Distant Ophir

Ophir
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

There were no quinquiremes, of Nineveh or anywhere else, come to that, but today we were in Ophir, once the most populous mining town in the area but today .... well, shut. People obviously live there, and the post office, still in the original building, is open for business in the mornings, but we saw not a soul. Two dogs, happily behind a wire fence, went demented with excitement at the sight of us walking down the middle of the main street - we felt once more like characters in a Western.

The eerie quality was enhanced by the howling (literally) gale, which had us shivering despite the bright sunshine. The south-east wind comes straight from the Antarctic with nothing to deflect or warm it up, and it was giving it laldy this afternoon. Even in the morning it was pretty dramatic - there's a pic over on flickr showing what it did to Lake Dunstan. We had a walk later - a couple or so miles on the Otago rail trail near Ophir, where it winds through country that seemed positively biblical. There was snow on the Pisa range, though the nearest hills, the aptly named Raggedy Range, were the more usual dust colour.

Another first today: I saw a field full of alpacas. My cup is full.