Well now that I’ve just demolished this Econ final, I should probably finish the account of the happenings this weekend.
After our excursion to Milford sound, we dropped off Maelle in Te Anau (where she was going to work on an organic farm for room & board). Before we left, Annie and I wanted some cheap food to tide us over until we got back to Dunedin, but everything was so damn overpriced in this tourist town. Even after spending 15 minutes walking around town, I refused to give up, remembering a Fish ‘n Chips on the way into town. My memory paying off, we found the ONLY reasonably priced establishment in Te Anau – hoo-rah! Anyways…
Not in any rush to get back to Dunedin, I found two different points of interest along the drive back while looking over the map in the car, one, a viewpoint, and two, a historic homestead. We first took the detour for a scenic view, but we one-upped the view. The turn-off for the scenic view was in front of a large ridge, and behind the turn off was large opening in a fence. Following that human instinct to go past boundaries , we drove through the opening onto what apparently was the old route of the highway we were driving on. After a few hundred meters we parked and trespassed onto a sheep and cow pasture to climb the ridge to get the best views. This was no grassy hillside, however, this pasture was covered in large thorny bushes and other strange flora, so when we herd strange noises through the bushes we were surprised to see cows being surprised by us and trotting away in protest. We also came across some bold and/or stupid sheep who didn’t get out of our way, but this time we didn’t try to catch any. Eventually, we got to the top of the ridge, and this is the view we found:
On flickr you can also see the vista when the sun came out, also, be aware that the above panorama is just about 180 degrees, it only looks less because of the wide-angle perspective of the lens.
Our next point-of-interest was a historic homestead, but when we got to the town there was no signs and everything was closed (being 6 o’clock on a Sunday). We tried to get directions, but we ended up just trusting the map and our gut because there were only about half a dozen roads in town. Driving a couple of km’s on a hunch, away from the main road when we were already in the middle of nowhere, the two-story, stone built Victorian homestead stood out like a sore thumb. We had a nice chat with the woman who lived there, and continued onward. Next stop Dunedin.
Another 30 minutes later, just as it was getting dark, we saw two guys looking for a hitch, and this being NZ, not in a rush and two empty seats, we decided: what the heck! These two guys from England were also on their way to Dunedin, and boy did we make there day. They had been getting plenty of rides, but only from elderly farmers heading from one two-road town to another. As I said, they were in a really good mood since we had given them a lift, so they were great company for the ride back. And for all of you back home, thinking that I was just a bit crazy, after a few months here you really stop feeling so paranoid about everything. New Zealand is a safe country, and there’s a lot less reason to be generally distrustful of strangers. Kiwis are a generally decent bunch, as are the heaps of backpackers who roam through the country. Case in point, I’m still here writing this entry.
