Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, Government, Guns, Privacy, Terrorism, Travel
…who finds the absurdity of the TSA to be grating, but every once in a while I come across something that very nicely summarizes the pointlessness and waste of the organization. A friend sent me one such item a little while ago, and I want to share it: TSA: Fail. Go read the whole thing – it’s by someone with 25 years FBI experience, who can safely be described as an expert on both terrorism and security, and who sees the utter uselessness of the security theater currently in place. Here’s one good passage:
Frankly, the professional experience I have had with TSA has frightened me. Once, when approaching screening for a flight on official FBI business, I showed my badge as I had done for decades in order to bypass screening. (You can be envious, but remember, I was one less person in line.) I was asked for my form which showed that I was armed. I was unarmed on this flight because my ultimate destination was a foreign country. I was told, “Then you have to be screened.” This logic startled me, so I asked, “If I tell you I have a high-powered weapon, you will let me bypass screening, but if I tell you I’m unarmed, then I have to be screened?” The answer? “Yes. Exactly.” Another time, I was bypassing screening (again on official FBI business) with my .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a TSA officer noticed the clip of my pocket knife. “You can’t bring a knife on board,” he said. I looked at him incredulously and asked, “The semi-automatic pistol is okay, but you don’t trust me with a knife?” His response was equal parts predictable and frightening, “But knives are not allowed on the planes.”
Yeah, like I said, go read the whole thing. And try not to sob at the ridiculousness of this infringement of our privacy and civil liberties.
Jim Downey
Filed under: movies, Music, N. Am. Welsh Choir, New Zealand, Tolkien, Travel, YouTube
Today is cloudy and a bit grim. No, I’m not talking about being in New Zealand. I’m talking about here, in mid-Missouri. The winter solstice is just a couple days away. And I think I have been putting off this last installment of our New Zealand adventure because I don’t really want it to be over. It was, after all, a far green country.
* * * * * * *
We had breakfast, then waited with other members of the group who were going on a bit of a private tour. No, nothing connected with the Choir. This was a LOTR tour.
Most of my friends and readers will understand exactly what that means. But just in case . . .
Lord Of The Rings was a three-movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s epic of the same name. Most people know that it was filmed in New Zealand by director Peter Jackson. And as a result, there is lots of LOTR-related tourism throughout the country. You can easily spend weeks in New Zealand, just doing that. There’s a great book on locations from the movies, if you’re interested.
We opted for occasional mentions from Helen, our Choir guide, combined with this 4 hour specific tour with Pure Glenorchy.
The vehicles rolled up. Four medium-sized SUVs. The drivers/guides were all pleasant, typical Kiwis. We had some laughs over the absurdity of our fandom for the movies/books. But hey, this was probably the only time we were going to make it to New Zealand, right? And where else would you get to:
Visit Lord of the Rings Locations and take a journey with us deep into Middle Earth. Explore Isengard, Wizards Vale, Lothlorien Forest, the Dead Marshes, The Misty Mountains, Ithilien and many more. Stories and secrets will be shared by guides who have a great insight into the filming.
* * * * * * *
We rolled down the highway, heading towards the hamlet of Glenorchy. This is a place about 45km from Queenstown, and is so small it has no police force, two pubs, and a “library” the size of a garden shed which is open two hours a week. When the weather is nice. No, I am not kidding. The Queenstown folk consider it something of a hippie retirement community.
It is also quite beautiful. Here’s a shot looking towards Glenorchy from the highway leading in:
* * * * * * *
As it happened, the driver of our SUV was Mark, the owner of the tour company. Young (late 20s/early 30s), outgoing, and well informed. He knew the locations and a lot of the history of the films quite well, and had fun telling us about related stories. How many people took time off from their regular jobs to go play extras in the films, since the pay was good, they were well fed, and got to be outdoors. How the caterers learned to feed the extras playing Orcs separately from the rest of the crew, since said extras tended to run roughshod over the food like the characters they portrayed. How the local rancher who owned a lot of the property where the filming was done managed to make a tidy profit off licensing his land for use, and so build quite the little odd mansion in the middle of nowhere. And so on.
We stopped first here:
From the best I can tell, we’re standing just about where the tower of Orthanc was in the movies.
And here’s a shot of the current filming for The Hobbit:
Yeah, you can’t really see much. Sorry. But you didn’t see it here first.
* * * * * * *
We next went into the Mount Aspiring National Park, a primeval red beech forest. The location is protected such that it is illegal to take anything out of the park, or to leave anything in it, for environmental reasons.
Which presented some real challenges for the film crews which filmed the scenes with the attack of the Uruk-hai and the death of Boromir, according to our guides. But we saw where Boromir died, then had a pleasant lunch.
Following that, it was back to Queenstown.
* * * * * * *
After dropping off things at the hotel room, Martha and I decided to go up the gondola and enjoy the sights. Here are some pictures:
* * * * * * *
After tromping around Queenstown just a bit following our trip up the gondola, we got back to the hotel in time to meet the rest of the group for our last adventure: taking the TSS Earnslaw across Lake Wakatipu to the Walter Peak High Country Farm.
The steam ship is about to celebrate its centenary, and is a delight to explore for anyone who appreciates old machinery. The trip across the lake was about just long enough to enjoy a pint of beer.
Dinner at the Walter Peak High Country Farm was quite enjoyable, and the view of Queenstown across the lake at sunset gorgeous. The display of “working” dogs and sheep sheering was of little interest to me. I’ve seen both done before, and better, and not at the end of a long trip when I was both tired but not really wanting to leave yet. I decided to forgo another beer on the return trip across the lake.
* * * * * * *
When we got back, there was a final gathering in the hotel dining room for all of us on the tour. A bittersweet farewell not just because the tour was coming to a close, but also because the Choir was going into a period of dormancy. It had a good 10-year run, but now many of the key participants wanted a break. There’s nothing wrong with honest sadness at the close of any adventure, and not all tears are an evil.
* * * * * * *
The trip home was uneventful, less unpleasant than it could have been, even though it was incredibly long. I think that Monday for us was some 42 or 43 hours altogether, until we finally made it in the door and back to life as we know it.
Jim Downey
* From this, of course. Which kept running through my head the whole time we were in that beautiful valley where Isengard was located:
The cold made the clouds that much more threatening. And sure enough, we had snow as we headed into the Southern Alps.
* * * * * * *
Dunedin is on the Eastern shore of the South Island. We headed almost due west towards Queenstown, which is on Lake Wakatipu, just a little ways inland from the West Coast, on the lee side of the bulk of the mountains. Getting there means winding on a lot of mountain roads, all of it through beautiful country. I was glad I wasn’t driving and could just enjoy the scenery (and not worry about road conditions).
We stopped at the small town of Arrowtown, an old gold-mining community not that far outside of Queenstown. It’s now mostly a tourist/vacation destination, and they’ve done a lot to maintain the historic feeling of the place. Many of the buildings date back to the early days of the town (mid-late 1800s), and there’s a ton of great little shops and restaurants/bars there.
* * * * * * *
I had been waiting to get to Arrowtown for one primary reason: Pounamu, the New Zealand nephrite jade which is also colloquially called ‘greenstone’. I mentioned that I had been on the lookout for some of this stone while in Dunedin. But Helen (our tour-guide) had said that Arrowtown was one of the best places to get the stone, and jewelry/art created from it.
I wanted a couple of pieces of jewelry as gifts. But I also wanted a rougher piece for my own, to fashion into a tool.
Pounamu was highly prized by the Maori for use in making tools and weapons. For generations it was fashioned into chisels, axes, and adzes. While I very much appreciated the beauty of the many pieces of art I had seen created using Pounamu, for me the most memorable souvenir of the trip would be a bookbinding tool called a ‘folder’ made of greenstone. I didn’t expect to find one ready-made, but rather to find a piece of the stone which I could shape to my own use.
And I did. It’s about 5″ long, roughly an inch tall and an inch wide, slightly tapered towards the ends. One side is already highly polished, the others relatively smooth. I’ve already used it as is, and need to spend some more time with it before I decide whether it needs more shaping or not.
Another good thing – while a small piece of greenstone fashioned into jewelry can be quite expensive, this large and relatively unworked piece was about $25. The perfect memento of the trip, as far as I’m concerned.
* * * * * * *
After doing our shopping, Martha and I settled into a nice little cafe and had a late lunch. The weather had mostly cleared off, and it was a pleasant time just sitting there and relaxing before rejoining the rest of the tour group.
* * * * * * *
We made one last stop on the way into Queenstown, at the Kawarau River bridge. It’s a gorgeous place, and also the first commercial bungee-jumping operation. No, I did not jump. Over 50 + over-weight + high blood pressure = bad idea to seek out high-G forces for fun. I’ve gone sky diving and done other crazy things when I was younger, and am happy to enjoy those memories as memories.
* * * * * * *
Queenstown is a lovely place. The city is well known as New Zealand’s center for adventure tourism. Its location on the edge of the Southern Alps means that it is well positioned for skiing, jet-boats, white-water rafting, and so forth, not to mention such mundane activities as hunting and fishing. It very much has the feeling of being a university town, say like Boulder CO, though there isn’t a university there.
We rolled into town, got to our hotel, located right on the lakefront. Got settled, then did a bit of exploring in the downtown area (which is quite small – just a few blocks total.) The choir had a rehearsal.
* * * * * * *
ML and I went over to where the choir was rehearsing, to get set up to sell CDs. It was a small but very warm & friendly church by the name of St. Peter’s. It was clear from the outset that the local Welsh community had gotten the word out about the performance, and a number of the church members were there to help us get settled into place.
This was to be the “farewell” concert for the tour. We couldn’t have asked for a better venue or crowd. The space was small enough that it felt very intimate. And it was packed to the gills. All the pews were filled. Extra chairs were put in the aisles. People crowded in the back, standing. One of the church members had to actually put a sign on the door announcing that the church was over-filled, and no one else would be admitted.
Not only was the space full, but the crowd was very enthusiastic, both with their applause and with their participation. I swear, the Welsh must have an extra gene which compels them to sing at any opportunity. That church was bursting with sound and love.
And we sold a bunch of CDs.
* * * * * * *
Following the concert, the choir was hosted to an informal reception in the church meeting hall. Refreshments and good company were served and savored.
I was exhausted as we walked the couple of blocks back to the hotel. Nonetheless, we stopped for a bit and enjoyed the fireworks being set off on the lakefront. It was Guy Fawkes Night.
Tomorrow would be our last full day in New Zealand.
Jim Downey
The morning clouds promised rain. And they made good the promise.
* * * * * * *
We got up, breakfasted, then climbed on the bus for a bit of a poke around the sights of Dunedin. First we made a stop at the steepest street in the world (seriously – hard to tell from the pictures, but it’s pretty damned impressive). The story goes that the city was laid out by planners in London who had never been to New Zealand and didn’t think that the reports of the topography of the area could possibly be correct. So they just laid out everything in a nice grid, and let the locals cope best they could.
True or not, makes a good story.
* * * * * * *
Then we climbed up to Signal Hill overlooking the city. It was here that the clouds turned to actual rain, forcing not only the members of our group to run for cover, but likewise a vanload of students from the University of Otago who had a bunch of seismic sensors set up around the Centennial Monument.
We wound back down into the city, to the gorgeous Dunedin Railway Station.
I’m not usually a big fan of Victorian/Edwardian ‘gingerbread’ architecture – such ornate structures are a little too self-congratulatory for my tastes (even though our house falls into this category…). But there is no doubt that this station is a wonderful example of the period, and the level of craftsmanship on display in almost every facet of the building is remarkable and something I can respect. The large booking hall has an intricate mosaic tile floor made up of some 750,000 individual tiles, and looks stunning. Likewise, the contrasting black/white of the building’s exterior stone is very striking. The whole thing underwent extensive refurbishing in the 1990s, and shows it.
* * * * * * *
Following a couple of other stops, we got back to the hotel in time for lunch. Martha and I decided to go check out the Speight’s Brewery just around the corner, where they have a nice restaurant/cafe.
The lunch was good – and there was a whole lot of it, as we had come to expect. The beer was even better, on a par with most of the decent micro-brews I’ve had at brew-pubs in the States.
After, we did a bit of walking around, then went back to the hotel to rest before the late-afternoon rehearsal.
* * * * * * *
The rain started up again, and the temperature dropped. I got a little take-away Chinese food to have in the hotel room for when Martha got back from her rehearsal. There wasn’t going to be time to get a real meal before the concert that evening.
The concert was just a couple of blocks from our hotel, at St. Paul’s Cathedral on the Octagon. It’s a beautiful old church, and certainly something to see.
But that night it mostly felt cold and almost aloof. The nasty weather kept attendance to the concert down, so it felt like the large space of the cathedral was empty. Further, there was a problem with the sound system, meaning that the usual chatter and introductions from the Choir Director couldn’t be understood through most of the space – even trying to project her voice didn’t work very well, and most people were completely befuddled as to what was going on. When the choir took a break in their performance, a lot of people thought that they were finished and just left.
My friend ML and I again tried to sell CDs. We failed dismally.
* * * * * * *
Following the concert, there was a very nice reception for everyone in the church basement meeting area. There we could actually hear what people were saying, and the whole atmosphere was warm and friendly, with tea and cookies/small cakes that were just delicious.
We stayed a while, headed out when the rest of the choir went to go. Though Helen, our guide, offered to make arrangements to have taxis on hand, Martha and I just elected to walk back to the hotel.
I decided to pop in to a little Greek place across the street from our hotel for a little something more substantial. The fellow who owned the place was friendly, but barely spoke any English. His Gyro was one of the best I’ve ever had.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Civil Rights, Failure, Government, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Steampunk, Terrorism, Travel, Wired
Via BB, an item in Wired from an insider telling all of us what we already know: that Airport Security is nothing but an expensive farce, based on bad science:
TSA is trying to get away from its stigma of being the guys who grope and photograph you. It’s taking the porno out of the scanners by getting rid of the “nude” imaging displays. Its director, John Pistole, talks about becoming an “intelligence driven” agency that compiles behavioral profiles of potential terrorists and — someday — targeting its toughest screening on only those who fit the profile. Kids no longer have to take their shoes off before boarding a plane.
Just one problem, according to Brandt: The behavioral science is no panacea. “The scientific community is divided as to whether behavioral detection of terrorists is viable,” he writes. According to the Government Accountability Office, TSA put together a behavioral profiling program “without first validating the scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment.” Even if the science was sound, the office found last year, TSA officers “lack a mechanism to input data on suspicious passengers into a database used by TSA analysts and also lack a means to obtain information from the Transportation System Operations Center on a timely basis.”
It’s like the government awarded military contracts during the Civil War for the development of æther craft in order to defeat the South – makes for a good story, perhaps, but has little or nothing to do with reality.
Jim Downey
The cold & wind of the night before was part of a front moving in. So the morning came with a brilliant blue sky with few clouds and a significant wind chill.
* * * * * * *
Breakfast was . . . a disappointment. There was plenty of everything, but all of it was lukewarm. Here’s what I noted on Facebook at the time:
Bright & surly this morning. Our hotel specializes in gorgeous views and somewhat tepid breakfast. As this included the coffee, I’m not sure the trade-off was worth it.
One got the impression that the Peppers Resort wasn’t really set up to handle groups.
We packed up, loaded up the bus, popped down to the shore of Lake Tekapo where there is the Church of the Good Shepard, a popular tourist spot. It’s quite picturesque, and good images of it can be found here, but it’s also in the distance in this image I took the day before:
We’d hoped to be able to get in to see the church interior, perhaps for the choir to have a chance to sing in such a beautiful spot. But the local caretakers weren’t willing to open it up for our group. Surprisingly. So we had to settle for just looking around the outside, sheltering from the cold wind as best we could.
The bus was warm and welcoming.
* * * * * * *
We drove southeast, through the Mackenzie Basin, a largely empty place popular with tourists, particularly people who like to do gliding (air currents from the Southern Alps make it ideal some times of the year). It’s probably best known outside New Zealand for being the ‘land of Rohan’ from the Lord of the Rings movies.
* * * * * * *
Dunedin (pronounced “done Eden”) was our destination. We rolled into the town in the early afternoon, during a rainstorm.
After getting settled in our hotel, Martha decided to just rest a bit in the room. I opted to go out and about with our friend ML, exploring the city.
We headed down the main street, towards ‘the Octagon.’ Which features a large bronze statue of Robert Burns. That, and the bagpipe-playing buskers, kinda give some indication of the history of the city. Yeah, it was settled by Scots in the middle of the 19th century, and it has maintained a strong Scottish identity to this day. Lots of restaurants and pubs have a Scottish/Gaelic flavor.
ML and I walked pretty much the full length of the main commercial street, pausing to look into this or that shop. I was on the lookout for some nice greenstone (Pounamu – a kind of jade native to the South Island – more on this later), and ML was looking for some (more) fabled NZ woolen yarn. Between us we managed to enjoy a couple of hours walking and shopping.
* * * * * * *
After a bit of rest back at the hotel, Martha, ML, and I went in quest of some dinner, and to give Martha a chance to check out the central city. We stopped at St. Paul’s Cathedral on the Octagon – the location of the choir’s performance the next evening. The rain from earlier in the day had cleared off, and while it was chilly it was quite nice for an evening walk.
We settled on dinner at a pub near the hotel. They had good local beer on tap – I found out that it came from the brewery literally around the corner, and made a mental note to stop in there when I had a chance the next day. The pub-food we had was all very yummy, and overly generous in portion size. That was one thing we noticed at most pubs and mid-level restaurants: portion sizes were always quite large, at least as big as the (too big) portion sizes you get here in the U.S. At more upscale restaurants this wasn’t the case (also as you usually find here).
We crashed relatively early. All the travel was starting to take a toll, even as enjoyable as it was.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Mark Twain, Music, N. Am. Welsh Choir, New Zealand, Travel
There’s the grey of spring, and then the grey of fall. Temps and clouds in Wellington were about the same as we had left back in Missouri, but somehow it felt warmer . . .
* * * * * * *
I looked out the window of our hotel room. I was not expecting Richard M. Nixon wearing an afro to look back at me. This was the horror of it:
I know one can become a bit overwhelmed when traveling to foreign climes, but for a moment I was wondering whether my sanity had “lit out for the provinces.”
* * * * * * *
Breakfast, then an optional tour through the city with Helen on our bus. First we went up to Mount Victoria, a gorgeous vantage point at which to enjoy the whole city (and location for a couple of scenes from Lord of the Rings). This was followed up with a visit to Te Papa Tongarewa – the national museum and gallery of New Zealand.
It’s a very interesting place, a mix of the traditional and the innovative. They’ve got a decent collection of modern art, and a lot of good stuff covering the history and culture of NZ, from the earliest settlements of the Maori to the present day. But what I found to be most enjoyable was the use of the built space inside the museum: it isn’t just simple layers of different floors, but rather incorporates multiple layers of open space/mezzanines so that you enjoy the exhibits from many different perspectives, creating a visual melding of the different aspects of New Zealand depending on where you are. It’s a very effective bit of architecture, and the museum staff make use of it very very well.
Martha, ML, and I spent several hours enjoying the place, including a break for some refreshments at one of the museum cafes. Then it was off for a walk back to our hotel.
* * * * * * *
Te Papa sits right on the waterfront of Wellington Harbor, and our hotel in the city center just a couple of blocks from the waterfront. So it was an enjoyable walk back to the hotel, past docks and seaside restaurants, then into the main shopping and restaurant area of downtown. We spent a good time just enjoying and doing a bit of shopping, then grabbed some lunch at a little local hole-in-the wall place.
Back to the hotel to relax a bit. Martha had a rehearsal that afternoon, I popped out to a grocery store and got some ‘picnic’ type items for a light dinner for us.
* * * * * * *
I always enjoy going to grocery stores in other countries. It is one of the best ways to get a handle on how local people live, and to see the differences between their culture and my own.
I’d mentioned previously I found NZ to be more like the US than like the UK or Europe. This was another manifestation of that. Yeah, there were clear differences between this grocery store and the ones at home – different brands, some different packaging approaches (such as cat and dog food in long tubes, similar to a sausage). But for the most part you could drop any American in the place and they’d feel right at home. The salad bar and deli areas were just like back home, though with meat pies and a couple of other such distinctions. There was more lamb than you’d find in most meat cases, but otherwise it was familiar. Baked goods on display were typical. Snacks and the beer/wine department like you’d find in a Hy-Vee store here.
All in all, perfectly normal.
* * * * * * *
ML and I again went with the choir when they went to the Opera House that evening, and we set up to sell CDs in the lobby. It was a great place, and was in pretty good shape, what you would expect of a classic Edwardian structure which has been renovated and cared for.
But the weather turned colder and wetter, and attendance at the performance that evening was fairly light. The performance itself, which included the Wellington Male Voice Choir as well, was quite good. We only sold a few CDs.
* * * * * * *
Following the performance, we were all invited to the Welsh Dragon Bar – a former public toilet which now plays off that history (and the Welsh connection) with their motto: “come in for a leek.” It’s owned by a Welsh emigre, and is generally considered the best (only?) Welsh pub in the Southern Hemisphere.
They’d made a bunch of Welsh & NZ finger food for the group, all of it welcome and quite tasty. The bar was mobbed, and we kept the place hopping with happy voices for a good while, some of the choir members staying on until closing time.
But not me, nor Martha. We went back to the hotel and crashed. We had to be traveling again early in the morning, catching a flight to the South Island.
Jim Downey
The clouds of morning brought rain and grey, dulling the view out the bus windows as we headed south.
But that turned out to be the least of our troubles…
* * * * * * *
So, we got up, had breakfast, lugged our bags down to the bus. The idea was that we would drive south to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, with stops at several points along the way to do some sight-seeing. This in particular was to include Lake Taupo and the surrounding area, including the Huka Falls, then on to a luxurious lunch at a winery before rolling into Wellington late afternoon.
That was the theory.
Things started going wrong when we discovered that we were one person short on the bus. A quick check found that one member of the group, an elderly woman who was a friend and supporter of the choir, was still in her room. She had gone off with family in Rotorua after the concert the day before, so had missed the discussion we’d had about plans for this morning. But she was also not feeling well, and was showing signs of confusion as they got her settled on the bus.
* * * * * * *
We were running a bit late due to the aforementioned delay and then the condition of the roads as we wound through the mountains of the central north island. Helen, our guide, tried to interest the choir and get everyone to relax with a series of CDs of local music played over the bus’s sound system. This included a bunch of what she characterized as “older folk-music” (stuff from the 1950s). Here’s how I characterized it on facebook:
…we’re talking about the Kiwi version of “Battle of New Orleans” and similar faux-Western or hillbilly stuff.
The horror, the horror . . .
I put in ear plugs. Then my noise-canceling headphones. Then I started wondering how hard it would be to break into the bus that evening and disable the sound system.
* * * * * * *
We stopped at Huka Falls. It was gorgeous:
and
* * * * * * *
After a stop at the nearby gift shop for snacks and postcards, we all started to pile back onto the bus.
But the elderly woman I mentioned earlier was feeling a little shaky, needed help walking back to the bus. Ron, one of the choristers, who is also a ICU nurse (and the choir’s unofficial medic when they tour), got her settled in her seat and then did an assessment of her vitals. He consulted with another chorister who is a medical professional. Together, they decided that the woman needed urgent medical attention.
We headed into the nearby town of Taupo, where there was a hospital.
* * * * * * *
It was a good decision, and probably saved the woman’s life. It turned out that she had pneumonia – a significant danger for anyone who is elderly.
We spent about 90 minutes at the hospital, as she was checked out and her condition determined. As noted, she had family who were in Rotorua, but my friend ML was tapped to stay with her until they were contacted and able to come see to the woman’s care. Why her? She’s smart, a lawyer, has a great deal of experience traveling and dealing with legal systems around the world, and wasn’t a chorister – meaning that she could miss part of the tour if necessary, and not hurt the make-up of the choir. She’s also stubborn enough to stand up to any bureaucratic problems which might occur, not to mention dealing with a cantankerous elderly woman who was more than a little certain that she didn’t need such medical fuss.
We got back on the road. Helen had contacted the winery where we had been scheduled to lunch, let them know we had a medical emergency which had messed up our plans. Once we were out of town she contacted them again, and sorted out rescheduling.
* * * * * * *
The bad news was that the rehearsal which had been scheduled for that evening with the Wellington male Voice Choir had to be canceled, because we were going to run too late to be able to use the reserved space.
The good news was that the weather cleared, and we’d be able to have a relaxed, but late, lunch after all. It wasn’t necessary to try and get through quickly.
The good news for most, that is. For Martha and I, it also meant we had to cancel our evening plans to get together with another person involved in the shooting sports, as well as her family and some friends from Wales. A shame.
* * * * * * *
We had lunch at the Mission Estate Winery in the Hawkes Bay area. It was delicious, both in terms of the quality of the food & wine, as well as in terms of the location & view.
Afterward, the choir gathered down the hill from the site of the winery, at a natural amphitheater which has been the location of many famous concerts. On this occasion the only audience were those of us traveling with them. Well, and a field of sheep.
I think we all enjoyed it. I did. The sheep seemed to. Hard to say.
* * * * * * *
We had given Martha’s phone to ML – our texting plan allowed us easy communication between the two phones, even overseas. She let us know that the family of the elderly woman had arrived and taken over seeing to her needs. She was going to require hospital care for at least several days. ML would catch the next flight to Wellington, and beat us there.
I almost envied her, not having to listen to more folk music.
* * * * * * *
We rolled into Wellington that evening. Our hotel was the Rydges Wellington – a very nice accommodation right downtown.
We dropped our bags off, then met ML in the lobby to go to dinner. Because she had gotten in earlier, she’d had a chance to scope things out in the area, and recommended a nice Dutch-inspired pub (there is a significant Dutch component to New Zealand’s history) just down the street. Some light dinner and a couple of good local ales helped my mood considerably.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Guns, Music, N. Am. Welsh Choir, New Zealand, Society, Travel
Looking out the window of our hotel room, clouds of steam rose from the various hot thermal springs and mud pools near the hotel and then drifted through the trees.
* * * * * * * *
Sunday morning we had some free time, with a number of different options open to us. I decided to have a nice walk in the redwoods of the Whakarewarewa forest. A little over a century ago there was an effort to see whether redwoods would grow well in this part of the North Island. They did OK, but not as well as some other species, so the effort was mostly abandoned, leaving a nice sized grove (about 15 acres) of coastal redwoods. What’s a little odd, is that they also have a mix of tree ferns. But it made for a very nice walk of about an hour.
* * * * * * *
I got back to the hotel to find that Martha had gone into town to do a bit of shopping. We didn’t have anything going on until that afternoon’s concert. I decided to try calling another contact I had concerning the shooting sports, a man named Don Perry. Don was a driving force behind the local shooting club, and one of the major players in bringing the 2013 Australasian IPSCAA pistol championships to Rotorua.
Don answered his phone, had been hoping that I would call. “Where you at?”
“At the Holiday Inn. Tell me where to go, and I’ll get a taxi out to the club.”
“Don’t be absurd. That’d cost you a small fortune. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I think he was two minutes late. I didn’t mind.
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Again, I’m going to write about this more completely for Guns.com, but let me say that what Don and the other members of his club are trying to do in preparation for the 2013 IPSC event is nothing short of stunning. Seriously, they’re hard at work to take a decent-sized shooting range and turn it into probably the largest and most varied range in the world. It’s huge – everything from a score of short (25 meter) and medium (50 meter) shooting bays to a 180 and a 200 meter rifle range, and about a dozen different long-range (50 to 100 meter) bays where different tactical scenarios can be set up which competitors will have to move through. And all of these – all of them – have to have side and back berms which are 5 meters (16 feet) high, in some places almost twice that. Here’s a shot of a large CAT in the distance building one of the tall berms:
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I spent about an hour tromping around the range with Don. In addition to the impressive scope of what they’re building, the site is situated in a gorgeous and mostly remote valley, which makes building the range and getting the necessary permits much easier, since it doesn’t present any kind of problem for neighboring houses or suchlike. If they can pull it all together, they will have a world class facility in one of the most beautiful locations imaginable.
When we were done, Don gave me a lift back to the hotel.
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Martha and I had a bite of lunch before it was time for the choir to go to their pre-performance rehearsal. Our friend ML and I were the designated “sales team” for the choir, handling CD sales, handing out the programs for each concert, et cetera. We went along to help get things set up.
Good thing we did, too – there was a fair amount of set-up necessary at the church (St. Lukes), and the choir accompanist had forgotten something back at the hotel. ML popped out to get that, I took care of getting the display table ready and hanging a Welsh flag in the front window of the church. Handy that I had my little emergency kit with me, with 30′ of Spiderwire in it.
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Since the choir was performing in a church, it was against the law to charge admission, even though the proceeds were going to help with rebuilding damage from the Christchurch earthquake. But they have this handy Maori term which is commonly used in New Zealand: Koha. The closest English is ‘donation’ or ‘gift’, but there’s more to it than that – it contains an element of respect. You show more respect, and gain more respect, by making a nicer gift/donation. So the little basket we set up had a note on it which simply said “Admission by Koha.”
Given that the local Welsh heritage society had been the ones to organize the venue for the choir, much of the audience were of Welsh settler stock, and they appreciated the choir coming. Donations were generous. And once the performance was done, more than a few people stopped by the basket to increase their Koha.
Because yeah, it was a great performance. The church was quite full, the acoustics good, the audience enthusiastic listeners and participants whenever they were offered the opportunity to join in (plus some times when they decided to join in anyway). ML and I sold a fair number of CDs, and a good time was had by all.
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When the performance and chatting with the audience was all done, we loaded back on the bus. It stopped in the downtown area to drop off those who wanted to get something to eat there, but Martha and I decided to just grab something from the Bar Menu at the hotel. ML joined us, and we had a good meal, relaxing over drinks in the large lobby area. It was a good ending to a busy day.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 