In possibly an obsessive quest to create the full record of my nerd-related ventures, this is the freshly-spruced and edited account of my trip to New Zealand earlier this year, from the emails I sent. But now with pics!This photo I took while waiting for the bus out of Auckland. And that was the day when the weather was *good*.
Friday 9 June 2006
Auckland
Thanks for all the messages asking how things have been going, especially those of you I forgot to put in my initial email, and was then shamed when you remembered to sms me... the initial email is below, so read backwards if you want my trip to unfold before you in all its glory in chronological order.
I arrived in Auckland last night, having caught the train from Wellington, which was one of the better decisions I have made, the service being set up well for tourists - the carriage was basically a fish tank, so you are able to fully appreciate the scenery unfold before you for the 12 hours it takes, a kind of silent documentary of a changing landscape. Except when it is overlaid by the increasingly amusing commentary; mostly it was of the sort "and to your right you will see the river x, this viaduct [a great word for the NZ accent to surmount] we are crossing was built in 1930, it is 42 metres high and 87 metres across', this was occasionally interrupted by some truly interesting, yet bizarre facts - 'The town of Tahape is famous for its gumboot throwing competition on the Tuesday after Easter, on your left you will a large sculpture of gumboot, commemorating this" - what was odd that I swear there were people beside the track practising - SMALL town. The town of Fielding was one of my favourites, having won NZ's tidiest town competition 12 out of 14 times; their tidy town improvement committee have gone to the effort of painting a large mural beside the railway line, of a steam train, seen from a low point of view to magnify to the glory of the steam age, so we just see the mid-section of the people standing close to the "camera", and then the full figures of people as they get closer to the train. This has the delightful result of meaning that the person closest to the spot from whence our gaze emanates is just an enourmous close-up of a man's buttocks, fortuitously trousered. Does lead one, or at least when is mid-way through 11 hours in the company of one's own thoughts, to ponder the commited members of the tidy town committee painting said mural, and what their thoughts may have been as they assiduously applied tonal modelling to said feature, vis a vis, civic improvement.
Mount RuapehuMy second favourite commentary moment was when the announcer said in that special commentator's way, of wordsallrushedtogetheratthebeggingofthesentencebefore sliiiiiding to a haaaalt, was when he was once again giving us the vital stats on a viaduct - this high, this long and so forth - and then launched into the story of how due to a mudslide upriverintheyearsuchand
such,theviaductwasweakenedandsowhen
theaucklandservicetravelledontothebridge
itgavewayandsent151peopleplummeting
to their deeeatths.
He footnoted this tale by mentioning there is now a sensor up stream to prevent this from happening again, but my brain was already "too late, uh uh, sorry buddy, can't mention the sensor at the END of the story, I've already visualised the
mad-dash-across-the-river-to-Rivendell-scene-while-
the-enchanted-waters-rise-rise-AND-RISE-ANDIAMNOTRIDINGAMAGICALPONY".
Forunately, internally.
The service came to a surprise halt an hour or so out of Auckland, which turned into a substantial pause, and then a prolonged wait. And then we were told that there was a gas leak further up the line, so that we would be ehre for a sustained, unknown period. Fortunately they cleared up the gasleak, so we avoided the transformation into a burnt-out-husk danger, and were able to proceed, a mere three hours late. 15 hours was a little longer than optimal, but none the less, a fine time was had, and I'm not in Wellington anymore.
Have still not seen hobbits.
Am off in search of archives.
ps. favourite words when used by new zealanders: "mince", "fifty" [they say fuffty! is very amusing! in some parallel life I'm going to get one of those big hairy sheepdogs from the bristol paint commercials and name him fuffty]
Sent: Tue 6/06/2006 5:28 p.m.
Wellington
Wellington is somewhat better today, have spent the day at the archives of Te Papa and I found a good café – that serves Organic Honey Cola – Oh Yes. The youth hostel improved when I realised they give you breakfast, but I'm still not loving my new found talant for picking hostels at the top of hills that I then have to lug my sorry butt up to at the end of each day... and then up to the third floor... Today’s research proved very exciting, I found installation shots of an exhibition in 1966 that I have been researching, and have made a time to someone who knew the artist.
I re-visited Te Papa, and got a much better sense of how it fits together, and the logic of the architecture. The ceiling is sort of like the upturned hull of a wooden ship, with a central spine running from the front of the building to back, the exhibition galleries on each floor are on either side of this with connecting walkways. This results in a central space that is the height of all four floors. Which would be better if it didn’t have random neon signs trying to excite the kiddies about which ever exhibition is aimed at their tiny minds [yep still bitter], but is still a great space to be in. This also means that you can at least glimpse the giant enlargement in glass of the Treaty of Waitangi, the foundation of Anglo and Maori relations in New Zealand. The display about which is great, with different translations of the document’s original Maori version and the English version explain how there were some subtle, but very significant differences, in how the Maori leader’s would have understood the proceedings.
The museum has some excellent displays, largely exactly what you’d expect – Maori culture and traditions, early pioneers, etc. An amusing moment is in the display about the early voyage by ship to New Zealand which quotes from some of the diaries and letters written onboard, one of which delightedly records the sighting of dolphins. And their subsequent capture and frying in butter.
My only lasting gripe about Te Papa is that it is both the National Museum collection and the National Gallery collection, which due to either a conference or the Lord of the Rings exhibition, wasn’t displayed. It is a shame to have a national collection of art that gets displayed at the mercy of other exhibitions. There was a nice overview exhibition, but it was in the context of a museum collection rather than a dedicated art collection, so the aims and results were different to what I would have liked. And on LoTR – can we move on? How long must we pander to the overcoated, becrystalled adolescents and their obsession?
Next stop... noodles! yay for cambodia! [I didn't get the noodles, the restaurant was booked out, leaving me with a lasting yearn]
Sent: 05/06/2006 01:05
Subject: There's nothing scarier....
... than an airline that provides four sickbags to every person. I mean seriously, what message are they trying to send with that? This morning I got up at 4.30am. I watched the sun come up on a plane, and arrived in Wellington at 8am. At this point I began to get grumpy. I don't like Wellington. I'm sure if I wasn't so tired it'd be morepleasant.... no, actually, even if I wasn't so tired my hostel wouldn't bemore pleasant and the architecture of this town would be just as shiny inall its 70s hell glory. Seems that Wellington and Sydney shared some ofthe same city planners.
Extravagantly bad oui?Today is a public holiday, also a cause for grumpiness, because 70 percentof Wellington apparently needs to sit quietly today and think queenlythoughts, except for the children, all of whom were taken to Te Papa, the NZ national museum, and instructed that this was the place to run aroundscreaming, and to scream especially loudly if they saw a woolly-hatted, baggy-eyed, death-staring Australian trying to appreciate their national heritage whilst wishing ill upon the citizens that inherited it. Despite its patrons, it’s a great museum, that the National Museum of Australia should be but isn't quite. And it manages to use "wacky contemporary museum" architecturewhilst being sympathetic to the landscape, rather than appearing like agiant childcare centre, as does our NMA. Although clearly if it did thenit would be more honest about what it is like inside, wading through 1000sof tiny sprites.Anyway, thanks for letting me vent, not that you have much choice.Dunedin on the other hand, was quite lovely, nice old buildings, many cafesand bars of interest (unlike the cafe that I was in in Wellinton thismorning, which served a girl at the table next to me her smoked salmon andcream cheese on a FRUIT bagel... and she ATE it... so clearly the cafesaren't being in encouraged to behave properly... my coffee was drinkable,but my roast mushrooms arrived in a cream sauce, and that made me sad).And grumpy.Christchurch was nice, although don't eat at Valentinos pizza if you arethere - apparently there's no need to really cook ingredients on a pizza,as it is much nicer if you get to crunch through massive hunks of capsicum. Christchurch art gallery is quite fine. I thought Christchurch had made some architecture mistakes, until I arrived in Wellington.
Am having fun, and so on, is nice to have finally left Australia. Tone ofthis email does not reflect tone of overall experience!
ps they weren't kidding about the number of sheep in this country.
Sent: Friday 2 June 2006
Subject: New Zulland
Words that sound better (or just more amusing) when said by new zealanders:
metamorphosis
suggest
him
dialectic
hoody
and to paraphrase sarah:
bus to Dunedin: $40
conference fee: $89
accom: $120
someone who can use the word coterminous in a sentence but can't pronounce Don Juan: priceless
So, Christchurch is extremely flat, its art gallery is in the style of 'contemporary gallery international' which seems to be emerging from Bilbao, to Melbourne, to well, Christchurch, its collection is good, and thoughtfully presented. The Canterbury Museum was thoroughly entertaining, still making substantial use of the diorama, and dedicating the ‘gallery of the first peoples and the moa bird’, to the first settlers, and yes, the moa bird. Did you ever think you'd encounter something that was dedicated to an extinct species? I did not. But I'm sure the spirits of moa (stumpy, oversized emus) appreciate it.
View from my room in Dunedin....I heart Dunedin
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