Daily Photo – Small Huts, Harsh Lives & Arrowtown’s Chinese Settlement
I went to the historic Chinese Settlement in Arrowtown. It was early, and I expected it to be busy, but it wasn’t. I had the whole place to myself, which was a lovely surprise. I spent the time, as I often do in these situations, imagining that I had to pick one to live in. It was a hard choice, and even harder to imagine living in one through a Central Otago winter.
It would have been a gruelling test of endurance. These small, windowless dwellings offered little insulation against the biting frost and snow, relying on a small hearth for both warmth and cooking. The cramped space would have been damp and dimly lit, making for a lonely existence during the long, freezing nights. If anything, it speaks volumes about their character, even more so when combined with the harsh treatment they received from the wider community.
The hypocrisy of the European miners, particularly those who had arrived from the Victorian goldfields, was quite something to behold. On the one hand, many communities viewed the Chinese miners as “aliens”, fearing that if they were not Christianised, they would somehow become an “evil” influence, tainting the region. Furthermore, their preference for congregating in gambling houses or opium dens was heavily frowned upon.
However, when one compares these relatively unobtrusive vices to the behaviour of many Europeans, whose daily exhibitions in grog tents, street brawling, pothouse pugilism, and general public lewdness were common occurrences, it becomes clear there were much larger social issues to worry about than a few gambling debts and the odd smoking pipe.
Daily Photo – Autumn in Arrowtown’s Historic Chinese Settlement
In 1865, when the initial excitement of the Otago Gold rush had settled and many of the miners had drifted to other gold fields, the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce decided that they wanted to keep the economy going. To do this they invited Chinese miners to the region. For many of the invited miners, the plan was simple. Spend a few years finding gold and send the money home before returning themselves. So it was that by the mid-1860’s the first of the recruited Chinese miners reached the Otago goldfields, yet what they found was not what they expected. Upon arrival they discovered they weren’t allowed to have new claims of their own and instead were told they had to pickover the abandoned European claims. Within a few years, thousands of Chinese miners could be found on the goldfields – spread throughout Central Otago and one of these locations was Arrowtown. It’s a sad tale really because many of the miners never made anywhere near enough money to send home. In fact, many of them never made it home. Penniless and persecuted by many of the Europeans, a large number of those who were invited to the Otago goldfields never saw their families again.
I visited the Arrowtown Chinese Settlement in the full throws of an autumn blanket. Not being allowed to settle in the main village, the Chinese community set up homes and market gardens on the outskirts of the town beside the river. Now, not more than a 5 minute walk from the town’s main street, the historic village and surrounding tracks twist and turn through trees, past streams and the nearby Arrow River. It really is quite special.
Daily Photo – Navigating Te Komititanga Square in the Rain
To escape the heavy rain, I’d been at the New Zealand Maritime Museum in Auckland, located adjacent to the Viaduct Basin, and I was now heading back to my hotel. As the rain continued to fall, I came across Te Komititanga square where, among other things, stands the grand and ornate former Chief Post Office.
The building operates as a train station servicing the greater Auckland area, but it began life as one of the most important buildings in the country when it was officially opened in 1912 by then Prime Minister William Massey in front of a crowd of 8,000–10,000 people. The fact that it was located next to the harbour ferries, railway station, tram terminus, and commercial wharves shows just how important the postal service was at that time.
I’d read that it was recently transformed to service part of the Auckland train network; inside, you can see the original century-old stained-glass domes along with a massive 14-metre-long hand-blown glass chandelier that hangs in the main space, which really is quite impressive. The area immediately outside the building has been turned into a large pedestrian plaza that acts as a connection to the city, as people come and go from the station and head into the city and surrounding business and shopping areas or link up with the ferry terminals at the nearby wharves.
It also acts as a spot where you can take photos while standing in the rain, getting odd looks from people as you get extremely wet and then re-orient yourself to work out in what direction your hotel might be!
For those of you who like precise detail, this photo was taken at 7:09am on a Thursday morning with my iPhone. If you’re after something a bit more historical, I can tell you it was taken from the very spot where a helipad sits, which used to be the location of a hovercraft that ran tours of Otago Harbour. Go back a further and you’ll find a ferry passing not too far from this exact point. Finally, if you were hoping for something a bit more poetic, I’ll leave you with Dylan Thomas: “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”
As I dived further into the unknown and further away from my area of expertise, I tried to stay ahead of a large gaggle of ladies at the Melbourne Diva exhibition. Before I stepped out of the building and back into a familiar world, the last display was this one and thanks to the information card I can tell you all about it.
In 2007, at age 70, Dame Shirley Bassey played a 45-minute set at the Glastonbury Festival in Britain, wearing this pink dress designed by Julien Macdonald and diamanté wellingtons as she performed some of her classic hits.
Daily Photo – Sky Reflection along the Silver Stream
It was one of those quiet, midweek afternoons with nothing much out of the ordinary happening, and I found myself near the Silver Stream River, which flows close to the suburb, or town, of Mosgiel. I parked the car and set off along a path that followed the river with an easy sort of confidence. In the still of the afternoon, the sky reflected in the river as it gently ambled past lush paddocks, farm machinery, and the Maungatua Range in the distance.
Now and then I’d cross paths with another person out for a wander, and we’d swap a “hello” before continuing on our separate ways. Aside from that, it was just me and the quiet, taking it all in. I kept moving, occasionally stopping for a closer look at something that caught my eye, or for the odd short conversation along the way. It was an unhurried sort of stroll, the kind that doesn’t demand much from you at all. In time, though, the daylight started to slip away, and I figured it was probably wise to turn around and work my way back to the car.
I ended up at Nicols Creek Waterfall without much of a plan, which is usually how these things happen. The track felt longer and steeper than expected, damp underfoot and just uneven enough to keep you paying attention. When the waterfall finally showed itself, it was a narrow ribbon dropping through thick green bush. Everything around it felt dense and slightly overgrown, like it had been left alone for a while. I stood there for a bit, listening to the water more than looking at it, thinking it was quietly better than the walk in had suggested.
I wandered down to St Clair Salt Water Pool one morning, though I couldn’t tell you which one. It was early enough that no one else, bar the very committed, had bothered yet, aside from a few seagulls who looked far more settled than I was. The light came in low and sideways, catching the railings and making the whole place feel more deliberate than it probably is on a normal day. The sea rolled in gently while the light slowly crept across the water. I stood there longer than expected, thinking it was better than it had any real right to be.
Daily Photo – Dress, coat and mitre worn by Rihanna for the Met Gala, 2018
I’d spent the morning riding free trams and trains across the city of Melbourne and on more than one occasion I’d seen a poster advertising something called the ‘Diva Exhibition’. Not at all sure what it was, I’d discovered through a bit of research that it was a collection of famous dresses and costumes worn by some of the most famous women in the world from throughout history – accompanied with photos and information from their performances. Well, all I can say is that curiosity got the better of me and thinking it might give me an opportunity to play with a few new settings I’d recently discovered on my iPhone camera, I decided to take a look.
Knowing this wasn’t my usual area of expertise, I nervously shuffled in behind a gaggle of ladies and spent the next 45 minutes making my way through a series of darkened rooms feeling quite bewildered. There were names I recognised, like Olivia Newton-John, (featuring a custom-made, rhinestone-clad biker jacket for her “Summer Nights” Las Vegas residency,) and Kylie Minogue, (with the bright red outfit from her Padam Padam video with a skin-tight bodysuit, a flowing cape, and thigh-high boots.) all of which I really didn’t know anything about.
The deeper I went, the more elaborate things became. There were pieces worn by Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Bassey, and Elton John. The names kept coming, from Maria Callas, Judy Garland, Cher and Lady Gaga through to Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Billie Eilish. Without knowing who wore what or why it mattered, I wandered around waiting for large groups of ladies to finish standing in elaborate poses next to each garment before I could read the extremely helpful information boards, which without, I would have been quite lost. For example, without them, I couldn’t tell you that the outfit worn by Rihanna at the 2018 Met Gala was designed by John Galliano for Maison Margiela. It featured layers of fabric, metal, and crystals, all put together with a level of precision and expertise that really was quite startling. What struck me most, beyond the incredibly thin waistlines some of these ladies had, was that I’d never once thought about the meaning behind these outfits. Walking through the exhibition, it became clear that they’re something else entirely: storytelling, identity and statements.
Later on that evening I was to discover that not only are Rihanna and Beyoncé two different people but the outfit Rihanna wore at the 2018 Met Gala was groundbreaking. It challenged symbols of ancient, masculine power and reinterpreted them through the lens of a modern woman and is considered a defining moment. I then typed into Google “What is the Met Gala?”
If you’re familiar with the geographical make-up of Dunedin city, you can probably afford to skip the next few sentences and skim further down the page. For the uninitiated, Mosgiel is a suburb roughly 15 kilometres from the city centre, a place that sits somewhere between suburban living, retirement homes and a country town. It was here that I found myself on an idle Tuesday evening.
I can’t say I’ve spent much time in Mosgiel, apart from the occasional visit to the rugby ground or a quick stop at the supermarket or takeaway, so I decided to take a stroll along the Silver Stream. It was autumn, and over the previous few days the afternoons had taken on a noticeable chill as the light lingered into the evening – perfect walking weather.
If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s Silver Stream walk that’s classified as “hard”, described as covering rough, uneven ground with partly cleared vegetation, the odd marker to guide the way, and short stretches where the track becomes steep. As I wasn’t evening adventurous, on this occasion, I opted for something far more sedate, a gentle walk along the floodbank on the edge of town. Having identified a likely starting point, I parked the car and set off along a path that followed the river with an easy sort of confidence.
Every so often I passed a fellow walker and we’d exchange a casual “hello”, but otherwise I was left to quietly take in the surroundings. Lush paddocks stretched out on either side, farm machinery sat idle in the distance, and beyond it all rose the outline of the Maungatua Range. I walked on and on, sometimes stopping to look more closely at something, sometimes pausing for a brief chat. It really was a most pleasant sort of walk, the kind that asks very little of you. Eventually, though, the light began to fade and it became time to retrace my steps and remember the way back to the car.
I stopped in Alexandra long enough to grab some lunch and pay a small fortune for a tank of petrol. From there I headed towards Clyde, where I had planned to eat while taking in the view from a hillside lookout. The road slipped quietly out of town, passing row upon row of dark green conifers before giving way to farmland, with timber post-and-rail fences running alongside the road. Then came the scattered piles of schist, tussock, and dry grasses that define so much of the landscape in this part of the country. Beyond them,fruit trees carried their autumn colours, oranges and golds dominating the palette. All around, the hills, rocky and sun-bleached, rolled off into the distance. I stood at the Clyde Lookout and ate my lunch, taking in a view that stretched far beyond me as the mid-morning sun settled into the autumn day.
I arrived at Queenstown Airport realizing I knew neither my flight number nor the address of where I was staying – both of which, I decided, might be useful pieces of information to know.
The growth of Queenstown Airport truly is staggering. Back in 2010, around 250 planes a week arrived and departed, connecting to hubs like Auckland, Christchurch, and Sydney. Now, 16 years later, it handles upwards of 450 flights a week and has become a major gateway for Australian destinations, including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast. The transformation is immense: the airport went from handling roughly 880,000 passengers in 2010 to over 2.7 million by the start of 2026.
As impressive as those numbers are, the reality is that all those passengers need to go somewhere. More often than not, they head straight into Queenstown expecting a hotel room overlooking Lake Wakatipu, ideally within a short walk of the local bars and restaurants. Consequently, the town has become overpriced, a nightmare to navigate, and nearly impossible for finding a parking spot. Turn up on an idle Saturday afternoon with the intention of having a casual wander and doing a little shopping, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
I don’t mean to be hard on the place; it’s just that, as a town, it could be so much more. But then, you look up. You catch the sun hitting the Remarkables or the deep turquoise of the lake, and suddenly the traffic and the crowds don’t seem to matter as much. For all its growing pains, the scenery really is quite spectacular.
Daily Photo – Navigating Albert Street in Auckland
In the morning I felt like going somewhere indoors, a museum perhaps, or anything with a roof for that matter. It was still raining, and the drenching I had received the previous day had left me with a limited selection of dry clothing. What I had on felt like an asset worth protecting. I went into the Strand Arcade, tucked between Queen and Elliott Street in central Auckland. It was long and thin, with polished tiled floors, narrow shopfronts pressed close on either side, and a high glass ceiling from which banners and an old-fashioned lift hung. The place carried the feeling of a slightly faded but dignified slice of a bygone era. I ambled around slowly for a while, but with nothing to hold my interest, I headed back out onto Queen Street, which, frankly, was a disappointment.
There was a time when Queen Street was the place to be, the social and commercial spine of the city. If anything was happening, it was happening here. Heavy traffic flowed past crowded footpaths, and the street carried an energy that is now difficult to imagine. These days, the crowds have drifted elsewhere. The pull of the suburbs and their sprawling malls has drawn people away from the city centre, leaving behind stretches of empty pavement, buildings sitting idle, and a place that feels in need of a good spruce-up. Perhaps it was the rain, but there was a sense of something slipping, quietly but steadily, into decline. I kept walking until I reached the Viaduct Basin, and the contrast was immediate. Here, the city felt awake again. There was movement, noise, and a sense of purpose. Cafés and bars hummed with activity, and people hurried along the waterfront in small groups, trying to avoid puddles and the bursts of sea spray whipped up by the wind. I carried on until I found myself outside the Maritime Museum at the Viaduct Basin and decided to take a look. This was not born of any deep passion for sailing, but rather a practical need for shelter. I spent several hours wandering through the exhibits, leaving a faint trail of small puddles wherever I went.
When it came time to leave, I stood in the foyer, watching the rain bounce off the pavement. Just as I was considering my next move, I noticed the café was open, so I decided to linger a while longer, sitting by the window, sipping coffee, and watching the rain strike the glass as if it were being sprayed from a garden hose.
I stood in the museum foyer near the entrance, watching the rain bounce off the pavement and wondered what to do. The wind rocketed off the harbour and swirled between the buildings, driving the rain at odd and unexpected angles. Along the footpaths and streets, it had gathered where the gutters were blocked, forming large puddles that stretched across everything, creating a kind of liquid obstacle course that I was now faced with. Looking out into the damp, windblown murk that hid the city, I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t put it off any longer. I zipped up my vest, took a deep breath, stepped out into the watery chaos, then sprinted across the street to the first covered shopfront I could find.
From there, I spotted the next dry patch and made a dash for it, stopping briefly to reassess. I continued this zigzagging pattern up the street for some time, pausing at traffic lights where heavy traffic sped through puddles, sending sheets of water onto the footpath, right where I stood.
After several minutes of this, I came to a large, busy intersection. On the opposite corner, diagonally across from me, stood St Matthew’s Church, which just happened to be open. I dashed across and ducked inside, not for any religious purpose, but simply because it was open, it was free, and it gave me a chance to dry off before continuing my slow assault up the street.
Daily Photo – The Impressive Colours of Lake Tekapo
Here’s a statistic for you: Lake Tekapo is roughly 83 square kilometres in size. I know this because I read it. Although I can’t remember where. While I was checking to see if this was correct, I also discovered that it sits at an elevation of approximately 710 metres above sea level and reaches a depth of close to 120 metres. Although that is not what it is most famous for, its most legendary feature is the famous turquoise-blue water. This is thanks to the nearby Southern Alps.
When summer hits, the meltwater flows into the lake, carrying with it billions of particles of this glacial flour. Along the way, these particles remain suspended in the water until it reaches the lake. Then physics takes over. These suspended particles absorb the drab, boring, sensible colours of the spectrum and scatter colourful blues and greens with great neon enthusiasm. The result is a body of water that looks less like a natural feature and more like someone has accidentally emptied several thousand gallons of Gatorade into a mountain basin. It is a shade of turquoise so vivid and startling that your brain almost refuses to accept it as a legitimate colour of nature.
Nature of course is always subject to change, and this scientific process is entirely dependent on the season. In summer, when the glaciers are feeling particularly productive, the lake’s colourful display is more intense. When the mountain runoff slows in winter to a trickle, the water clears into a more traditional blue.
All of this is rather clever really. It’s the sort of grand geological overachievement that makes you feel deeply impressed that nature has found a way to make a physics lesson look so much like a postcard.
If there’s one thing to be said for modern buildings, it’s that they are incredibly interesting to photograph. You can always find an odd angle or a strange arrangement of glass or tiles that sticks out in an altogether unexpected way and gives your photo a bit of intrigue.
I mention this because one of the newer buildings in Dunedin is done in a style I like to call pointy and angular, and it’s a perfect example of what happens when architects are given a ruler, a lot of money, and a lot of confidence.
I stood across the street for a moment, trying to make sense of it. From one angle it looked sharp and deliberate. From another, it felt like it couldn’t quite agree with itself. The light didn’t help much either. It caught one edge, missed another, and reflected everything except what I was actually trying to photograph. Still, I took a few photos. Modern buildings, if nothing else, always give you something to work with, even if you’re not entirely sure what that something is.
I left the market and caught a tram into the heart of Melbourne’s CBD. After a short journey I alighted at a stop that read “Bourke Street Mall” and walked a block or two until I found myself outside St Paul’s Cathedral on what was called Swanson Street.
It was then that I suddenly realized I was rather hungry and so went looking for a place to eat – a job that you might expect to be relatively easy in a place widely considered the culinary capital of Australia. But that’s the thing about Melbourne: the city wants you to eat out as soon as you get there, launching an assault on your senses that only the very strongest of wills can resist. This is due in no small part to the fact that the city is home to more than 3,500 restaurants and cafes serving cuisines from over 70 different countries. Take Lygon Street in Carlton as an example; this “Little Italy” precinct boasts approximately 100 restaurants, cafes, and bars alone – and that’s just one street.
Consequently, choosing a place to eat becomes insanely difficult, mainly owing to the fact that there are so many options. Give me a choice between seafood and Italian and I can usually manage, add Indian, Chinese, Greek and a range of Lebanese and Asian influences to the mix and things start to get complicated. But multiply those choices by a thousand and you have a situation that is frankly alarming.
Walk down any central Melbourne street and you’ll find long queues to establishments that are now city institutions. But that doesn’t matter because you can always duck down an alleyway or side street and find a cafe that is impossibly small and roughly the same size as your living room, squeezed between two equally small eateries that nevertheless welcome you like a long lost friend, which is what I did now.
From Swanson Street I turned into Flinders Lane and then again into a small alleyway not more than 2 metres wide and 50 metres long called Centre Place.
Centre Place was transformed from a neglected service alley into a revitalised laneway by the City of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government in the 1980s, and they’ve done it exceedingly well. The alleyway is tiny, yet it holds upwards of 20 small scale cafes, sushi bars and eateries and is as much a tourist destination as it is a venue, and choosing a place to eat can be quite an overwhelming task. Fortunately the job is made easier by a series of maître d’s eagerly enticing you in.
I was on my second lap down the lane when I must have said out loud “ooh Eggs Benedict” as no sooner had the words left my mouth than a pretty young waitress dressed all in black and clothing that left little to the imagination stepped forward and pointed out they also do a New York version featuring a beef brisket. Well, before I knew what was happening I was seated, had ordered and a glass of coke was being placed in front of me by a young man in equally tight clothing and a multitude of piercings that frankly looked like they’d be both painful and annoying. From my vantage point at a table that was placed where a window once sat, I watched the comings and goings of a busy lane in the heart of Melbourne. It really was quite fascinating to watch the people drift by, and for a cafe that couldn’t have been more than 50 square metres, the food was exceedingly good.
Satisfied and full, I paid by waving my phone at a machine on the counter, a neat trick I’d recently been taught by both my wife and daughter a few nights earlier, and stepped out into the throng of foot traffic to consider my next options.
When one of Melbourne’s founding father’s, John Batman died in May of 1839, he was 38 years old and buried in the Old Melbourne Cemetery. While his name would forever be linked with founding the city of Melbourne, his death wasn’t so heroic. In fact, it was rather tragic. Having contracted syphilis, the disease quickly took over his body, he became disfigured, crippled and in the final months of his life, the disease was so advanced that his nose had rotted away, he became incapacitated and had to be pushed around in a wicker carriage. He died in debt, estranged from his wife and alone. His funeral was a modest, yet well attended affair, after which he was buried in the Old Melbourne Cemetery. In the coming years he would be joined by merchants, Ministers and many other of the city’s earliest settlers until the cemetery was closed for burials in 1854.
Throughout this time, Melbourne grew at a lively pace and small wholesale and retail markets started popping up to serve the rapidly growing population. One of which surrounded the Old Melbourne Cemetery. As the market encroached on the cemetery, the public outcry became furious and proved unpopular with market gardeners and traders who refused to use the space – fearing disease and the disrespect of selling food over graves.
That was until 1876 when everything changed. The Victorian Government passed an Act officially gazetting the Old Melbourne Cemetery site as land to be reserved and developed into markets. A year later as bodies and skeletons were exhumed and re-interred at the Melbourne General Cemetery – things got a little messy. You see, back in 1864, a fire at the lodge belonging to the Old Melbourne Cemetery gatekeeper destroyed most of the burial registers. This meant when it became time to exhume most of the bodies, officials had absolutely no idea who was buried and where. So while identified graves were shifted, some 6,000 to 9,000 graves remained buried as the new market space was developed and officially opened as The Queen Victoria Market on the 20th March, 1878.
Daily Photo – Tram on Elizabeth Street in Melbourne
I was flying to Melbourne, a city that was settled twice, in two different decades, in two separate locations, by two different groups of people. The first attempt took place in late 1803 and was a spectacular failure. Led by a man named Lieutenant-Governor David Collins, a British army officer, colonial administrator and newly appointed Governor of the intended settlement, the expedition set sail from England on 27 April 1803 aboard the HMS Calcutta. The purpose of the trip was to establish a penal colony and secure the southern coastline of Australia for the British, before the French laid claim to it. Accompanying Lieutenant Collins in his wee fleet was a dozen Civil officers and administrators, 50 Royal Marines, 50 free settlers and their families, 300 male convicts and around 16 convict wives who had come along for the ride.
The party arrived at the chosen site of Sullivan Bay on the Mornington Peninsula in late October 1803 and set about clearing land, constructing shelters, storehouses, developing a parade ground and completing other tasks vital to their survival. However, within a month it became clear the site was poorly chosen at best. The sandy soil was difficult to work with, there was a lack of fresh water, the timber unusable for building, crops struggled and morale quickly dipped. By January they’d decided to abandon the settlement and in February the expedition packed-up and sailed for Van Diemen’s Land, landing on the banks of the Derwent River – thus establishing what is now known as the city of Hobart. The entire experiment had lasted 14 weeks and was a complete failure in establishing a British presence on the intended coastline.
Thirty years later, in June 1835 colonial settler and part time explorer John Batman returned to Van Diemen’s Land, having completed what can only be described as a short, brief trip. Traveling with a group of likeminded Tasmanian settlers, they’d been tasked with looking for new land, suitable for grazing and one of the areas they explored was beyond the abandoned Sullivan Bay site in a place called Port Phillip. Here Batman claimed to have negotiated a treaty with local Aboriginal and recorded in his diary: “This will be the place for a village.” It was by no-means a long, drawn-out expedition. Batman had crossed Bass Strait, explored quickly, made his claim, and returned within a month.
Things progressed quickly! In August settlers arrived on the banks of the Yarra River and began establishing a permanent camp – a mere 60 kilometres from the original 1803 site. Unlike the attempt made by Collins, the northern banks of the Yarra River proved much more suitable. It supplied a reliable source of fresh water, better soil, shelter and was much more practical. From there, the settlement took off with surprising speed. Within a year rough streets were beginning to form, basic buildings replaced tents and the population had grown to some 200 people. By 1837 land sales had begun, the population had sprung to nearly 1000 people and the location was officially given the name – Melbourne.
Following the need to head out of town for a few hours, it wasn’t long before I found myself leaving the settlement of Outram and rolling along State Highway 87 towards Middlemarch. It’s one of those roads that drifts quietly into the hinterland, leaving town life behind as it follows the Taieri River through wide, empty plains and low, weathered hills, where the mountain ranges do most of the talking and you find yourself driving a little slower without quite knowing why.
As I approached Middlemarch and chugged past the outskirts of town, I came across an unusually large gathering of vehicles near the local rugby club. Every available space along the road and in nearby paddocks had been taken, cars and 4WDs of every description were lined up and separated by hay bales acting as makeshift road markers. Propped up against them were large signs announcing the “Strath Taieri A & P Show 2026”.
For a moment I considered calling in and wandering around, but then thought better of it. There’s only so much farming talk you can bluff your way through before someone asks a question you can’t answer, and I wasn’t in the mood to be found out.
Several streets later I came across the local museum which proudly displays (and quite rightly may I add) New Zealand’s only submarine and I thought about stopping by, but it appeared to be closed. Instead, I settled for a quiet stroll around the local train station where I could wander about without the risk of being drawn into a conversation I wasn’t equipped to have.
When I arrived in Auckland, I had plenty of plans for the next few days, all carefully assembled in my head with great care somewhere over the Cook Strait, and like most plans made at 30,000 feet, it seemed both admirable and faintly heroic at the same time. Wherever possible, I intended to walk, only using public transport if absolutely necessary. You see so much more of a place when you’re not trapped in a moving vehicle. Sure, you get places quicker, but you also miss a great deal of what’s going on around you. On this trip, I’d vowed to only use it if I had no other option.
That was of course, until I stepped off the plane.
Even before that moment, there had been a few warning signs that the weather wasn’t altogether pleasant. The first was that the terminal, along with most of the city, appeared to be hidden beneath a low blanket of cloud that seemed to have swallowed everything between us and where the airport ought to be. The second clue came from outside the plane, where the ground crew were scurrying about in the sort of gear you only wear when you’re expecting to get thoroughly drenched.
An announcement from the captain then confirmed my suspicions, it was raining!
Not the gentle, polite sort of rain you can wander about in without much concern. This was hard, heavy, determined rain that makes you question whether going outside is a sensible life choice. The kind that falls with such enthusiasm that even ducks might think twice.
In fact, the MetService was warning that the wind and rain could soon become severe enough to cause disruption across the city. I disembarked, found a bus into town, and watched from my seat as the rain pelted down. By the time we arrived somewhere near where I was staying, if anything, the weather had only worsened.
My plans, it seemed, were going to need a fairly substantial rethink.
When at last I arrived in Akaroa, I checked in at the Grand Central Hotel, where I was booked for several nights. I dropped my bags on the bed, had a quick rummage around the room, then headed straight back out onto the main street for a wander.
It was late afternoon, that in-between hour when the hospitality world quietly shifts from day to evening. Tables were being cleared, chairs nudged into place, menus swapped over, and family groups gathered on corners, pointing in various directions as they tried, with mixed success, to agree on dinner.
At the end of Rue Lavaud the shops gave way, replaced by a large garden reserve. At its centre stands the Akaroa war memorial, surrounded by benches and carefully tended gardens. Rising from the middle is an elaborate, free-standing cupola, complete with a granite spire and flying buttresses, proudly displaying the names of those remembered from war. As far as war memorials go, it’s a rather impressive one, the sort of structure that seems to have been designed with great confidence and then left to quietly get on with the job ever since.
Recently I spent some time in Auckland, where apart from a period of about three hours on a Wednesday night when the weather momentarily cleared, all I saw of the Sky Tower was it disappearing into a thick, heavy mist while rain pelted down onto the city below. During that three hour period when the weather cleared, I ventured out on the streets and took this photo while the Sky Tower was visible. The thing was, the view I wanted was in the middle of the street meaning I had to cross the road, stop to take a photo and get back to the footpath before the lights turned.
This little train shed isn’t at Pukerangi, it’s actually further on from Pukerangi, about halfway between the old train station there and the former station at Sutton. I was heading to Middlemarch for a few hours out of town, and took the opportunity to detour down some of the sideroads that break off from State Highway 87. Before long the sealed surface gave up entirely, turning to gravel that crunched under the tyres as the road twisted its way into the dry, tussock and rock-covered hills that surround the Strath Taieri.
Out here, the landscape feels open in a way that’s hard to describe, wide skies stretching overhead while the land rolls away in soft browns and golds. The shed itself appears almost by accident, a small, weathered reminder of a time when the railway was the only real thread tying these places together, quietly enduring long after the trains have passed.
Discovering small towns, forgotten points of interest and the everyday curiosities of my island home.
The Great KitKat Caper
The other day, while browsing through the local paper, I came across an interesting news story involving twelve tons of Nestlé KitKat chocolate, a delivery truck, and a group of thieves. The story begins in central Italy, where a truck set off on a mission to dispatch a batch of the Swiss company’s new Formula One-branded chocolate treats throughout Europe, only it never arrived at its final destination in Poland. It seems that somewhere en route, both the vehicle and the chocolate simply disappeared. In fact, at the time of writing, they remain unaccounted for. Now, just what someone would do with 413,793 bars of KitKat, I just couldn’t say.
Daily Photo – Queens Gardens and a Building with a Story
I’d been wandering through the various alleyways and short, twisting streets that make up part of the inner city when I came across a cluster of historic buildings sitting just south of Queens Gardens. One of them is known as ‘Queens Garden Court’. The building was originally constructed for the New Zealand Insurance Company, which itself had a rather auspicious beginning.
If there is one thing early colonial towns excelled at, it was catching fire at the most inconvenient moments. Auckland in 1858 was a fine example, when a particularly enthusiastic blaze tore through the settlement and left its residents with little more than ashes and a newfound appreciation for caution.
From this smoky episode came the New Zealand Insurance Company in 1859, courtesy of a group of suddenly risk-aware businessmen. Their timing was impressive. Within two years, branches were appearing across the colony, including Dunedin.
By the 1880s, Dunedin was thriving on gold-fuelled confidence and grand ideas. So when reclaimed harbour land stretching from what is now Queens Gardens toward the Oval became available, the company jumped at the chance to secure some prime real estate. Completed in 1886, the three-storey structure was larger than most of its contemporaries and just as elegant, both inside and out.
Discovering small towns, forgotten points of interest and the everyday curiosities of my island home.
Daily Photo – Silhouette’s of the Dunedin Coastline
It had been an unusually warm autumn day. That morning, as day broke, dark, heavy cloud cover hung over the city like a thick blanket. By lunchtime, however, it had lifted and dissolved leaving a bright, clear, sunlit afternoon that lingered well into the evening.
Sometime in the early evening, I decided to make use of what daylight was left and headed out for a walk along a nearby coastal track. I strode along Tomahawk beach from the base of Lawyers Head to the end of the beach, I climbed through the sand dunes, joined the footpath and a short time later was standing on the point looking out across the Pacific Ocean. I watched the sun drop below the horizon, leaving the faint but recognisable silhouettes of the Otago coastline far into the distance.
I spent the morning walking the beach that stretches from St Clair to St Kilda Beach, occasionally breaking away from the multitude of footprints to wander through the sand dunes, before clambering back up to rejoin the shoreline.
The morning was fine and clear, the overnight wind had dropped away leaving a rather pleasant morning as the sun rose over the horizon. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to stay this way. The forecast was for showers to develop in the morning, turning heavy by the afternoon. By Dunedin’s standards, that seemed to be developing into a fairly regular weather pattern. Thus the reason I decided to go for a shuffle along the beach and trip through the dunes during the best part of the day — which as it turned out, was right around 6am.
One of the more forgotten features of the Dunedin landscape, strangely enough, is also one of the most prominent. Namely, Saddle Hill. Within reason, it can be seen from almost every part of the city, yet it goes by with barely a mention. Apart from when it snows, that is. Then you’ll hear the locals saying, “Well, there was snow on Saddle Hill this morning,” quietly noting that another cold front has passed over the city during the night.
Located 18 kilometres to the west of the city centre, with an elevation of 473 metres, it’s not particularly massive as far as hills go. Yet a visit to the lookout on its northern slope provides a commanding view across the Taieri Plains, stretching all the way to Lake Waihola, some 25 kilometres away to the west.
In terms of the Dunedin landscape, it’s one of the old-timers. Saddle Hill has been around for millions of years, formed when molten rock pushed up through the Earth’s crust and cooled into a hard volcanic plug. It resisted the steady wear and tear of time while the surrounding softer land gradually eroded away, leaving behind that distinctive saddle shape we see today.
If it has a Māori name, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit I don’t know it. Its European name, however, was given by Captain James Cook during his 1769 voyage of discovery. As he sailed past, he noted in his journal that it had “a remarkable saddle”. And, as these things tend to go, the name stuck.
The thing I like best about it, though, is something a little more fleeting. As the earth turns and the sunsets shift across the western horizon, there are a couple of times each year when the sun drops directly behind it, creating a wonderful silhouette set against a rich wash of yellow and orange. It may not be the most dramatic sunset you’ll ever see, but it doesn’t really need to be. It makes me smile, and sometimes that’s enough.
I recently visited Dunedin’s Chinese Garden, and it wasn’t till after that I came across the story of the 16th century Humble Administrator’s Garden. Where Dunedin’s garden covers about 0.25 hectares, the Humble Administrator’s Garden sprawls across a rather impressive 5.2 hectares and is considered one of China’s greatest.
It was created in the early 1500s by a retired official named Wang Xiancheng. At the end of his career, Wang decided to leave public life behind and build himself a peaceful retreat. He called it the “Humble Administrator’s Garden,” which is a rather modest name for what is, in reality, an expansive and carefully composed landscape of ponds, pavilions and winding paths.
To create it, Wang spent an enormous amount of money, pouring virtually all his resources into shaping the garden. The only thing that matched his enthusiasm for landscaping was his enthusiasm for entertaining and drinking. In fact, he became so absorbed in hosting guests and enjoying his new surroundings that he rather neglected his finances.
Not long after the garden was completed, Wang died, and his family found themselves in a difficult position. The estate was so financially strained that the garden had to be sold. In a small twist of irony, Wang’s grand symbol of a “humble” retirement lasted barely a generation in the hands of the man who created it.
There’s something both comic and unfortunate about the whole episode. A man retires to live simply, builds one of the most elaborate gardens in China, enjoys it perhaps a little too much, and ensures it slips out of his family’s hands almost immediately. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
I’d spent some time exploring the Riverside Market, one of those multi-level indoor places filled with restaurants, bars, and all manner of food vendors. Once I was sufficiently fed and watered, I left the hustle and bustle behind and made my way down to the nearby Avon River.
I have to admit, I do like the Avon River. It makes for a lovely stroll through the centre of the city, following its gentle curves as it ambles along. Since I was already on foot, I followed it for a while as it twisted and turned its way through central Christchurch.
Along the way, I discovered that if I were to keep going, I’d eventually end up at Pegasus Bay, where it meets the sea. Or, to be precise, it first slips into the Avon-Heathcote Estuary. From there, it finds its way out through a narrow gap between Sumner and Southshore before finally reaching Pegasus Bay. It’s a slightly roundabout ending, which suits the Avon rather well. It never seems in much of a hurry to get anywhere.
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