A chilly weekend in the C.O.

This past weekend was a kind of low key affair, while we hung around the area and just checked out C.O.(Central Otago) a little more.

This started on a chilly Friday when we decided to check out the little gold mining town called Ophir that's only a few miles away. We had picked up the map/walking guide of the town that includes the history of the buildings. It is truly impossible to get lost in this town since it is little more than one main road. The map gave us all the information we needed about the buildings on either side of this one road-some of the buildings were adorably intact and some gave off a strong creepy/decaying vibe. Ophir, like a lot of little towns around here, popped up in the 1860's during the goldrush and had a population of a whopping 1000 people. Now about 50 people live in Ophir and none of the inhabitants were out and about while we were walking around-except for some chickens. Of the buildings that have been restored is the post office, that is actually still used as a post office, and (according to the walking guide) is one of the most photographed buildings in Central Otago. Of course I had to a take a few for myself.

From New Zealand

Honesty cart/boxes are incredibly common in New Zealand. These are unattended stands or carts that usually sell some kind of agricultural product-like fruit, veggies, free range eggs- and relies on customers using the honor system to pay. Of course Ophir has one too and while there wasn't much in it at the time, it looked like there were a couple things in there that we were not at all interested in buying, but that is also an incredibly common site here in NZ-poo. Selling poo, usually sheep poo, is done by just about place we've been. I particularly love it when selling sheep poo is used as a fundraiser for whatever local group-right now you can drive down to the fire station in Alex and pick up some poo as part of a fundraiser. It just makes so much sense-lots of sheep=lots of poo=good fertilizer=fundraiser!

From New Zealand

Since it's getting to be winter here we decided that it was time to go wine tasting a few more places, before vineyards start closing for the season. You all are spared pictures, I was so worried I would forget to put the fully charged battery in the camera that I forgot to put in the memory card-genius! There were a couple highlights of this wine tasting trip. The first was a stop to the winery Gate 20 two in Bannockburn. We follow the signs and arrive to a place that says it's open but really just looks like someones (very nice) house. We (tentatively!) ring the doorbell and it is opened by Pauline McKinlay, who along with her husband single handily run the whole vineyard. She was incredibly warm and friendly and we were invited into their foyer to taste their two wines-a pinot noir and pinot gris. She tells us that just that morning they had been picking the last of their crop and she still had grape juice on her glasses. Her husband, Nigel, walks in, as he has been eavesdropping on our conversation and asks us about Oregon, wine, if we're in the business (we get asked this very frequently while wine tasting!) and we find out they just found out that they were grandparents and were waiting for a call to tell them when they need to books flights for Sydney-where their daughter is. This is about a world different from other places we've been, where the conversation ranges from painfully dull to nonexistent. The other highlight was the Scott Base Winery. Their wines were very good, but it was the unexpected addition of beer that was really interesting. We found out that this winery was the southern base of a wine maker in Marlborough, on the north part of the South Island. They also brew Moa Beer...and they have heaps of it at this vineyard in Cromwell (only about 30 mins from Alex!). Keith had read about some of their beers in Beer Advocate and not surprisingly we took home more beer than wine from there...I can't wait to try St. Joseph's Tripel that we picked up!

You are also spared pictures from a very chilly, pretty hike we did in Conroy's Gully, just a little bit outside of Alex-this is because my computer and my memory card have become arch enemies, or maybe they have been battling for a while and now the computer is winning, by crashing every time I try to open the folder with pictures in in-who knows. You're missing out on some shots of one very intact gold mining hut, where I'm sure Keith would be more than happy camping/living for a while, and a number of other huts in various states of ruin. All the while we're chatting about the political situation in Fiji where there was a military coup and then an other military coup-both headed by Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka (Steve) and both in 1987. There have been a few other coups in Fiji since then, but the book Keith's reading was written in the 1990's. Keith has taken it upon himself to read every travel book he can find since we've been here and now with our trip to Tonga coming up, he's reading anything and everything about the South Pacific. Maybe we should work on getting more up to date reading material at some point.

This next weekend we'll be hanging around the area a little more before a few weeks of almost constant traveling to and fro, with Keith working a few different places and a few weekend trips planned!