Taieri Gorge Railway to Queenstown
We took the Taieri Gorge Railway from Dunedin to Pukerangi yesterday. It was utterly breathtaking.
The track is cut into the side of a mountain range with a sheer drop into a gorge (hence the name) where a river rages hundreds of metres below. The train was built in the 1920s and is very 'Murder on the Orient Express', and who knows when the track itself (which goes over these sickeningly rickety viaducts) was built - suffice to say that quite a few lives were lost. We fell into the trap of taking millions of photos of the same thing. Very beautiful, but impossible to capture on film.
Still eating bananas!
Chris was warned 'away from the edge mate!!' when he scaled a rock face with his SLR in search of a good shot.
We then travelled on to Queenstown via roads running through dramatic mountainous terrain. Unlike Australia, NZ has no drought problem at all. It pisses down constantly here, and the dams and lakes are overflowing with fresh blue water. If only there was some way of taking it home with us.
Queenstown is gorgeous, but surreal. Every shop in the town centre is dedicated to the thrillseeker, or the hedonist, or the idle rich. We found ourselves missing the dusty bookshops, supermarkets, tailors and op shops of Dunedin. Queenstown is all Oakley sunglasses and cheap bandanas. And no-one seems to notice how amazingly beautiful the place is - or at least, not without paying a hell of a lot of money to be told. The older tourists sniffing around the jewellery shops and restaurants certainly don't seem to pay much attention to it, and nor do the adrenalin mainlining 'booms' who come here and pay a fortune to swing from bridges and hoist themselves over the landscape in as many different ways as possible. It's just a prop for each to film (or buy the t-shirt of) their own narcissistic 'personal challenge'. It's a bit depressing. It's as if all nature has to offer is a bit of height and an advantageous precipice for rigging up the dare-devil jump and a good current for the jetboat. It all feels like a big sell, and nature is the hooker.
We just wanted to get a bit closer to it - not to suspend ourselves from it, not to be driven over it in a four by four, not to strap on paraphernalia and be dragged through it by boat. So this morning we clambered up the face of Bob's Peak, a mountain overlooking the town, on foot. The air was so clean and fresh, and there was a misty rain falling on us as we walked, which kept us cool. The view on the way up was astonishing.
It took us an exhausting hour to get up there, and the only way down was the gondola. I am not great with heights, I will confess, and Chris took some photos of me shitting myself as the little pod we were in shook in the breeze - with a little help from my mischievous companion. Not pretty.
We don't know where we're going next - which is part disorganisation, and part freewheelin' Easy Rider-esque beatnik road trip sentimentality. You'll find out as soon as we do.
By the way Chris's take is on his blog. It doesn't work having us both blog about the same thing at the same time on the same site. The photos remain a joint effort.
The track is cut into the side of a mountain range with a sheer drop into a gorge (hence the name) where a river rages hundreds of metres below. The train was built in the 1920s and is very 'Murder on the Orient Express', and who knows when the track itself (which goes over these sickeningly rickety viaducts) was built - suffice to say that quite a few lives were lost. We fell into the trap of taking millions of photos of the same thing. Very beautiful, but impossible to capture on film.
Still eating bananas!
Chris was warned 'away from the edge mate!!' when he scaled a rock face with his SLR in search of a good shot.
We then travelled on to Queenstown via roads running through dramatic mountainous terrain. Unlike Australia, NZ has no drought problem at all. It pisses down constantly here, and the dams and lakes are overflowing with fresh blue water. If only there was some way of taking it home with us.
Queenstown is gorgeous, but surreal. Every shop in the town centre is dedicated to the thrillseeker, or the hedonist, or the idle rich. We found ourselves missing the dusty bookshops, supermarkets, tailors and op shops of Dunedin. Queenstown is all Oakley sunglasses and cheap bandanas. And no-one seems to notice how amazingly beautiful the place is - or at least, not without paying a hell of a lot of money to be told. The older tourists sniffing around the jewellery shops and restaurants certainly don't seem to pay much attention to it, and nor do the adrenalin mainlining 'booms' who come here and pay a fortune to swing from bridges and hoist themselves over the landscape in as many different ways as possible. It's just a prop for each to film (or buy the t-shirt of) their own narcissistic 'personal challenge'. It's a bit depressing. It's as if all nature has to offer is a bit of height and an advantageous precipice for rigging up the dare-devil jump and a good current for the jetboat. It all feels like a big sell, and nature is the hooker.
We just wanted to get a bit closer to it - not to suspend ourselves from it, not to be driven over it in a four by four, not to strap on paraphernalia and be dragged through it by boat. So this morning we clambered up the face of Bob's Peak, a mountain overlooking the town, on foot. The air was so clean and fresh, and there was a misty rain falling on us as we walked, which kept us cool. The view on the way up was astonishing.
It took us an exhausting hour to get up there, and the only way down was the gondola. I am not great with heights, I will confess, and Chris took some photos of me shitting myself as the little pod we were in shook in the breeze - with a little help from my mischievous companion. Not pretty.
We don't know where we're going next - which is part disorganisation, and part freewheelin' Easy Rider-esque beatnik road trip sentimentality. You'll find out as soon as we do.
By the way Chris's take is on his blog. It doesn't work having us both blog about the same thing at the same time on the same site. The photos remain a joint effort.
posted by susanna @ 7:59 PM
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