Yesterday I blogged about attending the launch of my friend Rhian Gallagher’s book  Feeling for Daylight: The Photographs of Jack Adamson, which was held at the South Canterbury Museum in Timaru.

Sefton Homestay

Timaru is a small city in South Canterbury, about two hours drive south of Christchurch. Like many of the South Island’s smaller cities, it’s hey day was in the gold rush era, which was followed by the wealth of refrigerated meat and fine wool. These glory days left Timaru with a fine legacy of late Victorian/Edwardian brick and stone architecture, so since we were going to be in Timaru overnight, we thought we’d enjoy a little of the local atmosphere and stay in one of the town’s historic homestays.  In our case, this was the delightful Sefton Homestay, which I thoroughly recommend for anyone wanting to experience genuine southern hospitality in an authentic Edwardian villa setting.

There's snow on them thar mountains ...

One of the other charms of Timaru is Caroline Bay, a traditional summer holiday spot which was revamped by the Timaru District Council a few years back. In our small amount of downtime between events, we enjoyed a stroll around the bay area and a coffee on the hill overlooking the sea. And it being midwinter here, particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of the the Bay’s palm trees with the snow clad Southern Alps in the background.

Visiting Timaru is always an opportunity to catch up with Owen Marshall,

Owen Marshall

one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent writers—and his latest short fiction collection, Living as a Moon, is a finalist for this year’s NZ Post Fiction Award. Owen was also my creative writing mentor a few years back, through the NZ Society of Author’s/Creative New Zealand programme, and although we worked on short stories rather than novels, I know his feedback assisted in the development of my writing. (I have said as much, too, in the Acknowledgments to my forthcoming novel, The Heir of Night, to be published October in the USA, Australia and New Zealand.) It was very pleasant to have the opportunity to catch up over lunch and “talk writing”. In fact, it is always fun to talk writing, so with both Rhian and Owen in residence, plus that wonderful Ewardian architectural legacy, Timaru will always be more than just another small provincial town to me.