Vacations and interesting work trips
We picked up our sack lunches and boarded the ferry across Lake Manapouri to the power station. There was a light drizzle falling, so most of us stayed inside the ferry, going out only for pictures. We got to the other side of the lake, climbed into a bus, and took a short trip down inside a huge, solid granite mountain, where somebody decided to put a power station. The tunnel we drove down was a 2Km long spiral that ended 200 meters below the surface of the lake.
We started up towards Arrowtown, which is a small, rural, ex-ghost town which now caters to tourists. It wasn’t too big, or too interesting, so we did a tramp up to a monument on a hill, and through an early-day graveyard.
We finished up and headed south on highway 6 through Greymouth (the Jade River) to Mokitika.
We followed the Wairau River about 100Km to St. Arnaud, which is a beautiful little chapel on the edge of a beautiful mountain lake. We’re now only 100Km from semi-arid desert, and have huge snow-covered peaks in the background. Exactly like a trip from the high-desert in Nevada into the Eastern Sierras. Next we picked up the Buller River, heading due west, over to a quick diversion down to Lake Rotoroa (not Rotorua). Another beautiful high mountain lake similar to Lake Arnaud.
South Island, New Zealand: We spent three hours working our way southwest to Picton, in medium to small seas, still facing a few squalls.
We went through Waiouru, which is a big military base in NZ, past more planted forests, row by row, mile by mile. We worked our way down to Palmerston North (there is no other Palmerston in New Zealand), and then east to what was supposed to be a beautiful drive through Manawatu Gorge.
We headed back towards Rotorua to the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute for a show and some Maori background, along with geysers, mud-pools, and other smelly vents. The Maori name for this place started with Te Whakarewarewa and went for at least 20 more characters.
We continued south back past Auckland, in the land of pronounceable places, through Hamilton, Cambridge and finally to a crater lake called Rotorua.
We worked our way north through towns that all sounded a little strange. They started normal enough: Albany, Dairy Flat, Silverdale; but then things got weird. A sign for Whangaparaoa, towns like Orewa, Waiwera, Kaiwaka, Waipu and Whangarei.
We drove across the harbor bridge, and went up to North Head, which is a point in the harbor that is infested with old tunnels and gun batteries. It was fascinating trying to imagine what life must have been like during World War II down here. We stopped for lunch at a little sidewalk fish-n-chips place, and had a HUGE plate of very tasty, cholesterol-forming, artery blocking food.
