QUEENSTOWN

Ah, Queenstown.   It’s one of NZ’s best-known destinations, and it’s certainly the country’s premier commercialized resort town.  It’s also beautiful, nestled at the base of mountains and looking across gorgeous Lake Wakatipu to the craggy Remarkables range (see image from the internet to the left).  You might enjoy a pilot’s video of the area as he lands a small plane at Queenstown airport.  The link below will open the video in a new window – it’s about 4 minutes long.  http://www.chonday.com/Videos/pilotnewzdalnd1.

Quite a location, but we thought the city itself was a flawed jewel, at least for old fogies like us: it was crowded, touristy, and filled with stores heavily marketing every adrenaline-fueled activity known to man.  It’s a place for young people with a lot of  money to spend on flying, falling, floating, speeding events – and the price for each was hundreds of dollars.  Ginger wasn’t really keen on any of it.   So we took a pass on the adrenalin rush, and went instead for the surrounding beauty:  the Routeburn track and a visit to historic Arrowtown.  In this case “we” is three of us; my sister Linda, from Albuquerque, joined us in Queenstown and will travel with us for awhile.

First, some pictures of the area coming into Queenstown.  It’s austerely beautiful.

Next a few pictures from the Queenstown shore.  The last two pictures show the same scene under different light – always amazing how different the colors are on different days.  The light is somehow special in New Zealand – a painter’s light, often with a golden glow.

While we’re discussing Queenstown and light, let me show you some views from our apartment as the sun starts to set.  It was pretty nice.

ARROWTOWN

Arrowtown, only 10 miles from Queenstown, was born when gold was discovered in the Arrow River in 1862 – lots of gold.  One of the early prospectors was able to keep his lode secret while recovering 200 lbs. of the stuff.  The area became known as the richest for its size in the world, and at its height it was a town of 7000.  Today the population is 2400, surviving on the tourist trade and doing quite well.  It’s a nice-looking New Zealand town, with one of its highlights being the Avenue of Trees shown above.  Those trees were planted in 1867 along the line of tiny miners’ cottages that have been preserved.  More views of the town are shown below.

One of Arrowtown’s claims to fame is its Chinese history.  After a few years gold became harder to mine, miners left for newly discovered gold fields on the West Coast, and Arrowtown was left with businesses but few customers.  The solution was to import Chinese to the gold fields – as stated in the local newspaper, “An increase in population, even were it in the shape of chimpanzees, would be preferable to no population at all.”  By 1870 there were 5000 Chinese in Arrowtown, living in a segregated community, forced to work abandoned mining claims or the tailings of European miners, or working for half what a European earned.  Despite the racism, the Chinese were known for their “sober, upright and straightforward” conduct.  Arrowtown has the best preserved Chinese community in New Zealand.  The best preserved building is Ah Lum’s store, built in 1883.  Ah Lum was literate in English and became a pillar of the Chinese community; his store sold both European and Chinese goods, operated as an opium den, and was a bank for the Chinese.  The loft also provided accommodation for travelers.  The compact floor plan, and an interior area, are shown below.

The (restored) Chinese miners’ huts are incredibly small, intended as temporary structures, with tin, sod, stone and timber the principal materials.  The huts became permanent as the miners aged and were unable to return home.  Pictures below.

ROUTEBURN TRACK

If you remember, we “did” the Routeburn Track in a previous post  (April 20, “Leaving Milford Sound – the Routeburn Track to Key Summit” [clicking on the title will take you there in a new window]).  “Did” meaning we climbed part-way up one end of the trail.  Now we will go part-way up the other end of the trail – unfortunately leaving unseen the really, really pretty part in the middle.  Alas, such is the sad fate of those unwilling to carry heavy backpacks for days.  Still, the trip promises to be pretty.  The Routeburn is one of NZ’s Great Walks, and one of its finest.

Actually, just getting to the trailhead is pretty spectacular!  It’s at the other end of the long Lake Wakatipu, and the lake’s color changes along its length, and undergoes amazing

changes from day to day (that NZ light!).  The head of the lake is even more beautiful, as shown below.  In fact, it’s beautiful enough to have caught the attention of movie

producers, and the area appears in films like The Chronicles of Narnia, X-Men Origins, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

The Routeburn trail at this end goes steadily uphill following the beautiful Route Burn river, which is very clear with a somewhat turquoise cast.

 I love being serenaded by a musical river, so this is a treat!  The trail itself is a regular highway, but a little rocky.  However. it’s sides are very green, covered by an enormous variety of ground covers and moss.  Very large mossy rocks are common, along with some rougher rocks that, typical of NZ, have veins of different materials, making them interesting.

The water coming gallumphing down over rocks is beautiful.

We’ve been walking for a couple hours now, and the ladies need a restroom break.  We’re not the only ones on the trail, so this is a bit tricky, but we find some house-sized boulders close to the trail that will provide the needed cover.  Okay!  Biology attended to!  Off we go, a whole 25 steps around the boulders, and lo and behold what should we see before our eyes?  Yep, the luxury of a very nice outdoor toilet, the distance from the trailhead almost perfectly calibrated for the needs of a female walker.  Almost.  Maybe 25 steps too far, actually.  How funny was that?

After a bit more we come to a pretty part of the river and the ladies decide they have had enough hiking.  I decide to hike up to the first hut, which should have a nice view.  The trail continues to be pretty, with a forest of ferns under the trees, and a nice beech forest.

The trail opens out to a beautiful meadow, and then I’m there.  I didn’t take a picture of it,

but the hut itself was pretty spiffy.  I’m used to rustic lean-to structures.  This was a four star fancy building, doors and wood bunks and all!  The surrounding meadow is gorgeous, with clear stream, impressive mountains and a waterfall.

As I head back, the Route Burn River is illuminated by beautiful, slanting late afternoon light.  An added bonus, I see several diminutive Rifleman birds.

That’s it!  Pretty but not spectacular.  Alas, the truly gorgeous views are in the middle section that we did not hike, but I am content.

Next stop, the glaciers!

CHINESE SCHOLAR GARDEN

The Chinese Garden is a recent – and fabulous – addition to Dunedin.  It is one of only 3 Ming Dynasty scholars’ gardens outside China.  A scholar’s garden is the creation of a “spiritual utopia”, a contemplative space, an escape from daily concerns where one can re-connect with nature, the ancient way of life, one’s true self.  The gardens try to capture the look of traditional Chinese paintings and the imagery created in poetry.  To create this authentic garden, its wooden houses and structures were made in Shanghai using 4th century BC techniques – no nails, just mortise and tenon joints.  The granite plinths and facings were hand chipped, the columns free-standing and not pinned.  The buildings needed 380,000 terracotta roof tiles, handmade in Suzhou, China.  After being assembled in Shanghai, the buildings were taken apart and shipped to Dunedin, along with 970 tons of rock and 130 tons of granite.  Forty Chinese artisans from Shanghai did the installation in Dunedin.

The Chinese word for “landscape” literally means “mountains and waters”, and the mountain built here is from prized Lake Tai rock (from near Suzhou), a rock that represents wisdom and immortality; during the Song dynasty this sculpted rock was the most expensive object in the empire.

We felt this Scholar’s Garden was indeed a wonderful, soothing, contemplative, fabulous place.  By intent, there are visual surprises around every turn and corner (of which there are many!).  Beckoning niches, contrasting colors and textures, or repeating patterns are traps for your eye and give you pause.  Every window has a different intricate and marvelous grating.  Let us take you on a tour.  I’m just going to put a bunch of pictures below, as we walked around.

THE OTAGO MUSEUM – POLYNESIA and MELANESIA

This is a small but interesting museum that covers a number of subjects, but we were mostly caught by the Polynesia/Melanesia wing – we really didn’t know much about the island regions of our world, and since we’re living in one of them, NZ, with Maori inhabitants, we thought we’d take a closer look.  For orientation, here’s a map.  As you can see, Polynesia is ‘way out there, specks floating in a big ocean!

Before starting the Polynesia section, we took a quick look at some very nice Maori carvings that the museum had.  They were made for a meeting house near Napier (North Island), and were carved in the 1870’s.  We’re impressed!

For us, there are two very fascinating aspects of Polynesia.  One is that the islands were settled one-by-one by seafarers using basically a canoe with a sail; these islands are anything but close, so the utter audacity of sailing off into the unknown is amazing.  A sail and a prayer – if not a death wish – for a family or couple!  I can see it now – “Hey sweetie, how about we sail off into that sunset and get away from here?  We’ll find an island just for us.  I mean, how big can the Pacific ocean be?  You bring the water, I’ll paddle.”  Yeah, not sure that pick-up line would work with Ginger.

The other fascinating aspect is the subsequent developmental changes (or their lack!) that occurred from a common culture.  The islands were far enough apart that there was no chance for communication early on and,  like Darwin’s finches, the cultures evolved in isolation.  Alas, the museum does not directly address this topic, but it’s visible in the displays.

Let’s start with migration.  Polynesian culture goes back 3 or 4 thousand years in some areas, originating from Southeast Asia and Taiwan.  The far-flung areas we now call Polynesia were occupied by the late 1200’s AD.  The picture to the left shows typical boats from different regions, and mostly they are riffs on the same theme, with a couple of exceptions that I’ll show first.  China is the biggest exception – really not a Polynesian player, but interesting nonetheless.  A very different boat!  China had a permanent navy in the 1100’s during the Song Dynasty, with 52,000 marines!  They were the leading maritime power in the early 1400’s, until subsequent emperors lost interest, eliminated their navy, and turned inward.  Their boats had a different purpose (not island hopping/fishing) and thus had nothing in common with Polynesian boats.  The other exception in this display is a Kon-Tiki-like boat/raft from Peru, but there is little evidence that South America contributed much to Polynesia (except possibly to Easter Island).  You may notice from the overall display at the start of this paragraph and in the pictures below that the New Zealand boat is different from most of its cohorts, having no sail and no outrigger.  Its evolution is likely due to the shore-hugging short-distance travel around these large two islands, though sails and outriggers would have been used for the initial ocean crossings.  You can also see that the war canoes of the Solomon Islands were very similar to that of the Maori, including the dramatically upraised prow.  The other boats all have  outriggers or a double hull, many have sails, and all are structurally similar.

We thought the NZ Maori tattooing was extensive!  This painful process was primarily done on Maori males, the females usually just doing their chins.  For the Maori, tattooing was a mark of puberty as well as conveying information on a person’s lineage, tribe, occupation, rank, and exploits.  Well, as you can see in this display, tattooing is obviously a Polynesian thing!  And the Maori were conservative!  Look at the Easter Island women, or the Samoa or Marquesas extensive tattoos (Ouch)!  In these other cultures tattooing was also a mark of puberty, courage, rank and status.

Decorative art such as combs and pendants, shown below, also show similarities across the island cultures, perhaps due to the similarity of available raw materials.  The particular designs used in ornamentation, who wore them and how they were worn, however, varied from island to island.  For instance, the pendants in the case below were decorated clam shells; it’s the same resource, but different cultures wore them on the chest, on the neck, or on the head.

Apparently house construction varied regionally across the islands, but there wasn’t much on display.  I have two for you below, one a picture (New Caledonia), one a display (Samoa).  Samoans were the “Architects of the Pacific”.  Their houses  were built without nails, screws or pegs.  The open sides of the house allowed free circulation of air, but blinds of woven palm leaves could be lowered.  Floors were of stone.

Tools had a lot of similarity.  When a particular need would be the same – say, splitting breadfruit – the solution on different islands was usually quite similar, as shown with these breadfruit splitters to the left from Marquesas and Tahiti.

Often differences in tools among the islands were directly related to the availability of raw materials, such as the adzes below in coral, stone and jade.

Not everything is easily compared between islands.  We’ll just show some bowls and interesting tools.

Music and celebrations are universal, as are drums and pipes.

And where there is dance, there are masks.

Finally, of course there is war.  Islands are not an escape; the Maori were a warrior culture, as we have seen in earlier posts.  When it came to war, the Polynesian islands diverged considerably, depending on the political culture.  Some islands became fully developed kingdoms with little warfare, others divided into constantly warring tribes, such as NZ’s Maori.  The primary force driving the culture one way or the other, in addition to population pressure, was geography.  On level islands, where communication was essentially unimpeded, warfare was not chosen.  On mountainous islands, with distinct boundaries like mountain ridges, warring groups were the norm.  How interesting is that!  Below are instruments of warfare, starting with the clubs.

In addition to clubs, there were spears and shields.

As a last picture, this is a Kiribati warrior from Tuvalu, an atoll.  Atolls, just a few feet above the sea, support very little life other than a few trees and coconut palms (water was obtained from holes dug in the coral).  With so few resources, humans struggled.  However, here is a well-dressed warrior, on an atoll where we have been told warfare is not likely to occur!  We don’t understand the need for armor, but the armor is in itself interesting; the cloth is coconut fiber decorated with shells.  The helmet and stomach guard are of fish skin.  Sharks teeth are used in the weapons. Quite a use of what you’ve got!

Well, I hope you enjoyed that long discourse on Polynesia and its insight into cultural evolution.  My take-away is that if the resources are pretty much the same, the evolution is pretty much the same.  If everyone lives on a flat area with few natural defenses, people make peace (conversely, it there are defensible borders, it becomes us-vs-them).  I also thought it was interesting to get an insight into stone-age cultures existing into the late 1800’s!

Next post – Christchurch!

Dunedin is the largest city in the southern half of the South Island, with a population of 120,000 (20% of which are students).  Called the “Edinburgh of the South”, it was founded by Scottish settlers around 1850, who named it after home – DunEDIN(BURGH).  Ten years later gold was discovered nearby, and this port city quickly became NZ’s most important, spurring a building boom that resulted in a legacy of harmonious Gothic Revival architecture fashioned from volcanic bluestone and creamy limestone.  This is a city post – Dunedin’s university, churches, architecture, and art museum.

THE UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO

Dunedin is home to NZ’s first university (1869).  We happen to be here during the University’s Orientation Week, a big mistake!  Classes are not yet in session, and students, newly liberated from parental control, have a lot of time for beer drinking and rowdy behavior. We have unwittingly booked a motel in a student area, our walls are thin, and loud top-of-your-voice street-side “conversations” go on until 3 or 4 in the morning.  Groan!

The University looks very much like an English university to us, although it’s on a considerably smaller scale.  In the pictures below, the darker stone is bluestone.

The details are fun – the carvings, the attractive windows, even downspouts are special.

THE CHURCHES

Every day we walk past this church that is not in our tour books – the Knox Church, it’s called, just a small Presbyterian church – but it is quite beautiful, reflecting the architecture of that time.

The most impressive church in Dunedin is St. Paul’s Cathedral, an Anglican church constructed in the early 1900’s entirely of Oamaru limestone (see post of Jan 20, Oamaru and Penguins).  It’s located on The Octagon, the central plaza of the city, laid out in 1846 and home to a number of well-preserved buildings.

Positively European, eh?  I’m a sucker for stained glass, and this church has a lot of it, all from the early 1900’s.

The final church is the First Church of Otago, touted as the most impressive of NZ’s earlier 19th century churches.  Praise is given to its wooden gabled ceiling and rose window, but we get there late and I am shooed out before I can even take a lo0k – just that quick picture from the door before I’m spotted.  I try to sweet-talk my way in, but it is not to be.  Still, the church is very impressive to look at, even from the outside.

THE ARCHITECTURE

First, let’s look at a grand building there in the Octagon near St. Paul’s Cathedral: the Municipal Chambers, built in the Italian Renaissance style in 1880, also from Oamaru limestone.  The lamp bases aren’t bad either!

Also on the Octagon is the Regent Theatre, home to the Royal NZ Ballet and other shows.  Built in 1874, its interior is a combination of 19th century fashion and 1920’s art deco – a stunning combination, I think; classical and classy!

Another turn-of-the-20th-century building is the Dunedin Railway Station, again built of bluestone and Oamaru limestone.  I think it’s fabulous.  Ginger is not so sure.

C’mon, isn’t this the most resplendent train station you’ve ever seen?  The interior is also quite amazing, with a foyer of tile and a porcelain mosaic floor.

Other historical municipal buildings are the court house and jail – which are physically connected for the sake of efficiency.  Not all of the historical buildings are in great shape (for example, the warehouse buildings below, right).

Some of the residential homes downtown are reminiscent of New Orleans buildings of the same period – maybe it’s all that wrought iron (but definitely not the turret).

Below are samples of downtown business buildings.

Finally, I wanted to share our experience visiting a cafe downtown.  We saw people shooting up, with big syringes, right there at tables out front, in broad daylight!  So, of course, we had to try it too.  Or at least Ginger had to, that junky in need of a (sugar) high.  You order, select from a variety of fillings, take a seat, and soon appears a warm, sugar-coated doughnut (shell) and a large syringe filled with jelly, lemon, chocolate…, whatever your “fix”.  Just to keep it low calorie, it comes with a side of whipped cream, too.  Messy, yummy, the ultimate do-it-yourself rush.  It is an interesting take on the jelly doughnut.

DUNEDIN PUBLIC ART GALLERY

It’s the oldest gallery  in NZ, converted from 6 Victorian buildings into a very modern, gleaming museum, right on The Octagon.  The foyer has a work entitled “Cones” by NZ sculptor Neil Dawson (his work also appears in our posts from Christchurch and Wellington, but unacknowledged).  Also note the cool spiral staircase barely visible on the left, from Victorian times. The museum has a traveling interactive exhibit of works by Seung Yul Oh that was fun; certainly Ginger got into it!  The pictures below show some of the art from this exhibition.

The core museum starts with an interesting introduction, “Wonderwall”, an entire wall of some great art!  This is the “salon style” of art display from the 1600’s.  The large room is otherwise empty, except for a full-size replica of the amazing “The Wrestlers” from 3rd century BC Greece.  The austere room and fabulous art is striking, and intriguing.  One of the ideas behind this type of presentation is to invite comparisons.  I note that many of these paintings show people looking out at me, looking in at them.  Ooooookay.  A little different.  In looking at art, I’m used to mentally putting myself in the picture.  Here I seem to be the picture, the gallery looking at me!  Turnabout!  Here are some pictures I like, up close.

The picture below is a fascinating “out there” piece of art created by Anne Ferran, an Australian artist, during a two-month artist-in-residence program at the museum.  From

Anne Ferran, Australian, 2001

across the room, it looked like a ghostly 3-D construction or a hologram.  Up close, it’s a ghostly picture of an infant’s christening gown.  It’s called a “photogram”; I suspect it’s done with x-rays using x-ray film.

OK,  on to some other art that impressed me.  Another “out there” fascinating collection by an American, Robert Rauschenberg, worked with unusual juxtapositions/allusions in color lithography, examples below.

Robert Rauschenberg, American, 1994

Robert Rauschenberg, American, 1994

I was blown away by the works of Frances Hodgkins.  Working in watercolor at the end of Impressionism/ beginning of Modernism, she captured the optical effects of light on water, along with movement and stillness, that I find incredibly beautiful.  Examples below.

Finally, let me show you some amazing linocuts (a woodblock-like process, but using linoleum) from the 1930’s.  Each color required one block , necessitating simple, abstract designs.  Yet this very simple, static process produced such a sense of speed and movement!  Printing was done by hand – a piece of paper was placed on the inked tile and rubbed – thus producing very affordable art for this industrial age.  The prints are grouped by artist.

That’s probably enough for one post!  The next and last post on Dunedin will showcase the fabulous Chinese Scholar’s Garden and the fascinating Polynesian exhibit at the Otago Museum.