Travel on the Gravel

The press of work interrupted my posting of accounts and images from New Zealand, and now I insert a progress resport on that always-dicey proposition in North Dakota, the progress of spring. Actually, I try to avoid using the word "spring," as that is something we don't have here. I more commonly refer to "the thaw." That's been in progress for the past week, leading us today to "the wet."

A week ago Tuesday I flew home from New Zealand to find heavy snow cover remaining, but there were a few honkers sitting by open water on the West Fargo floodway. From then on the thaw began to creep in. Last Friday, one week ago, I espied the first robin in the back yard. The past two days honkers have been winging over the house, because some open ground has emerged from beneath the pack. With now a couple of days around 50 degrees, the fields are open, although partially submerged. The creek is high in the back yard, but no apparent danger of flooding. The weather this morning is stinky--wind around to the north, spitting cold rain--but robins are playing and snowbirds are flocking. I even saw a grackle at the feeders yesterday.

En route from Dunedin to Christchurch, we made a stop at a place I've passed many times, always intending to check it out, but never having the time. This is Totara Estate, a property of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Totara was one of the great estates of the South Island, and it possesses a nice complex of buildings built of Oamaru limestone, but what makes this place singular in New Zealand heritage is that it was at Totara the sheep were killed to compose the first shipment of frozen meat from New Zealand home to Britain. Totara was a property of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company. The ship that carried the frozen meat was the Dunedin. (Those of you in my HIST 381 class, you recall the importance of the advent of refrigeration in galvanizing the Australasian livestock economy.)

Abattoir & carcass hanging shed
Hog lot--offal from the slaughtered beasts was pushed into the lot for hogs
Stables
Granary

After the stroll through Totara, we were ready for some lunch, and in Oamaru we came across a fetching fish & chips shop staffed, of course, by a Chinese family. Across the street was a little park, or reserve as you would say in NZ. This proved a fortunate choice for lunch. The fried blue cod filets were perfect, and the chips were about right, too.

Fish & Chips Shop
Fish & Chips on wrapping paper

While in Dunedin we took a few minutes to visit the historic railway station, which I had admired for years but somehow never got around to visiting. (Students in my HIST 381 class, here is tangible evidence of the importance of the nation-building Vogel era in New Zealand history.) The station is nothing short of monumental. Driving across town after that, we paused to watch the latter part of a club rugby match on the field of the Alhambra Union Rugby Football Club.

Dunedin Railway Station
Marble and limestone trim
Interior ornamentation
Railroad engine in the floor tiles
Hard yards
No try

Every year in March I make a trip to New Zealand, continuing a line of research on the Lindis region of Central Otago. This is great fun, a fascinating line of work, and a good excuse to get out of North Dakota in March, the one truly unpleasant month of the year. Just this morning I returned from the annual sojourn in NZ. This is the first of a series of entries presenting recollections, impressions, and images from the expedition.

I flew into Auckland and, as I made the walk from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, making my connections to Dunedin, I felt the cares of work stress and deferred spring melting away in the warmth and humidity of the place. Even better, arriving in Dunedin I met up with our old friends the Brookings. The morning after arrival, indeed, Tom and I and two of his grad students went into a videoconferencing studio at the University of Otago and met my HIST 381 (Australia & New Zealand) class from there. This was a wonderful conversation in real time across the Pacific. While in Dunedin, too, before ZZ joined me there (she following two days after me), I had the opportunity for some quiet and productive research in the Hocken Library. This is always refreshing. What a wonderful research library that is!

When ZZ arrived in Dunedin we took the opportunity to do a little local sightseeing, including driving out on the Otago Peninsula and visiting Larnach Castle. As it happens, just today, having returned from NZ, I went in to lecture my 381 class on the societies of Australia and New Zealand and made some points about the definition of egalitarianism in those countries. As a contribution to that discussion, here are some images from Larnach.

Larnach Castle
Cabbage trees around the front entry
Lions guarding the front steps
Parapet atop Larnach
Gardens viewed from the top of Larnach
The blogger overlooking Otago Harbour