{"id":28883,"date":"2015-04-29T06:30:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T18:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28883"},"modified":"2015-04-28T21:02:26","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T09:02:26","slug":"wild-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/04\/29\/wild-south\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild South"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"St<\/a>

St Clair beach, Dunedin<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week, I revealed<\/a> that I’d been on a bit of a road trip and promised pics to come.<\/p>\n

On Monday, I took a closer look at Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden<\/a> and on Sunday 19 (while actually on the trip) I snuck in a few pics of glorious autumn colour around Lake Hayes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The emptiness of Kaka Point beach, after the storm<\/p><\/div>\n

My route took me south from Dunedin, down through the South Island’s south-west corner, known as the Catlins, before I looped on through Southland and back up to Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown—wonderful ‘wild south’ country as I hope today’s photos will prove.<\/p>\n

\"Wild<\/a>

Wild sea<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The wild began at St Clair beach in Dunedin (above left), but some unseasonally cold weather struck as I headed down through the Catlins, so there are fewer but also bleaker photos—and as I think the ’tilt’ on the trees shows, this can be very bleak country indeed.<\/p>\n

\"Invercargill<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the time I headed north again, the sun had come out but the snow remained, so the wild was all in the mountains and the deep blue of Lake Wakatipu (right and below.)<\/p>\n

\"Invercargill<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Queenstown itself, and its outlying settlements, such as Jack’s Point, lie at the feet of a mountain range known as the Remarkables—not because of their stunning looks but because they run true north-south, which is apparently rare in mountain ranges.<\/p>\n

\"Ever<\/a>

Ever feel dwarfed?<\/p><\/div>\n

They also made many appearances in The Lord Of the Rings<\/strong> film trilogy—entirely, I imagine, because of their stunning good looks.<\/p>\n

So yup, the trip did have its “inside Middle earth” moments, but then again, it’s hard not<\/em> to do that in NZ these days.<\/p>\n

And there are some moments and vistas that are just, well, remarkable without being too wild or leaving you feeling over-awed—like these famous “Queenstown views” (below.)<\/p>\n

\"Classic<\/a>

Classic Queenstown<\/p><\/div>\n

…<\/span>\"Invercargill<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I revealed that I’d been on a bit of a road trip and promised pics to come. On Monday, I took a closer look at Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden and on Sunday 19 (while actually on the trip) I snuck in a few pics of glorious autumn colour around Lake Hayes. My route […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28883"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28895,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28883\/revisions\/28895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}