Today we took a trip out to Arrowtown. It is a picturesque mining town about a half hour bus ride from Queenstown.
Rod did an orientation walk, and then Lynn (who leads Chinatown Tours in San Francisco and worked the Immigration Station on Angel Island) headed over to what had been the Chinese portion of the town (basically gone now).
One thing that was different than the San Francisco Chinese “experience” is that there wasn’t violence against the people – though there was just as much prejudice.
Chinese men from Guangdong (formerly Canton) had come out to work in the gold fields. Once the gold petered out, they turned into the main farmers for the area, and faced a lot less prejudice because the “white folk” didn’t consider them to be competition.
Lynn had been looking for “just the right” pounamu necklace. Part of what I’ve done is scout out different shops while she’s been doing something else. I found three in Arrowtown, but one had great promise. And – yay! – she found a wonderful one. I found one too. Can you see me shaking my head at myself?
After the shopping, we headed to the “bakery on the corner” for hand pies. Lynn got a spicy chicken (which was very spicy) – I got a steak and mushroom. They were DE-licious!
We took them to The Winery, not knowing that they had cheese boards and tapas . . . but they let us sit outside and eat our pies with their wine! It was a gorgeous day so that was great.
The Winery is a genius idea. You turn in your credit card, and they give you a card with a chip in it. You insert the chip above a bottle of wine that you want to try, and choose if you want a “tasting pour,” a “half pour,” or a “full pour.” I tried out a tasting pour for a few reds (one a different Bordeaux blend from my New Favorite Winery, Man O’War!). When it was getting close to the time to catch the bus back to Queenstown, I spied an Arrowtown “dessert wine” made from quince in the “whisky room” that contained a good 15 whiskies, a gin, and a few dessert wines “on tap.”
The “Broken Heart” (quince liqueur) smelled like honey and cinnamon (very “Christmassy”), but upon sipping it was not the super sweet, viscous wine that I was expecting. It was definitely “on the sweet side,” but it had a dry finish. It tasted of sort of an apple/pear/tropical combination – delicious! If I had an extra pound in my luggage and a way to wrap it, I was tempted to bring a bottle home. It was so different. But in reality, Herbert was the one who loved dessert wines, and I’m not sure I would actually open it. I can definitely recommend though if you like something other than your standard port or madeira after a meal.
I’ll just add a quick note about the space-age public toilets in Arrowtown. You press a button to be let in, and it not only talks to you, but everything is automated inside. The funniest part? You’re locked in, until you washed your hands OR wait 10 minutes!! (I imagine that any “non-hand-washers” might just have done it to get let out!)
Tonight we go on the steamer Earnslaw (mentioned in the previous post). It will take us to a dinner on the other side of the lake, at a large sheep station. It’s our Farewell Dinner, as five of our “merry band” are heading off. The rest of us will be heading to the Bay of Islands, including glowworms, some other things Rod mentioned and – of course – the Hundertwasser Toilets!!!!!
UPDATE: The steamer was great – Don went down and talked with the engineer, who was ecstatic to talk to someone who could really appreciate the “workings” of what he did. Don took the photo and video below. You can see the feet of the guy who is shoveling coal in the still photo! I’ll also include a photo of the sheep station from the boat.
After a delicious dinner, we had a “farm demonstration” from the shepherd. She ran her “eye dogs” (border collies), and her huntaway for us. Her huntaway was part Labrador, part English pointer, and part “barky dog.” Yes, a mélange! The shepherd said that she was the “ideal dog” because she could be taken hunting and used as a huntaway to drive the sheep.
Rabbits have overrun the South Island as pests, so they are hunted, as are some of the other “varmints” like possum and stoats. When she takes her dog out for hunting, the lab and pointer kicks in – silent, plus helps to point out the game and fetch it back! When she is running sheep, the “barky dog” comes out, and the dog works to move the sheep by barking at them from behind (I talked about this more in depth on the post where we met with Chris the shepherd up North). Very versatile and useful dog!
We were in an open amphitheater for the demonstration, which is quite cold. We all thought we were just going to the dinner inside, so were not prepared for the “nip” outside! Gluten-free Marilyn and Jan – both of whom were raised on farms – stayed in the lounge of the restaurant, because they said “they knew” what “farming was all about” and “it’s just cold and miserable to do this after dinner in the dark.” It led to a very funny interchange – they said that “Farm” was a “4 letter word that started with F” to which Lynn and I said we would try to replace our “usual” “4 letter word that started with F” with it. As in “It’s farming cold out there!” “What the farm is going on?” (Reminds me of when Herbert was watching Battlestar Galactica and replaced that “4 letter F word” with “Frack,” their made-up swear word of the same usage!)
We got back to the hotel, and had some hugs and farewells to the five that are not going to the Bay of Islands. Gluten free Marilyn gave me the sweetest thank you card for making her the hat! I hope that I can stay in touch with her and Jan. They travel together a lot and are really great. It might be fun to try to be on a new trip with them. Actually everyone was really super. I think that Jim and Marilyn, and Don, are going in June on a trip that includes Paris and Italy. It got us into a discussion of whether the part of Notre Dame that is being touted as “to be open” for the Olympics (in July/August of next year) will really make it. I watched a fascinating documentary on everything that they’re doing to fix it. Jim said no way would it be open at all – I just said that the “plan” was to have the apse open – we’ll see!
I’ve been hearing about the potentiality of the House ReTrumplicans holding the government funding hostage, which would lead to a government shut down back home, which could lead to flight cancellations. I’m hoping that won’t be the case for us, as we go straight from Auckland to San Francisco. If we had had a stop in LAX (like on the way out), I think we might be more likely to run into trouble. However, we received the following this morning:
Good morning all: At 4.04am this morning I received notification that our Flt NZ614 to Auckland was cancelled. The only alternative for us was NZ616 departing Queenstown at 11.55 am a delay of 2.15hrs. We will now depart the hotel for the airport at 9.45am so please have a long breakfast and suitcases out at at 9.00am for the porter. This will impact my plan for the day however don’t worry I’m working on another plan. So sorry about this. Rod
We were already up early to get our bags out for the flight we thought that we were going to be on, so didn’t quite get the extra sleep we might have, but at least I got a bit more time to update the blog! With that said – here’s hoping that’s our only “hiccup” and everything else goes perfectly!
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