Half Moon Bay Memories

That’s jewelry designer Paula Martin’s steering wheel and we’ve been continuing our adventure. I stayed overnight at Falling Leaves B&B at romantic Lake Wanaka  (where the owner, Jo’s, water comes from her own well and tastes delicious. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed such good, pure water.) Paula, who is dedicated to her art and commitments, continued on to remote Nokomai, the scene of the last “fete,”  reached by driving down a very long dusty road off a main highway quite a ways south of Queenstown.

The next morning Jo drove me in her jeep from Lake Wanaka to Nokomai via the spectacular Crown Range route a narrow two-lane road with views not to missed. During the ride through the high mountains, Jo regaled me with stories of the Kiwi, a naughty bird that gets bored living near the snowy mountains and entertains itself by disturbing the material possessions of humans. The Kiwi bird enjoys removing windshields from cars, laces from shoes, and if there’s a laptop accessible, they will take it away. I hoped I wouldn’t encounter the Kiwi but I was assured the bird was “funny.”

No wind when we arrived at the fete in Nokomai  sponsored by “CRT,” a farmer cooperative operating in the South Island.  Remember, the day before we were at Queensbury when mammoth-sized winds hit and most of the exhibitors had to pull up their gazebos and exit quickly. Not so at Nokomai where the weather was perfect, sunny and warm. As Paula says, when the weather’s good, people open their wallets and she did quite well on Saturday.

AT 5:30 p.m. we left Nokomai, driving down the dusty road to the main “highway,” and headed south for the funky Riverton, a town that should definitely be scouted for scenes in movies. Paula was excited about Riverton because she had lived there way back and told me about the “Globe Hotel,” where I would be staying. She would be sleeping in the camper van in the back of the very hotel that is for sale.

Riverton remains the kind of place that has not been developed yet. This is Scott the owner’s son who works at the Globe Hotel’s bar.

The next morning, Sunday, we had breakfast and coffee at Mrs. Clark’s Cafe in Riverton. Next we  headed for the Fjords Great Views Holiday Park in Te Anua. Along the way we stopped at unique beaches with names like Monkey Rock where we met Mr. Watson who owns the  historic house called called  “the Turrets.” Paula had seen the turret house many times on her working drives during the Christmas season–but she had never gotten close enough to knock on the door. This time we did and we met Mr. and Mrs. Watson, who five grown children and 16 grandchildren. Mr. Watson’s passion is the history of the home he has lived in since 1960.  He married the following year. “The Turrets” has been featured in local history books and newspaper articles and Mr. Watson loves giving tours of the house and garden both Watsons have lovingly tended. In the darkened hallway there are oil paintings of Mr. Watson’s ancestors and he knows the stories behind all the nearby beaches like Monkey Rock (named so, because during the gold mining days, food and supplies were shipped down the coast and raised up a big rock with a monkey wench. Think I got that one right.

On the way to Te Anua, which isn’t exactly on the West Coast, but sort of close by, we stopped at a place called Tuatapere, where I had a little lunch, a cornish pastie, coffee and dessert.

Paula drove us off the road to see some incredible beaches with names like Cozy Nook and Monkey Rock You’ve probably heard that New Zealand looks like Northern California, and there are “familiar sights,” but here in NZ all is more more natural, more raw as Northern California beaches may have appeared a century earlier.  I’ve never been around so much nature in my life.

Last night which was Sunday in NZ, I stayed at the Fjordland Great Views Holiday Park—if you’ve never stayed in a motor park, NZ must have the finest. This is my first experience sleeping in a camper van and sleeping in rooms with and without bath at the motor parks we visit. Fjordland Great Views at Te Anau is stunning. I stayed in cabin #10. Behind my room which had a double bunk, tv and portable heater, there was a view of a field of sheep. [Of course, sheep can be seen all over NZ; still, to have them so close to my cabin was a visual treat.] What bowled me over was the ladies loo. Could have been part of a luxury hotel. There is a heated floor and it’s been pretty cold in the mornings when I wake up–that icy kind of cold that comes with lakes after the snow has melted from the mountains. Paula Martin knows the motor parks and which ones are the finest; she has made friends with many of the owners as well and knows which ones take their business seriously. Fjord Great Views Holiday Parks is the most impressive motor park I’ve stayed at on this unpredictable adventure.

Later today we head back to the tiny place called Arrowtown where Paula has an appointment with a store owner. She made a good sale this morning here in Te Anau.

I was having a bit of a hard time, being so far from home, without Burt, my longtime companion who passed away earlier this year. We did everything together and were rarely apart. You know, it’s not easy suddenly being cut in half. Sometimes I can’t find me.

In Queenstown, Paula Martin,  my guide here in NZ, has a favorite coffee place called “The Grind”: it’s located in the industrial part of town. Meet Ben  who owns “the Grind<‘ a cafe-bar with “the Remarkables” as a backdrop.

Today was a great day. Paula Martin and I slept at a motor camp near beautiful Lake Wanaka, which must remind Europeans of the Alps. Very early in the morning we took off for Queensberry, which once was a sheep station. Weather is always a main topic in NZ and we had heard about the expected mammoth winds and they arrived after lunch. Big bursts of air that took down everything in their path. Some of the exhibitors left early because their gazebos were collapsing. Paula and I dismantled her set-up early as well–it takes a long time to do it right and Paula has everything organized and nothing can be done out of order. It takes a couple of hours to pack up; hard work with mighty winds to contend with as well.

Across the road from Queensberry there were plenty of sheep grazing in pasture framed by a beautiful mountain scene. Paula was going to set up her gazebo at this Victorian “fete” in the most spectacular of surroundings–all the people selling put up their gazebos in between huge white rose bushes. Hundreds of white rose bushes. Seems that the flowers we have back in El Granada grow to twice the size here in New Zealand.

[Image below: Paula setting up] I’m going out to dinner and maybe will have rabbit pie at an interesting pub/hotel in Wanaka. I enjoyed my “Betty Wilson’s Seafood chowder.”

The day before we visited Chard Winery, accessible by driving over a narrow cliff-side road. At Chard, Dave is the man in charge of wine tastiing. Nearby was the bridge where bungy jumping started. On the flight from Auckland to Queenstown, I sat [way in the back of the plane] next to A. J. Hackett,  the founder of bungy jumping all over the world. When I told him I most likely was not going to give it a try, he wanted to change my mind. But I was “a hard case.”

Tonight I’m spending the night at “Falling Leaves,” a lovely B&B near Wanaka.[Image: Jo, at left is the charming owner of Falling Leaves; at right, Paula Martin, silver jeweler.]

Lovely view from “Falling Leaves.”

Tomorrow, Saturday here in NZ, I’ll meet up with Paula two hours away in a remote area where she’s setting up her silver jewelry at another “fete.” Jo, the owner of “Falling Leaves” has goats [the one in the image with Paula is called “Rasberry”] and black pigs on her ten acre property.

But I broke my Canon camera.  Just tumbled out of my hands, hit the ground and cracked, in a quaint old gold mining village called Arrowtown.  (Still have my Flip & camera phone…)

It’s lovely today but we may hit gale force winds on our long drive from Queenstown to a “fete” or fair near Wanaka. I’ll be helping Paula set up; after that show we head in the opposite direction to do another. Her van reminds me of an old Volkswagon bus, you get the picture? It’s be tough going in the van fighting GALE force winds.

More later….

Home:

Time-wise, I am three hours behind, and one DAY ahead of the clock in Half Moon Bay. I just took my shower in the motor park where I spent the night sleeping in Paula’s van. Yesterday we went to the Warehouse, a discounter located in the “Remarkables” shopping center, to buy one sheet and a duvet for my bed.  The van is a tight fit but it works.  A narrow bench, upholstered in a vibrant red material pulls out to become a “bed,” which although it does not have a soft surface, put me right to sleep. We are parked near the kitchen which is outfitted with a stainless steel cook top, big screen tv, and internet hook-up. The “bathrooms” with shower are individual little buildings, three of them, with more in the main building–but not all the motor parks are going to be this comfortable.

We had a delightful lunch yesterday at Paula’s favorite place called “the Grind” in the industrial area of Queenstown.

We cannot escape “the Remarkables” but there are mountains everywhere, the kind that loom and let you know how small you really are.

Paula reminds me that we are sitting on an island in the middle of nowhere, subject to the whims of weather. Right now it is a bit sunny with some wind. She says wind is common this time of year. The weather is constantly changing and she says when it stays the same for a couple of hours it’s the big top of conversation here.

Paula Martin, my companion and guide, is a silver jewelry designer and native New Zealander. This is the time of year when she makes her pre-Christmas jewelry sales by driving through the South Island visiting shops and setting up at fetes, in this case one at a very remote location, which we are going to do later this week.

Last evening we sat in the van and sipped some bubbly as she pulled out her well worn (and beloved) maps of New Zealand, telling me stories about all the entirely original places she knows so well. She described birds to me with voices that chime, glaciers that move, and the terrain which you have to experience first hand to understand.

My friend, Paula Martin, the silver jewelry designer, met me at the Queenstown, NZ airport this morning. We got in her van and we were off on an adventure that will entail visiting fairs on the South Island where she will sell her work for the Christmas season–and, of course,  we will be fully enjoying the local scenery. For now we are in Queenstown; I’m working on writing projects while Paula is organizing her jewelry.

Flying into Queenstown was an incomparable visual experience—you wouldn’t believe it—we flew in inbetween the mountains, low, and with the mountains on either side.  All the water forms here, the lakes, are an intense azure blue, the blue you might find in the artist’s paintbox, or in your imagination.  No gray-blue like the Pacific Ocean.

Overlooking the airport and Queenstown are “the Remarkables,” a set of  mountains, tall and pointed. They can be seen from almost everywhere and overlook the shopping center with the same name.

Story by John Vonderlin

Email John: [email protected]

Hi June,

One of Sir Walter Scott’s, most famous quotations is, “Oh. What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Well, thanks to a bit of serendipity and our carefully nurtured cynicism, I believe we’ve discovered a situation that exemplifies the quotation’s message, a situation that might best be described by a similar-themed Scottish word, “skulduggery.” Somebody actually tried to carry out the deception of producing natural sea glass “gems” by finding an isolated and difficult-to-reach cove along the Coastside, and dumping a large collection of glass chunks, many of rare colors and types, into the gravel there, hoping for time and tide to give them an “authentic” surf-created polish, so prized by sea glass collectors. Well, they got lucky. because I found the scene of their crime, forthwith named Skulduggery Cove, and cleaned it up for them. While I don’t know the details of the law, I’m guessing dumping sharp pieces of glass into the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary, and thereby on a San Mateo County beach, for profit, is probably a big No! No! Now, I may be wrong about the “profit” part, and this is just an obsessed, misguided collector/artist, doing this. But, the circumstantial evidence says otherwise as I’ll outline in a future posting. As you remember, I posted briefly a few weeks ago about having the greatest sea glass collecting event in my life. Yet, I believed it might be a case of having to look a gift horse in the mouth and yell foul. That instead of having stumbled on a King Tut-ish trove of sea glass, I had stumbled on a counterfeiting operation. The PhD of a hoaxster graduate of the “Piltdown Man School of Shenanigans.” Well, having returned to the scene of the crime twice more, each time collecting a wonderful, if diminishing, assortment, of colorful glass chunks, I now have a more nuanced view of the whole enterprise. But, that might be because I’ve now collected enough sea glass to fill a large glass container, with which I’ll create a piece of artplay. I’ll be calling the piece, “Chicanery Glass.” I’m also expecting to enjoy myself writing a series of postings about this delicious subterfuge and all the subtle flavors wafting from it. Here’s an excerpt from my description of how this came to light on my first trip: …….Such was the case Monday, though the low tide was only a minus -.5. Picking out one of the difficult to reach, except during a good low tide, stretches of our coastside beaches, we soon were exploring. This particular stretch, south of Pigeon Point, has been our most reliable and prolific producer of abalone shells, including many complete ones. And though we don’t collect them, it’s fun to gather them and pass them on to a local artist for use in his creations. We weren’t finding many, which wasn’t surprising, as others surely had combed this stretch since the big storms of last winter. Still, I had my “Search and Find” circuits alert for small, easy to miss, yet attractively polished pieces. Hiking south we had carefully worked our way over the slimy rocks jutting from the end of a point and into a small pocket cove, I was delighted to see two pieces of cobalt blue sea glass, one of the rarer colors, nestled in the pebbles. Excitedly looking about, I found another, and another, then a piece of an unusual color of green, and then more blue. So it went, dozens of pieces of blue, interspersed with other unusual colors, with just a few of the common clear, brown or green found in so many beer or soda bottles. I was just thinking how this was the best collecting I’d ever done when “Eureka,” I spied a nickel-sized piece of red glass. I had never before found even one piece of this very rare color. Admiring it for just a second as I turned it over in my hand, I quickly cast my focus about my feet again and saw another. “Let me die now cuz it don’t get better then this,” I’m thinking. How wrong I was. As I moved up the beach to the base of the cliff I continued finding a rainbow of colors, along with a number of larger pieces, some that I quickly identified as parts of glass insulators, popular collector’s items themselves. Sea glass collector books opine that larger pieces, through some dynamic of the waves, tend to end up higher on the beach. This was the case here as the gravel at the cliffbase was smothered with a heaping helping of tasty specimens. I should mention. I’m not actually a sea glass collector. I do have a sea glass collectiom that fills several ornate clear vases, but it’s just another exhibition of a variety of non-buoyant marine debris, rather then a collector’s pride and joy. While I do admire the gemlike, polished contours of “Mermaid’s Tears,” the general lack of a history of dumping glass into the ocean along the southern Coastside, makes for slim pickings locally. That’s especially true for any color that didn’t originate from a beer bottle. This just was not the circumstance that generated much collecting enthusiasm in me. At some point, as I kept mining this bonanzic Mother Lode of treasure, where there should be none, cynicism crept in. Why had we seen none of this in any previous hikes through this cove? How could the majority of the pieces be of the rarer colors? And how come some of the pieces are sharp and fresh looking, while others are highly polished? I’ve been presented with a veritable enigma-stuffed conundrum slathered with a secret mystery sauce. Assuming deceit, why had somebody gone to all the trouble? When did they start? What were the pieces of unusual glass from? Where had they been acquired? Were there preliminary steps before leaving them at the beach? Who does this deceit offend or hurt? What is its value? I’ll try to answer these questions in Part 2 of “Chicanery Glass.” Here are photos of the booty from my second and third visits to Skulduggery Cove and one picture of the my complete collection, so far, of “Chicanery Glass.” Enjoy John

That’s “Slater,” at the bottom right. He’s part Maori, part Scottish, there are few to no full-flooded Maoris living in NZ. After a 13 hour flight, I landed in Auckland, the big city, where most New Zealanders live. Slater showed me around during my one night stay in Auckland, the “City of Sails.”
You should see the harbor; it’s filled with sails, most of them of the vary largest variety, couldn’t imagine one of these at Pillar Point Harbor. One of the biggest yachts I have ever seen is called the Ulysses.

Story by John Vonderlin

Email John: [email protected]

Story by Railroad author John Schmale

Email John Schmale: [email protected]

Hi June,

I am sending the two Tunitas Ocean Shore Railway photos as jpegs. I hope they open alright. The one of the trestle missing it’s north end was from about 1938.

The photo of the Tunitas depot dates from the same time period. I recall during the late 1960s seeing the ruins of the depot after the fire. It was a great loss to me as a railroad fan. The photos are from my collection via Rudy Brandt. Rudy Brandt or Robert McFarland took  the photos.

Regards,

John Schmale, author of Arcadia book:  Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad

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Story by Angelo Misthos

Hi, John. Thanks very much for the Tunitas Long Bridge and station
photos–which opened up fine.  I remember the station and its loading
platform, but didn’t go down to take pictures or examine it more closely–I
had only a box camera during those Depression days and don’t think I had it
with me. I think the station had galvanized siding, or maybe just the roof.
As I drove by with my friend  (who’d borrowed his brother’s Model A Ford )
on our way to Santa Cruz, all that remained of the trestle was on the South
side up to about the first x-shaped reinforcements between bents. I was
driving and had just gotten my driver’s license at age 16;  this places the
year as 1939.  Since the photo you sent dates to about 1938, this jibes
with my hunch that the trestle was being dismantled from the north end,
though
I don’t recall seeing any such activity or equipment as we went by.  Angelo