Sunday Scribblings: Pilgrimage

The road to Skippers is not for the faint hearted. It is narrow and unsealed. On one side vertical rock faces tower above. On the other, the road drops almost as sharply to the canyon below. In the 1800s, even this road did not exist. The early gold miners had to somehow make their way on foot to the gold fields of the Shotover River. To make it easier to get out the gold, a dray road was built by men with dynamite, pick axes and shovels.

Skippers is deserted now, its buildings little more than piles of roofless stone. It’s popular with tourists though, and the bolder among them can bungy jump from the old Skippers bridge. Van loads of thrill seekers come to raft or jet boat on the white water of the Shotover river.

It’s easiest to go by bus, but if you go by car it pays to check the bus timetables first. If you meet another vehicle, one of you must back up to the nearest passing bay. If the other vehicle is the bus, it will always be you that backs up – no matter if you have to back up a mile, and the bus is only a few yards past a passing bay – the bus will never back. Best to make a day of it, and plan on arriving before the first bus, and leaving when the last bus is gone.

From the 1860s to the 1880s my greatgrandfather Thomas Brydon was a carter in Invercargill. Then came a depression. There was insufficient work to support his family. This is when he came to this rugged country, where he became a shot firer in the Phoenix goldmine at Bullendale. Skippers is remote enough, but the gold mine is even more remote – up the left branch of the Skippers Creek, another eight to ten kilometres into the mountains. Here the men worked underground mining gold from the quartz reefs. Since it was underground, daylight was irrelevant. They worked by day and by night. New Zealand’s first hydroelectric scheme was here, to power the quartz stamper, and I suppose, lights for the men to work by.

Thomas was a shot firer. It was his job to drill holes for the dynamite, place the dynamite and ignite it. Then of course, to retreat to a safe distance and wait for it to go off. Something went wrong. One of the charges failed to go off. The rules said that he should wait two hours before approaching. For some reason, he didn’t. He went back to check, at which point, the delayed explosion occurred, and he was seriously injured.

He was transported to Queenstown by ambulance. A simple enough sentence today, but what did it mean then? First he had to be carried to Skippers by horse over narrow rough tracks in the dark, taking three hours. That was where four hours they met the ambulance which would of course have been a horse-drawn cart. A mechanic at the mine reported at the inquest “ we were about 12 or 14 miles on our journey when the groaning ceased, I stopped the horse and looked at the man, when he groaned once more and apparently died”.

Thomas is buried at the Queenstown cemetery. A few years ago I contacted a local undertaker who was able to check the cemetery plans for me. He told me the general area where Thomas was buried. There is no headstone. Some years ago a fire went through the cemetery and burned the simple wooden crosses and fences, making it difficult to identify the exact plot.

I sometimes imagine visiting the site of the Phoenix mine to see the place where he died. What would I see there today? According to the track guide,
The former Phoenix Mine is marked by an old rock breaker perched high on the riverbank, above the site of the massive 30-head stamper. Nearby, Murdochs Creek is littered with mining relics, and the remains of Bullendale’s cottages are scattered on the tussock flat above.

(There is a photo of one of the old huts at Bullendale if you follow the link. I also found photos of the Skippers Canyon, but not of the Phoenix mine area, on Flickr - some of them quite spectacular - I used the search terms "Skippers" and "Queenstown". I just haven't figured out how to add them to my blog.)

Will I ever make the trip? It is described as a two to three hour journey one way requiring medium fitness. I know that I can walk a couple of hours in the city on the flat. The mountains are another matter. This is a hike, not a walk, requiring good boots and survival equipment. Every summer the newspapers are full of talk of tourists, ill-equipped for the changeable weather in New Zealand’s mountains, who become lost or trapped by sudden weather changes and lose their lives. If I’m to take the idea seriously, I would need to prepare by improving my fitness, acquire some serious tramping gear, and learn survival skills. The easiest way might be to hire a guide. I’m fast approaching sixty – it would need to be in the next few years. It is a pilgrimage that I think of making, but whether I ever will remains to be seen.

For Sunday Scribblings “Pilgrimage”

Coffee

There was a lot of coffee drunk in the prefects' room in my final year of high school. That was the year we studied T S Eliot. There is a line from "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" -
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons
that is forever linked in my memory with that year.

I had been a slow starter when it came to coffee. It was only as a teenager, when I started going to "socials" that I realised that most of my contemporaries were drinking beverages other than milk and cordial. I was at a Presbyterian Bible Class social, and was asked whether I would like tea? - No thanks. - Coffee then? - No thanks - leading my friend Fiona to ask me "What are you, a Mormon or something?"

I figured that for the sake of my social life, I would need to learn to drink something. I settled on coffee. Our Bible Class ran a baysitting service, and I was going out on evening babysitting jobs from the age of about twelve or thirteen (difficult to imagine now, despite the Babysitters Club books that my daughters used to read). There was always a tray of supper left out for the babysitter - the makings of tea and coffee, along with biscuits or cakes. It was a perfect time to practice my coffee drinking skills, with no one to see if I tipped half of it down the sink. Gradually I learned to tolerate the bitter taste, always with plenty of milk and sugar. (Years later when dieting, I managed to abandon the sugar habit).

In post war Wellington, European migrants were bringing new tastes and culture. It was the era of the coffee bar. Not that I dated much. But the standard date was to go to the movies, and afterwards to go to a coffee bar, usually the "Chez Paree". Entrance was through a cave-like passage. I remember a dimly-lit, smoke-filled room. Red gingham checked tablecloths. Candles in Chianti bottles. A folk singer on acoustic guitar. The coffee was strong Cona coffee, bubbling away in glass jugs. It was too strong for my taste. I can't remember what I drank there instead, but I think it may have been a "spider" - rather like an ice cream soda, made with a tall glass of Fanta (bright orange soft drink) or Coca Cola, with a scoop of ice cream, cream and chocolate sprinkles.

I went to university, got married, raised a tribe of children. Some time when I wasn't looking, the coffee bars faded away. And then sometime when I wasn't looking, cafes arrived with their new coffee culture. I still drink my coffee as I have always done - instant coffee, lots of milk, no sugar. I'm confused by all the cappucinos, moccachinos, macchiatos, espressos. As far as I can tell, the nearest thing to "coffee with milk and no sugar" is a flat white, so that's what I usually order. Unless I have hot chocolate.

So I was rather surprised to see on Mark Sarvas's blog that he hadn't encountered a flat white before coming to Australia and New Zealand. And that he seems to think it is something quite special.

More musings on coffee over at Sunday Scribblings.

For more on the post war coffee bar scene in Wellington, click here.

Sunday Scribblings: Fellow Travellers

(No, it's not Sunday. Apparently that's how Sunday Scribblings works. Write a post on the prompt, and post it on a day that's not Sunday).

For some reason I read the prompt "fellow travellers" and recalled it as "travelling companions". I must have seen that prompt somewhere else recently. "Travelling companions" brings to mind friends on a quest, for instance Frodo and his companions in "The Lord of the Rings". Or alternatively, the travellers in the "Canterbury Tales", who met on the journey, and travelled together on a pilgrimage, because in dangerous times there is safety in numbers. I think of the tales they told each other to while away the time on the journey.

We don't really seem to travel that way any more. I don't, anyway. Of course I travel with other people sometimes - almost always my family. I don't think of my family as travelling companions, or fellow travellers, because of course they are so much more than that. They are - well, family.

Other than that, modern travel discourages getting to know the strangers around us. From what I've seen on long plane journeys, people don't pay too much attention to the people in the neighbouring seats. Other than to hope they won't be seated next to a squalling infant, or an obnoxious drunk, that is.

We travelled around the UK in a rental car, some of it on motorways, which were filled with fellow travellers, all tucked away safely within their own hurtling balls of metal, where no interaction is possible. And we stayed in bed and breakfasts where we arrived fairly late in the day, went out for a meal and returned in time for bed. And then in the morning we got up, showered, had breakfast and left. We weren't without human interaction - we visited quite a few friends and relatives, but they weren't fellow travellers - they were on their home territory.

Most bed and breakfasts these days seem to provide separate tables at breakfasts for the guests. I'm told it wasn't always like this. And then, there was that one place at Shrewsbury. There were two large tables in the dining room, and we were seated around one of these with, yes, fellow travellers. There were a young American couple who were taking the opportunity to travel around Britain by train. They don't have the opportunity for train travel in the US, he said. Well, a few years back, my daughter travelled vast distances around North America by Amtrak - but then, America and Canada are huge countries, so I suppose there are even vaster distances where the trains don't reach. And then there was a Welshman, who had travelled for quite different reasons - his wife was in the hospital. I can't remember what we talked about much. I do remember that for half an hour or so, I enjoyed the feeling of being in the company of fellow travellers.

Making a Difference #4

Sunday Scribblings this week posted the topic "decision" which reminded me of the decision I made to try and find new things to do each week to reduce my impact on the environment. I haven't posted about it for a while, but I have made some further changes. For instance, I defrosted and turned off the bar fridge.

We inherited this with the house, and it seemed convenient to have a separate small fridge to keep the drinks cold, especially when we were entertaining. But to be honest, not much as moved in or out of it in the past (insert fairly large number of) years. It's a no-brainer to me that it's pretty pointless to keep the same six pack cold for about ten years, just in case you want a cold beer. (I don't - I don't drink beer). So I turned it off, defrosted and cleaned it, and told my husband it was OK if he turned it back on if he really wanted to. It seems he didn't.

Not quite so obvious is Sainsbury's decision in the UK to trial wine in plastic bottles, because it is better for the environment. In fact, I find this one rather ironic. It seems not so long ago that there were big protests over the move to plastic milk bottles in New Zealand, rather than glass - the protestors saying that glass is better for the environment. Of course, the glass milk bottles were reused rather than just recycled - we used to put them out for the milkman the next morning, and they would be returned to the factory and refilled.

Clearly, Sainsburys are going to save a lot of fuel moving the wine around the country, because the plastic bottles are so much lighter. And yes, the bottles are recyclable. But whether, in the whole of their life, a glass bottle or a plastic bottle is better, is not really clear to me. And we do have to consider that making plastic bottles uses up scarce petroleum deposits, whereas glass is made from sand which is plentiful.

Since one of the wines being trialled is a New Zealand wine, our local winemakers are not happy. They say that it won't help the quality image they want to project. They may be right, though I suspect that ultimately, plastic bottles will be well-accepted and not considered a sign of an inferior product.

In this household, we buy mainly cask wine anyway, so it's all packaged in plastic.

More decisions at Sunday Scribblings.

Hair

There's a small pile of hair clippings on our floor right now. My sons darkish brown in the middle, with my own....ummm....blonder locks in the middle.

Now that I'm growing grey, I rather like the shade of my hair. My eldest daughter stopped in this morning and we walked to church together. I commented to her that my hair seemed to me to be blonde rather than silvery grey - "or am I just deluding myself?" Children of course are no respecters of their parents' feelings. She was quite happy to assure me that I am deluding myself. Still, it's more of a golden grey than silvery grey, I'm sure. (You can always check my sidebar photo and see what you think).

P - my husband - has always cut our children's hair. I don't think either of my boys have had a paid haircut in their lives, and the girls have not had too many either. He does a pretty good job. But I've never let him loose on mine before. Now that I'm working full time though, it's hard to find time to get to the hairdresser, and besides, our budget is rather tight. It's a quick way of saving quite a lot of money in one go. He offered to use his number 5 comb, or maybe a number 1. I pointed out that the reason was to save money, and it would be rather expensive for me to buy a wig. So he stuck to doing what I asked, which was to trim off about two months worth of growth. It seems a bit less layered than before, but he did a fairly respectable job.

More musings on hair at Sunday Scribblings.

Sunday Scribblings: Town and Country

Anyone who reads my blog regularly will have a fair idea of where I live by now. Do I live in the town or the country? Well, here is the view from the back upstairs window of my house:



Those hills are only about ten to fifteen minutes walk away, if I want to walk in the countryside. On any weekend, there are probably as many people walking, jogging or mountain biking on the hills, surrounded by sheep, cicadas and magpies, as there are on a city pavement.

In the other direction, on the north side of the house, it is about half an hour's walk to the edge of the city centre, where there are libraries, cafes, museums and art galleries. I'm a city girl at heart. But it has to be a small scale city, one like this in which the countryside seeps in and around and through the city, with green spaces everywhere. This way, I have the best of both worlds. I can be in touch with the natural world without the hard work.

On musing over the phrase "town and country", I realised that they are not two different things. They are both two aspects of one thing - places in which man has tamed the landscape. In the city, it is mostly a built landscape. In the countryside, it is a tilled and cultivated landscape. I think "country" and I see fields, fences, crops, domestic animals. To me, there is "town and country" and then there is wilderness. Those special places that we can go only as guests. Tangled forests, rugged mountains, unmodified grasslands such as savannahs, tundra and prairie, and the great frozen stretches at the North and South Poles. These places are shrinking, but they are precious, and we need to cherish them, even though we don't feel at ease there.

More musings on "town and country" at Sunday Scribblings

(This is my 300th post. I'm amazed!)

Simple - Or is It?

We all want simple solutions. It's easier if there are nice neat rules. For instance, I've had global warming on my mind a lot lately. What can we do to help the environment?

When my children were at school they had a speaker on environmental issues who told the children that they should bring their lunch to school in a lunchbox rather than a plastic bag. The thinking of course, was that the kids who used plastic bags were using bags that their mothers had bought, and that were thrown out after one use. My children took their lunch in plastic bags. So the other kids hassled them about it - the simple rule was "use a lunchbox". Actually, I never bought a plastic bag. They used the bags that the bread came in, and folded them up afterwards, into their pockets, to reuse the next day.

Then there's car pooling. It's better to have two people in the car than one, right? Well, on the days I drop my son at university on my way to work, we use more petrol than the days when I drive alone. I have to go a kilometre or so out of my way, and if I didn't give him a lift, he'd catch the bus.

Low energy light bulbs are better for the environment, right? Except that there is the worrying reports that they contain mercury, so what happens when they end up in the landfill?

And then there's food miles - locally grown food has to be better, surely? I don't know. If I want tomatoes at this time of year, should I buy New Zealand tomatoes or those flown in from Queensland? I suspect the Australian tomatoes are grown indoors and the New Zealand ones in glasshouses. Do they use fuel to heat the glasshouses or do they rely on passive solar heating? Unfortunately that information isn't widely available. (If you're in Britain, do you buy local tomatoes or those shipped in from Spain?)

We have kerbside recycling here, and of course I put my paper and plastic out for collection, but I can't help wondering about the amount of fuel used in the trucks that collect it from households, and then the shipping of the paper or plastic to wherever the factories are that reuse it.

I'm not advocating doing nothing. Sometimes things are simple. And sometimes it's more complicated. There are things we can do to simplify our lives - manage on less (less goods and less mindless activity), but there is no substitute for information and critical thought. Thinking is something that we shouldn't try and simplify.

More musings on "simple" at Sunday Scribblings.