South Island. There was a huge controversy when the power station was built because some water from nearby rivers has to be diverted into Lake Manapouri to keep the level of the lake high enough.Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Yellow fields
We spent the weekend in Timaru, about two and a half hours north of Dunedin, because I was leading a seminar there. Timaru is close to the southern end of the Canterbury Plain, a wide plain that stretches north and south of Christchurch. We loved the fields of rapeseed in bloom after we reached the Canterbury plain. The first photo loooks west towards the mountains, and the second photo looks east to the sea. The sea around Timaru is often very turquoise, as you can see in the second photo. It's amazing to me how turquoise the sea can be around New Zealand, even as far south as we are. These photos are taken at the same latitude south as Oregon is north, and there's no turquoise sea by Oregon, at least I've never seen that color sea there. Someone told me the sea is more turquoise in the Southern Hemisphere because the sea is more salt. Most of the rivers that dump fresh water into the ocean are in the Northern Hemisphere, so the sea here is saltier. I wonder if that's the reason.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The monument with a view
Just outside of Dunedin is a World War I monument on top of a hill with an amazing view. I was there a few months ago, without my camera, and Dave went about a month ago on a clear day to take pictures. The monument is on the Otago Peninsula, only ten minutes from the southeast corner of Dunedin. Before I show you the photos, I need to say something about the two world wars and New Zealand.
In both wars, New Zealand lost more soldiers per capita than any other country. Almost every town has a World War I monument. My own father fought in World War II, so I'm used to hearing about that war. Here it goes even deeper than anything I experienced. They lost two generations of leaders, and the people who came home from both wars were, in many cases, deeply scarred. We learned all this after we started asking why there were World War I monuments everywhere.
Now, for the photos. The first photo shows the monument, the path you walk on to get to it, and then in the background you can see the mouth of Otago Harbour to the east.
All the rest of the pictures are taken from the monument itself. This next one looks in the same direction as the previous photo, east toward the mouth of the harbour.
In the next shot, Dave turned a little to the left and is looking to the north. The harbour is very shallow, and you can see the channel that is dredged for boats to use as they come toward Dunedin, which is off to the left. Notice the sun glinting off the water. This photo was taken in the early afternoon, and the sun is to the north. One of the hardest things for me to get used to here has been the noonday sun in the northern sky.
The next photo is yet further left, to the northwest, and you can see part of Dunedin. Our house would be off to the right, outside the picture, behind a hill. And the university, where I teach, is straight ahead on the flat part of town, with downtown Dunedin to the left of the university.
The next photo is a little bit further to the left, looking west to Dunedin. That pointed hill in the background is Saddle Hill. We used to be able to see it from our rental house, which is on the top of that ridge in the foreground in front of Saddle Hill.
Turning further to the left, looking west and a little bit south, the next photo shows a the part of Dunedin that is closest to the beach. In the background you can see the coastline heading further south.
Turning further to the left, and looking south, there's the ocean stretching out toward Antarctica, about 1500 miles away.
A turn to the left again, and you'd be looking back out to the mouth of the Harbour.
In both wars, New Zealand lost more soldiers per capita than any other country. Almost every town has a World War I monument. My own father fought in World War II, so I'm used to hearing about that war. Here it goes even deeper than anything I experienced. They lost two generations of leaders, and the people who came home from both wars were, in many cases, deeply scarred. We learned all this after we started asking why there were World War I monuments everywhere.
Now, for the photos. The first photo shows the monument, the path you walk on to get to it, and then in the background you can see the mouth of Otago Harbour to the east.
All the rest of the pictures are taken from the monument itself. This next one looks in the same direction as the previous photo, east toward the mouth of the harbour.
In the next shot, Dave turned a little to the left and is looking to the north. The harbour is very shallow, and you can see the channel that is dredged for boats to use as they come toward Dunedin, which is off to the left. Notice the sun glinting off the water. This photo was taken in the early afternoon, and the sun is to the north. One of the hardest things for me to get used to here has been the noonday sun in the northern sky.
The next photo is yet further left, to the northwest, and you can see part of Dunedin. Our house would be off to the right, outside the picture, behind a hill. And the university, where I teach, is straight ahead on the flat part of town, with downtown Dunedin to the left of the university.
The next photo is a little bit further to the left, looking west to Dunedin. That pointed hill in the background is Saddle Hill. We used to be able to see it from our rental house, which is on the top of that ridge in the foreground in front of Saddle Hill. 
Turning further to the left, looking west and a little bit south, the next photo shows a the part of Dunedin that is closest to the beach. In the background you can see the coastline heading further south.
Turning further to the left, and looking south, there's the ocean stretching out toward Antarctica, about 1500 miles away.
A turn to the left again, and you'd be looking back out to the mouth of the Harbour.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)