Streets, Boulders and Horses

Dunedin was charming but short on sights and activities so I was fine with leaving after only one night but I was glad our bus made a quick stop at Dunedin's only claim to fame; The World's Steepest Street.

Baldwin Street reaches angles as steep as 35º which would lead one to believe it was named after Stephen Baldwin's plunging career path but in fact it was named for the city planner who saddled them with this traffic challenge.

The distance from Dunedin to Christchurch is just a little too much for a single days drive so the trip is broken up with a night in LakeTekapo (tek-u-poe), which allows for quite a number of relaxed stops along the way.

The first of these was to see the Moeraki Boulders. Arranged in several clumps strewn along the beach these naturally occurring rocks are almost perfectly spherical.

We had a great deal of fun scrambling up and down them for pictures and just for the fun of it.

Further down the road we saw Mt. Doom again ... sort of. As in most movies Lord of the Rings used multiple locations for different parts of the same set and Mt. Cook was the other mountain utilized to stand in for Middle Earth's dark heart.

(Mt. Doom!!!! ... again ... but different)
As we got close to Tekapo Sonja (not the one from Melbourne but another one from Germany) ran into some trouble. Her camera battery died and she had signed up for a scenic fly over of the Tekapo area. The problem was it only took a special rechargeable battery made for her camera so she had no way to record her flight. Since we had been traveling together a while I took a measured risk and we popped her memory card into my fully charged camera and I let her take it on the plane.
This left me cameraless for the day and dependant on the kindness of one Elizabeth Ramirez of Austin TX to take photos on my behalf. Elizabeth was definitely one of the most enjoyable people I've met on my travels. A real homage to southern charm. Not the plastic, big haired, drawling, artificial smiled beauty queen version of southern charm that we get from TV but just an honest friendly demeanour and a delightful light accent. The smile was just as big as you'd expect but entirely genuine.

There was a pause to check out The Church of The Good Shepherd which is a small weathered stone structure that sits alone at the foot of a glassy lake surrounded by snow capped mountains. A stunning view. I've posted some photos from Aaron, a Scottish friend.

We arrived in Tekapo around mid afternoon which was early enough to take advantage of the local trail ride. I've only been on a horse once before that I can remember and that didn't go well. It was in Nashville Tennessee where I was visiting Mary, my girlfriend of the time. She insisted I try riding her horse but it was a tiny welsh pony. I think the poor thing didn't weigh much more than me and I felt guilty for just getting on it's back. Mary trotted us around the deeply sloping stable yard while warning me to beware the several mounds of fire ants. My girlfriend couldn't understand why I didn't seem to be enjoying myself. This ride went so much better.
I was put on a full sized chestnut horse named Dick. He was a beautiful but a bit stubborn and he was definitely taking advantage of me. Dick kept stopping to graze or just stopping out right on some of the harder hills. This meant I had to try to show him who was boss which meant kicking him in the sides. I know that sounds awful but that's how it's done the angle of a saddle doesn't allow for much force. In fact he didn't even seem to notice. None the less I felt awful doing it which is probably why he was behaving so poorly. He could tell I wasn't going to be very aggressive with him but In the end I think we managed to come to an accord and I really liked it.

(since I don't have the pictures from Elizabeth you'll have to pretend this picture of her is actually me on a horse)
The trail led out through a field that looked exactly like the set of a classic western, then though the woods to an open plain on a mountain side overlooking Lake Tekapo. The view was unbelievable. I'd go Horse riding again in a heart beat. Unfortunately I don't have those pictures yet but they are coming. Elizabeth and I have been trading e-mails and she's still making her way back home but she hasn't forgotten and will get them to me when she gets settled.
Myself, Elizabeth, Stuart (our bus driver) and 3 Irish sisters who had been on our trail ride, finished the day with dinner and drinks in the what was pretty much the only restaurant/pub in town. One of the Irish girls worked for a hotel chain that has a Canadian office and because of that she somehow had the strange impression that St. Thomas Ontario is a really big city instead of the one street town that it is. We had a good laugh about it over desert before walking back under the stars to our hostel, The Tekapo Lake Front Lodge where I reclaimed my camera from Sonja.


(The Lakefront Lodge)
A last note about hostels, you never know what you'll get. The Lake Front was less than two years old and generally well designed and yet the beds were so poorly made that they squeaked loudly if you even shifted your weight minorly. The guilt over possibly waking everyone else up while you got comfortable made it hard to fall asleep. All the same I woke up well rested and ready for Christchurch.

(My morning view from the Lakefront Lodge)