Six degrees of separation...

Day 7 Sunday April 10

Olveston House.   

Not being a lover of walking round stately homes, I wasn’t looking forward to our first stop of the day, namely Olveston House. But this one was different in that it was designed by a far sighted architect. The house was one of the earliest to have electricity, powered with its own generator; a central heating system, and many labour saving devices for the servants, well before its time. The owner was a Jewish importer and he imported from everywhere. The house is full of paintings, prints, vases, and figurines from Japan, Europe, Korea and the like. The tour took an hour, long enough to see what one wanted to see and short enough to not get fed up with it.

Dunedin is a city I’d like to return to, it has a nice ‘feel’ to it. The station is very pretty and boasts the longest catwalk in the world. It was being used as such over the weekend but the models left the day we arrived, a coincidence I hasten to add. We managed a little retail in the Cadbury shop. (disappointed there were no orange cream biscuits, no biscuits at all in fact.) One consolation: Crème eggs were cheap at $1.00 each and NZ dollars at that.

On the way to the first port whence frozen meat was exported (Oamaru) Chris our driver asked, ‘What do you get when you eat onions and baked beans?’ Answer: ‘tear gas.’

Oamaru.  

Oamaru turned out to be most unexpected in more ways than one. It is built of local limestone and the buildings gleam white in the sun. That is not remarkable, although it looks pretty. The market was something else: I thought I’d been transplanted into ‘weirdoland.’ Local stallholders were dressed mainly in black, some with top hats, bedecked with chains and sundry trimmings. Music came from a small electronic piano that echoed, all adding to the strange atmosphere.

Market Day.  

The next unexpected thing happened in a bead shop of all places. As usual when I go in a bead shop I always think of David. I was looking at bead books to see if I could find his name. The woman behind the counter asked if she could help me. I explained I had an American friend who was a bead artist.

‘What is his name?’ she asked.

‘David Chatt,’ said I.

‘He was my teacher,’ she exclaimed, ‘in Parapara-(something) near Wellington a few years ago.’ Her name is June, and she remembered the class as one of the best times of her life. She also remembered Ron very fondly. How about that for coincidence…or 6 degrees of separation or…

June showing off one of her pieces.

Nothing could top that but the Tip Top Hokey Pokey ice cream almost did. It’s vanilla with bits of toffee in, delicious. Don’t know how we’re going to stop eating on this trip, the dairy products and the meat are especially good.

Benmore Dam. 

After passing by Benmore Dam and Lake we ended up at Omarama for the night. A famous American Balloonist Steve Fossett stayed here many times and was due back to try and break the world gliding altitude record, before he disappeared forever. The area is a great place for gliding because it has the best thermals in NZ.

At Easter time Omarama holds an Easter Bunny shoot. Hide your children’s eyes! They go out and shoot rabbits and place them on the pub lawn for all to see. They’re regarded as pests in these part. That’s not all they shoot. We saw 2 fine racks of deer antlers in the back of a ute. Hunting season is open. Duck hunting starts next month. Given all the deer farms we’ve seen I’m surprised we have seen venison only once on the menu.