Choc-o-holics

2015-03-17

Tuesday was chocolate day.  Cadbury chocolate has a large factory in Dunedin and we took the grand tour.  There were lots of samples along the way and the kids were happy that I no longer eat dairy.  They got to split my samples.

Bellies full of chocolate

Mt. Crunchy Bar

Cadbury Easter Bunny

After the chocolate factory we visited the Otago museum which has some nice historical displays.  I was particularly interested in the history of the Union Steamship Company.  It was the largest civilian employer in New Zealand during its heyday.  The company ran a popular overnight ferry service between Wellington and Christchurch and had ships crisscrossing the Pacific with passengers and cargo.  The company was founded in 1875 and ceased operations in 1999.

Playing turtle in the Otago museum

Ringing the ship's bell

Dunedin is home to the steepest residential street in the world, Baldwin Street.  The kids wanted badly to see it and after a couple minutes thought, we took the car to the top.  It is, in fact, very steep.  I wouldn't want to live at the top.  Your soccer ball would never stop if it got into the street.

The base of Baldwin street

At the top

And back down

Our last stop for the day was the Dunedin train station.  The architecture is beautiful and it really jumps out at you as you drive around downtown.

Steven on the platform

Dunedin train station

Ticket lobby

Balcony of the lobby

Front of the train station

Pre-dinner entertainment

Queenstown to Dunedin

2015-03-16

Monday morning we packed up and headed southwest for our next stop, Dunedin.  We took a quick stop in Arrowtown to take a peek at an old Chinese mining village.  The Chinese were all over the world in the 19th century doing all sorts of labor intensive tasks.  I remember reading about their exploits building the transcontinental railroad in the US.

Quick stop in Arrowtonw

Downtown Arrowtown. Looks like a Colorado mining town

On our way to Dunedin, we passed the Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge where AJ Hackett started his commercial bungee jumping empire.  We haven't screwed up the courage to try our hand at bungee jumping yet.

Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge

Dunedin is a pleasant college town with beautiful architecture and a large, sheltered harbor.  We'd heard good things about the Speight's Brewery tour, so we took the tour in the afternoon after we arrived.  Speight's is strictly a South Island product and their marketing is directed squarely at the 'southern man' mystique.  The brewery owns downtown hotels in a number of southern cities and an ale house in most of the rest.  The water for the brewery comes from a deep spring on the premises and they have a free public tap near the entrance. You can take as much water as you like, but cash donations are accepted and distributed to charity.  We filled our bottles before we left town.

Cooper display at Speights

Looking across some of Speight's holdings in Dunedin

Enjoying some refreshments after the tour

Settling down for the evening with a deck of cards

LOTR and para-gliding

2015-03-15

On Sunday, we jumped on a Lord of the Rings tour around Queenstown.  We dropped in on several locations where the films were made and took some photos.  The scenery was really pretty, but the film sites were anti-climactic. Hobbiton was good fun because the set is still in place, but at most of the locations we saw in Queenstown, the set was long gone (or there never was one) and it's just a
bare patch of ground.  You really need stills from the movie to correlate with where you are standing.

Early morning on Lake Wakatipu

"Frodo and Sam stood RIGHT HERE"

Peter Jackson has a house on the hill in the distance

A spot from Fellowship of the Ring

Back to the van

The head of Lake Wakatipu

Striking beauty of the southern lakes

Several of our stops were near a small village called Glenorchy.  Glenorchy is where Queenstowners go to get away for the hustle and bustle.  It's a pleasant little place surrounded by beautiful mountains and almost no cell phone coverage.  We had our tea beside a nice mountain stream.

Glenorchy Library

Chucking rocks

Tea is ready

A nice view of the stream

One of the Hobbit films was shot in this valley

The kids are smiling because the tour is over

We poked around for something to do in the afternoon and settled on para-gliding for the kiddos.  They were chuffed, as the Kiwis say.  The boys and I took the gondola, a ski lift and then hiked about 10 minutes further uphill to get to the launch site.  Laura stayed down in the city to watch them land and I made my way back down after both boys launched.  The excitement continued long after the
flight and we listened attentively as stories of their flights were told and retold.

Headed up the gondola

A little apprehensive about the upcoming flight

Getting suited up

Steven base to final

Jack almost down

BIG smile

TSS Enslaw turning into the dock

Nothing like pizza to finish off the day

Queenstown and TSS Enslaw

2015-03-14

We spent our weekend in beautiful Queenstown, a city of roughly 30000 friendly folk.  Queenstown sits on the northern shore and near the middle of Lake Wakatipu.  We had picnic dinner on the lake shore on our way to Te Anau and it was nice to get back to the beautiful Southern Lakes District.

Celebrating Pi Day

Jack contemplating his future

Taking in some local rugby

Queenstown hit it big during the gold rush years in the 1860s and there are large sheep stations in the hills around the lake.  Our first day in town, we took a cruise on Lake Wakatipu on a very old ship, the TSS Enslaw.  The Enslaw was built in Dunedin in 1912, disassembled after completion and shipped to Queenstown.  Once there, it was reassembled and put into service on Lake Wakatipu as a passenger and cargo boat where it has remained for 103 years.

Port engine of the Enslaw

One reason we don't burn coal much anymore

The acronym TSS stands for 'twin screw steamer' and it still plies the lake under the power of its original coal fired steam engines.  It was a pleasant 45 minute cruise up the lake to a sheep station where we saw working sheep dogs, some interesting livestock and watched a shearing.  The return trip to Queenstown was just as nice and it was fascinating to watch the crew stoke and
operate the steam engines.

Scottish Highland bull

Feeding the sheepies

Lake Wakatipu from the sheep station

Heading back to Queenstown

Stewart Island

2015-03-13

For our last day in the Southland region, we took an hour ferry across Foveaux
Strait to Stewart Island.  Stewart is the southernmost island in New Zealand
with full-time residents and the small town of Oban is a fishing village with
about 400 residents.  The rest of the island is taken up by Raikura National
park.

Waiting on the movie, stealing popcorn

Oban theatre

Observation Rock

Turns out, there isn't much to see on Stewart unless you want to go tramping.
The kids weren't particularly excited about a walk this day and it was cold and
rainy to boot.  We did catch a locally produced short movie describing some
history of the island.  The star and "narrator" of the movie was a dog, Lola and
we got to meet her after the screening.  After the movie, we grabbed some
photos, some lunch and dropped into the park visitor center to get out of the
rain.

The kids will go no farther

Jack hamming it up in front of the market

Oban

Getting off the ferry from the return trip, we drove to the end of State Highway
1 for the obligatory photo under the signpost.  We've now seen both ends of New
Zealand (and Highway 1).  Unfortunately, I can't put my hands on the photo we
took under the signpost in Bluff.  Ah well, another time.