Taieri Gorge

Today we took the Taieri Gorge train tour up into the mountains just west of Dunedin. It was a beautiful ride. Large Stands of manuka (a tall, white-barked, broccoli-shaped tree) darkened the steep hillsides through this watershed that sees little human activity save for the diesel engine and its refurbished nineteenth-century carriages. Oh, and there were sheep. There are sheep everywhere in New Zealand. The destination of the train ride was a small town called Middlemarch--it was a quaint little place that reminded me a little of the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge only in the matter that you start in town and end up in the middle of nowhere and see lots of beautiful scenery that you can’t see by car. Except here there’s no soot so it’s a bit more pleasant.

The railway dates back to the days of the gold rush—1840-1860. Strange that a phrase I have come to believe is unique to the American West, “The Gold Rush,” also applies to a crown colony in the South Pacific. Was the rush for gold a world-wide phenomenon in the mid-1800s? Or at least widespread among the crown (and one ex-crown) countries?

NEW: I just put up the first photo album of our journey. I got a little carried away with the rose garden at the Botanical Gardens so you can skip through some of those if need be. I tried to at least label them in general so that you don’t have to go through a bunch of pictures that mean nothing to you all but we know all about- and feel free to e-mail questions, comments etc. Also, I reduced the resolution for ease of upload but this means (a-hem, mom) if you try to print them out they won’t print too well or they’ll print really small.

So, enjoy and I wish you all a good weekend! We’re off to see penguins, albatross(es?) and other wildlife inhabitants of the Peninsula tomorrow and then Sunday will be low key before Emrys has to go to class on Monday. Irony of ironies, we come all the way out here and his first prof is from Princeton. Oh well!