GYPSY GIGOLO JOURNAL #24

Compliments of the Festive Season.
The last journal ended with some unseasonal snow in Cardrona, before we headed into the Haast Pass. Road engineers must have expected some vehicles to suffer brake failure at the steepest point in the Pass and then become ‘runaway vehicles’. They cleverly built a runoff area for all such loose cannons. I hope that every driver of an out-of-control juggernaut knows just where the escape route is……here is the official ‘Runaway Vehicle Ramp’………….to oblivion?

Just south of the glaciers is this impressive bridge over the Karangarua River.

Intrepid explorers at Fox Glacier.

Another highlight of our journey was spending Election Night at the Blackball Hilton Hotel. Blackball is the historic home of the NZ Labour movement, and to be in the local boozer when the vote went ‘right’ was a unique experience!

This old local was a miner in the Blackball coalmine and was explaining how this lantern replaced canaries in the mines to detect deadly gases in the shafts.

Hawks Crag, in the Lower Buller Gorge, where the highway narrows to a single lane under imposing overhanging rock was a compulsory photo stop.

The global fiscal melt down finally caught up with Dan and I, and forced us to significantly modify our lifestyle. Impending financial ruin necessitated getting a job! Toiling for the minimum wage thinning apple trees in Bronte, Nelson is bloody hard yakka.

Just down the road from where we are working in the Bronte, Nelson apple orchard is the quaintly named town of Hope. I’m looking to see if I can secure a property in the village so that I can pedantically state that “I live in Hope”!

November was moustache month and this was my effort towards ‘Movember’.


Dan and I are not exactly sure where we will be on Xmas Day, but if the weather is right a local beach tops the list.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and trust that your New Year will be a happy and prosperous one.

Good luck to all your families.
Thanks for watching.
See ya back here in 2009.

GYPSY GIGOLO JOURNAL #23

Welcome to the brand new home of the Gypsy Gigolo Journal.
The old blog address of www.hawkeye.iblog.co.nz may still work for a short while.
The demise of my old blog site was spookily prophesied in Hymn 36!


Otago is steeped in gold-mining history and Golden Point, near Macraes Flat, has some of the old mining equipment maintained in working order. This rock crusher reduced the size of the larger bits of ore before it went in to the battery.


Miners’ accommodation was usually very spartan. This hut can only be described as luxurious with two windows, a coal range and space for a bed, a table and a chair.


A hundred years ago the miners spent a lot of time frequenting the drinking establishments in Macraes. Nowadays the only pub still standing curiously shares its name with my erstwhile adventuring partner Rowan (Stanley) Forbes.


The south island puts a lot of style into even its more mundane infrastructures like bridges and viaducts. This bridge over the Taieri River at Hyde is a good example.



The railway line in Central Otago from Middlemarch to Clyde existed for almost 100 years. The powers that be ripped it out during the 1990’s and in 2000 opened the Otago Central Rail Trail. The 150km trail is suitable for cycling, walking or horse-riding. In keeping with this journey’s motto of keeping a healthy body and mind it was mandatory that I ride the Trail.

Because the Trail was once a railway there are no steep climbs.

Dan’s birthday was on Hallowe’en and we celebrated with a lunch at Cromwell.

Picturesque Moke Lake is about 15kms out of Queenstown and is home to the Ben Lomond Station. Plenty of brown trout visible in the very clear water, but not a single angler managed to net one whilst I was there.

November is the month when your mind drifts into fast-forward mode with thoughts of Christmas and a long hot summer. Snow on Guy Fawkes’ Day is a bloody huge wake-up call regarding the fickleness of spring weather! We had decided to drive over the Crown Range from Queenstown to Wanaka and this was the scene just outside of Cardrona.

I hope this new blog site, operated by Google, has a longer life than my old one.

To leave a comment you need to click on the word comments at the bottom of this posting. You will be asked to set up a 'Google account'.

Thanks for watching.

Good luck to all your families.