Jay Lake (jaylake) wrote,
Jay Lake
jaylake

[travel] In Oamaru, NZ, day two - cheese, steampunk and penguins

Yesterday, [info]the_child, Lisa Costello and I went with [info]danjite and [info]khaybee to the Whitestone cheese factory, Steampunk Headquarters, a playground featuring a giant rotating barrel like a human hamster wheel, a working Victorian bookbindery operated by Michael O'Brien, and the blue penguin colony. The Waterloo Productions crew came to some of this as well.

In order...
  • We ate some killer cheese, including the butteriest bleu I've ever put in my mouth, and saw the cheesemaking rooms

  • We saw a wonderfully bizarre steampunk installation that ran to rooms of kinetic art and found industrial sculpture, along with an outside area that was a playground for the machinery-inclined — this is a must-see destination for any serious steampunker

  • [info]the_child ran around inside a rotating barrle about 7 feet in diameter — so did I, which resulted in me learning not to try a human sized hamster wheel while walking with a cane

  • We spoke for a while to a fascinating fellow who lives la vida Victoriana to someplace well beyond the hilt, while also producing some amazing books-as-artifacts

  • We saw blue penguins, wee little fellows about a foot tall, come ashore and seek their nests — this was stupidly cute and somewhat silly, and a lot of fun

  • There were also coastal vistas, penny farthings, and random penguins on the city street

So, yeah, loads of fun.

On the flip side, touring while disabled is a stretch for me. I move a lot more slowly than I ever did when healthy, have to rest more, and simply cannot do some things. (In yesterday's case, climb atop an armored apocalyptic railroad car, or walk on the beach.) Plus needing a bathroom about once per hour really puts a crimp in things. New Zealand seems very accommodating to the mobility impaired, and well supplied with decent public restrooms, so it is working out okay.

Also, we are taking tons of pictures, but do not currently have the bandwidth to upload them. You will see... More to come on almost all of the above topics, time and bandwidth permitting.

Tags: art, books, child, cool, documentary, friends, new zealand, radiantlisa, steampunk, travel
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