New Zealand—Queenstown

The Queenstown area was completely covered with clouds when we flew in. Once the jet got below the level of the clouds, we got our first look around. We were nearly even with the tops of the surrounding mountains before the plane ducked below the layer of clouds.

Once again, the runway was only just long enough. The plane had to use a full reverse of engines and brakes to come to a stop before the end of the runway. We exited down stairs onto the tarmac and walked inside for a short customs check. Once in the lobby, I decided to use the ATM to get some cash in New Zealand currency. No luck, the ATM wouldn’t dispense any funds. We learned two days later, after three calls to our credit union, that our debit card would not work in New Zealand. (Even though originally we were told it would.) Luckily, we were able to get a cash advance on our credit card on our third day in Queenstown.

Our second day, we arranged for a tour of Milford Sound on the southwest coast. The total time for the trip was about twelve hours. Five hours to the sound, an hour for lunch, two hours cruising out to the Tasman Sea, and a four hour return trip. On the way out, we stopped at several scenic spots for photos, while on the way back, we simply drove to get back to Queenstown.

Two days after we took our tour, a heavy snowstorm hit the Milford area and caused an avalanche above the highway, bringing down tons of rock and trees. Some of the boulders are so large, holes will have to be drilled for explosives so they can blow them up and remove them. This could take several days. Some tours were trapped at the sound during the bad weather and may be trapped there until the road is opened. (Two days later and that could have been us!)

Our Milford Sound cruise was quite chilly and somewhat overcast, but the scenery was extremely beautiful. (as you can see from the photos posted on Facebook.) We enjoyed the commentary of Ian McIntosh, our tour guide, as he was knowledgeable about the history, legends, animals, botany, and current affairs of the area.

The following afternoon we took a half day, Lord of the Rings tour around Queenstown. We learned from Ian, the day before, that the third largest industry of New Zealand, after agriculture and tourism, is movie production. They have an abundance of beautiful scenery at a reasonable price, compared to other countries. Not only were many of the scenes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy filmed around the Queenstown area, but also some from The Hobbit, Wolverine, and Narnia. We were able to view a number of the locations where scenes were shot. One scene from Wolverine, which some of you may remember, was filmed on a one way bridge, supposedly in Canada. New Zealand has hundreds of single lane bridges and the roads at either end are marked with arrows designating which side of the road you should return to. You drive on the left in New Zealand, in Canada it’s the right. If you remember the scene, Wolverine moves his truck to the right, but the arrow is plainly visible, directing drivers to the left. The scene is obviously not shot in Canada—a minor blooper.

The one lane bridge leads onto the Paradise Ranch and Sheep Station, a thousand acre spread completely surrounded by a national park. Jim ?, (can't remember his last name.) the owner, charged Peter Jackson, (a native New Zealander from Wellington) three thousand dollars a day to use his ranch to set up and film several scenes from the Lord of the Rings, and later, The Hobbit. Locals from Queenstown, (about 30 percent of the population of 13,000, were movie extras, orcs, and uruchi. Horsemen from all over southern New Zealand formed a group of 250 riders that appeared in many of the scenes of the LOTR. Peter Jackson simply had them digitally duplicated in the larger groups needed. (Next time you watch, see if you can pick out the copies!)

Our whole LOTR tour was wet. It rained the entire afternoon, and clouds hung so low over the mountaintops that some of the locations were practically invisible. The last ford in one of the streams our four-wheel drive was going to cross, was too deep so we were unable to see Chinaman’s Bluff. Our guide, Alana, told of the time after gold was discovered in Arrowton, the next city east from Queenstown, and several Chinese men tricked some white miners into abandoning their claims in Arrowton in favor of some out on the other side of Paradise. They succeeded and moved to Arrowton where they staked valuable claims while the white miners were duped—thus Chinaman’s Bluff. It was a kind of payback for their earlier bad treatment by the white miners.

On the way back, we stopped in the Mount Aspiring National Park, got a look at the tree that inspired some of the ent faces in The Two Towers, walked through the woods where Boromir was shot and Pippin and Merry were captured by the Uruk-hai, and also sampled an edible leaf that was as spicy as a jalapeno. We needed a cool drink to wash the heat our of our mouths! All-in-all, it was an incredible two days of sightseeing and soaking up as much of the culture and history of the area as we could.

 ***

And God will wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.      Revelation 21:4

Ballarat, Victoria - Center of Gold Mining

West of Melbourne the land turns somewhat drier. Prickly Pear cactus grows head high in the more arid areas, and the land rolls away to a range of low mountains. Stubby wiregrass grows anywhere there is a small amount of moisture and proliferates in the lower cuts and marshes. The land is better for ranching: sheep, cattle, horses or rabbits, than it is for growing crops. In some areas, erosion has exposed the gray and white slate and limestone rocks on the surface. Stands of eucalyptus gather in groups around low ponds and gullies or otherwise grow anywhere they can find a foothold in any soil that provides a small amount of moisture.

Firs and pines grow beside eucalyptus along the higher elevations but are scarcer in the lowlands. As you approach Ballarat, the land rises in a series of rolling hills and low mountains. The soil turns to brown and is excellent for growing hay and pasture grasses.

The train station in Ballarat is a long walk from anywhere. At least that’s the impression we got after getting directions from the stationmaster to the Best Western on Barkley Avenue. The stationmaster sent us on a long detour by mapping out things on our path that weren’t there: from streets to even a McDonald’s Restaurant. I didn’t think anyone could misplace a McDonalds! Luckily, we passed a tractor dealer who steered us back on the right path, unfortunately we retraced almost half the distance we had walked before we found the actual location of McDonalds. From there it was a mere two blocks farther.

Ballarat is, and was, the center of gold production in Australia. It may also have been where my ancestor, Herman Koester,  as a 15 or 16 year old boy ended up in the 1850’s mining for gold. This is the reason we came to Ballarat: to get a flavor of the area and what it may have been like during the mid nineteenth century. To assist with that, we visited a recreated site of the 1850’s called Sovereign Hill in which the original city was reconstructed over the top of one of the early corporation gold mines in the area. During our visit, cold though it was at Sovereign Hill, (It was like a cold, rainy, Florida winter day. (40 degrees, gusty winds, and rain)

We watched a wheelwright construct a wagon wheel from the basic components of wood and metal. His is the only shop in the world that still creates wheels the way it was done in the mid nineteenth century. Following this, we took a tour into the mine, going down 100 feet below the surface. Independent miners were able to mine the quartz rock, from which they recovered gold after crushing it, from a depth of up to 300 feet. Below that they hit the area’s water table and could go no further because they had no way to pump out the water. Corporation mines invested in steam equipment capable of pumping out enough water to allow them to tunnel down to 1100 feet.

Independent miners, and corporations as well, left some of the gold bearing rock where they were digging to hold up the ceiling. The timbers and trees that were also placed in the mines were simply to warn the miners that a cave-in was coming by the loud creaks and groans they would issue as the ground was collapsing above. It didn’t always provide enough time for them to escape, but it was the best warning system they had at the time.

In the mines around Ballarat, from each ton of quartz rock brought to the surface, the miners could expect to get ½ ounce of gold. Although, at times nuggets, such as the Welcome Nugget, could weigh up to 1200 ounces, they were rare and few miners could count on finding such a windfall. A regular miner working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for the corporation made about $5.00 a week. (Which was a high wage job for the time and men flocked to the gold fields to get one, leaving Melbourne with a labor shortage.) Their day began when they came down the elevator and reached the first level of the mine. Their 12 hour day ended at the same place. If the elevator wasn’t operating, they had to climb out, which may take over an hour. (This was considered their own time and they weren’t paid for it.)

Ballerat has about 75,000 people living there today. Their downtown area is a mixture of small shops, public buildings, hotels, and banks, with a strip of parkland in the middle of Sturt Street which is also home to a band-shell, statues, and fountains.

There is a city bus but we (Cindy would say I) decided not to use which resulted in us walking about 15 miles in the two days we were there, many times in the rain. The weather was cool to cold and rainy, most of the time we were there.

*** 
Being confident of this very thing, that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6

Sydney to Melbourne, and Train Travel

We decided to travel by train while we were in Australia since I wasn't sure I wanted to brave the roadways here driving on the opposite side of both the highway and the front seat. Although, the pedals are in the same place so you don't have to change feet, too. Go figure that out! We were too late to purchase our passes online before we came to get the "Outside of Australia" rate so I came over expecting to pay more. We actually paid less because they only passes advertised were for 3 and 6 months. None of the intermediaries advertised that you could by 2 week passes for a lot less. (Which were all we needed.) We saved about half the cost, overall.

Riding the trains are like using any form of public transportation--you can't choose who will be sitting nearby. We've encountered a few characters while on the train, nothing really that would discourage us from using them again, from smells, to noise, and to a train carriage that sounded like the wheels would fall off at any time, to their most modern, the Tilt Train whose TV monitors buzzed all the way from Brisbane to Bundaberg, a 4 1/2 hour trip. It was the smoothest ride we had but the buzzing was absolutely annoying.

Topography between Sydney and Melbourne generally consists of rolling hills, pasture land, and rocky outcroppings interspersed with scattered forests of eucalyptus and pines.  Further south, the trees thin out and the hills flatten to present more of a tableland to the east with mountains rising in the distance to the west. Pools of water dot the low points and intersections between rises.

As the mountains draw closer, the trees and bushes grow thicker once again.

Thousands of sheep dot the meadows and hillsides like fluffy dandelions waiting for the wind to spread their seeds aloft. Beef cattle are nearly as numerous in the pastures as sheep and you may spot an occasional kangaroo or wallaby hopping quickly away from the passing train. Black and white magpies abound here and flocks of the swoop from fences and trees into the tall grasses. Bright yellow fields of Canola are one of the main farm crops of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria. They spread for miles on either side of the tracks, intermixed with dark green pastureland.

Clays of red, orange, and gold are revealed by the streams and rivers coursing through the uneven ground, spilling their colors to the sky.

It's a large country. From Sydney to Melbourne is more than an eleven hour train ride. We arrived after dark on Wednesday, September 26.

Next: Melbourne, Victoria

The Blue Mountains, New South Wales

Do you like to walk? A lot? I don't mean do you love to walk but do you like to walk far? If you do, the tour we took was for you. We were picked up at 7:00 in the morning in front of our hotel and there were only 5 of us so Rod, our guide (Nice Aussie name, eh?) decided he had enough time to take us to some more out of the way places he knew. Some of the roads were so bad I thought the van would break an axle. The views were spectacular. The Blue Mountains are not really mountains as you might think of them, but a number of ridges which have had the center or middle washed out by erosion. They get their name from the blue mist which is eucalyptus oil, secreted by the trees, mixed with mist that rises on the air currents.

We had beef pie for lunch (very delicious) which you eat by holding it in your hands, but we sat on the high point of a ridge, gazing out over the edge of a cliff at an unbelievable panorama. I said to Rod, "This beats eating lunch in an office," to which he replied, "This is my office."

We didn't see any koalas or kangaroos here. Apparently, the soil is too poor to provide enough nutrients in the eucalyptus leaves to sustain many koalas and it's not the best type of terrain for kangaroos. What we did see were quite a few cockatoos. The babies are dark so they can more easily hide from predators, but they really squawk when they get bigger to urge their mothers to bring them food. Mature cockatoos, as you know, are white.

We spent the entire day trekking through the Blue Mountains, walked about 8 or 9 miles, but it was all worthwhile.

Sydney, Australia, Part 3

The first settlers came ashore near present day Sydney in 1788, landing at a place called the Rock. Today, there are a number of shops and merchants there selling all kinds of wares. In my mind I was imagining a different place called the Rock with a number of shops built into the cell blocks of an ancient prison. (A number of early settlers of Australia were convicts from England, by the way.) The Rock actually turned out to be very much like St. George Street in St. Augustine, but with steep hills. We looked through a number of shops and in one I found my Aussie hat.

I never thought about what I might look like to the locals as I walked out of the shop wearing my hat, inspired by Crocodile Dundee. The next day our guide to the Blue Mountains said that only tourists around Sydney wear hats like mine, usually either Americans or Germans. Guilty on both counts, I thought, being an American of German descent. Still, I think I would have bought it anyway.

We took a ferryboat across Sydney Harbor to Taronga Zoo in the afternoon. (That's where the photo with the red kangaroos was taken.) It's a regular zoo with most of the animals in natural environments and some where people can actually interact with them. The most exciting part of the zoo experience was the bird show. The birds actually fly around free, some buzzing right over the spectators heads: owls, falcons, kites, hawks, cockatoos, etc. It's amazing how quietly owls can fly. It's practically impossible to hear them coming.

By crikey, Mates, it's time to end this blog and find my Way Out.

Next up: the Blue Mountains

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Part 2

We decided to stay awake so we could adjust better to the jet lag. (There is a 14 hour difference in time between US Eastern and Australian Eastern.) We explored the Sydney underground subway system for a short time before we found the correct Platforms and trains. (Believe it or not, To get from Kings Crossing to Circular Quay [pronounced Key] you take the train from Platform 1 and after two stops you change to the train on Platform 6--but to return to our hotel you don't take 6 and then 1 you take 1 and 6 again. I still don't know how that worked, but it did--except the last time we went that route and then we took trains 1 and 5 coming back.

We took a tour of the Opera House and the architecture is stunning. Unfortunately, there was a performance going on in the main hall (there are several in the building) so we didn't get to see it. The person who won the design competition basically scribbled his entry on a piece of scrap paper which the original committee discarded but a later judge pulled out of the scrap heap and got it declared the winner. (Imagine one of the most distinctive buildings in the world not being constructed.) Originally, the building was to take 4 years to build and cost $7 million dollars. It really took 14 years and cost $105 million dollars. It was finished in 1973.

The roof is made of concrete sections which are covered by tile. (I'll try to remember to post a photo on Facebook later so you can see what it looks like.) Parts of the building are undergoing an upgrade which were designed by the original architect. (He died in 2009 so he didn't get to see his improvements finished. He actually never returned to Australia after the building was completed.)

We also visited the Botanical Gardens which is mostly a large park next to the Sydney Opera House.

This pretty much ended our first day in Australia.

(End of Sydney, part 2)

Australia: We've Arrived! (Sydney: Part 1)

We arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, Sunday morning at about 6:30 AM local time after an uneventful flight of 15 hours. Customs went quickly and we exited to the main terminal happy to be on the ground again. We were thirsty and went to a shop in the airport to buy a couple of sodas. I was shocked at the price for a bottle of Coke: $5:00! I thought that it was just because it was at the airport but we found out later that the regular price is $3.75 to $4.50 for soft drinks. (The price of food and drink is really high compared to the US, but more about that on a later blog.)

We next paid for a van to take us to the Pott's Point Holiday Inn. We followed a group of for about a quarter mile to a beat-up VW bus pulling a trailer. Behind it was parked a clean, white new bus and we all headed for that. "No, not the bus, the van!" our guide called out. We stuffed our bags in the enclosed trailer and then crammed ourselves into the small seats and off we went--for ten yards--and the bags fell out of the trailer. (Our driver had forgotten to close the gates.) He quickly stopped, mumbled something we couldn't understand, retrieved the bags and we were off again.

Most of the people in Australia are fairly easy to understand, but not our driver. He barely opened his mouth when he spoke, mumbling and slurring his words. His sense of direction was much better than his speech and we arrived safely at the door to our hotel. We were early for check-in (by about 5 hours) but the Aussie woman checking us in found us an open room and booked us in. We arrived on the third floor and opened the drapes to discover that we'd received an upgrade! We had a beautiful view of Sydney Harbor: the opera house, harbor bridge and the skyline of Sydney.

(End of Part 1)

Coming Trip to Australia & New Zealand

We're counting down the last two weeks until we take a much anticipated trip to Australia and New Zealand. Most of the time we will be "Down Under" we will be on vacation, but part of the trip will include some research in the Melbourne area about the Australian Gold Rush of the 1850's.

About 1852, one of my ancestors, as a fifteen year old young man, was basically forced to flee England along with his brother and were able to bribe a ship's captain to allow them to 'stow away' on his ship which was headed for Australia.

Sometime in the future I plan to write a young adult novel about my ancestor's exciting exploits on board ship and while he was exploring Australia and mining for gold near Melbourne in Victoria, Australia.

While in Australia and New Zealand, I will be blogging about what we see and some of our experiences there, some of which will be connected with my research for a novel. Hope you will join me.