I hope Neil Young will remember
Feb. 22nd, 2009 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaNot much to say for this update. We haven't seen the sun since Te Anu; we took a huge double-decker Intercity bus to Dunedin (passing along the Presidential Highway between the towns of Gore and Clinton, I kid you not!) in fog and clouds, and got to explore Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula in weather that ranged from overcast through drizzle to downpour, with bonus wind.
Dunedin is an interesting city built on hills, with no compromise with the streets which go straight up and straight down. Lots of huge brick buildings and Victorian mansions; it reminded us perhaps of Portland, Maine, or some Northeastern coastal city. It's the home of Speight's beer, which has been our favorite commercial brew here, so we took a brewery tour. The tour was a little light on actual information (and only a half-hour for tasting, woe!) and heavy on the video presentations of Speight's commercials (featuring a pair of cowboy types in long duster coats, and after they showed up a few times, Britt whispered to me, "It's Dusty and Lefty!" [a Prairie Home Companion reference]), but it was interesting in that it clarified for me an interesting linguistic oddity. Well, not so much linguistic as regional connotation; see, Speight's advertises itself as being for "Southern Men" (and presumably Southern Women), and being an American I have a certain image in my mind when I read those words - which is not at all the image in the Kiwi mind. "Southern" here connotes cowboys and mountains and snowy fields and cold weather, sort of a Wyoming-Montana-Marlboro Man kind of thing, and it's just a weird dissonance for me.
We picked up a rental car and drove around the Otago Peninsula, but did very little hiking (although did get to the spectacular Sandymount Lover's Leap, wow!) because POURING RAIN. We saw the albatrosses soaring over Taiaroa Head, but passed on hiking down to the penguin beach, because POURING RAIN.
We drove out to Oamaru, which was absolutely Maine, very nifty artsy town with a historic district consisting of Victorian-era limestone buildings, made from locally quarried stuff, very beautiful and impressive and entirely unlike anything else in NZ. Although it was POURING RAIN we enjoyed walking around and watching a limestone sculptor at work.
Today we arrived in Lake Tekapo, and it's beginning to clear a little, and maybe we'll have nice weather for our Ball Pass trek. Cross your fingers for us!
16 photos from Dunedin, the Otago Peninsula, and Oamaru on our Flickr page.
Dunedin is an interesting city built on hills, with no compromise with the streets which go straight up and straight down. Lots of huge brick buildings and Victorian mansions; it reminded us perhaps of Portland, Maine, or some Northeastern coastal city. It's the home of Speight's beer, which has been our favorite commercial brew here, so we took a brewery tour. The tour was a little light on actual information (and only a half-hour for tasting, woe!) and heavy on the video presentations of Speight's commercials (featuring a pair of cowboy types in long duster coats, and after they showed up a few times, Britt whispered to me, "It's Dusty and Lefty!" [a Prairie Home Companion reference]), but it was interesting in that it clarified for me an interesting linguistic oddity. Well, not so much linguistic as regional connotation; see, Speight's advertises itself as being for "Southern Men" (and presumably Southern Women), and being an American I have a certain image in my mind when I read those words - which is not at all the image in the Kiwi mind. "Southern" here connotes cowboys and mountains and snowy fields and cold weather, sort of a Wyoming-Montana-Marlboro Man kind of thing, and it's just a weird dissonance for me.
We picked up a rental car and drove around the Otago Peninsula, but did very little hiking (although did get to the spectacular Sandymount Lover's Leap, wow!) because POURING RAIN. We saw the albatrosses soaring over Taiaroa Head, but passed on hiking down to the penguin beach, because POURING RAIN.
We drove out to Oamaru, which was absolutely Maine, very nifty artsy town with a historic district consisting of Victorian-era limestone buildings, made from locally quarried stuff, very beautiful and impressive and entirely unlike anything else in NZ. Although it was POURING RAIN we enjoyed walking around and watching a limestone sculptor at work.
Today we arrived in Lake Tekapo, and it's beginning to clear a little, and maybe we'll have nice weather for our Ball Pass trek. Cross your fingers for us!
16 photos from Dunedin, the Otago Peninsula, and Oamaru on our Flickr page.