The Town with 25 People In It

More on my South Island Trip:


Barrytown
Yesterday, we arrived in Barrytown. Our bus driver/guide, Trouble joked that he would give us a tiki tour (brief, tour, the highlights in Kiwi). Turns out the tour took all of five seconds. You see, the population of Barrytown is literally 25 people. We stayed in a 'hostel' behind a bar, which also doubled as our place for dinner. I had a tasty chicken burger for dinner, which came with a voucher for a free beer. We moved in our stuff and headed down to the beach to watch the sun set. The walk to the beach definitely looked shorter than it really was. On the way, we passed plenty of cows roaming the pasture on the left, as well as the Barrytown cemetery on the right. In the graveyard, in addition to the gravestones and graves, were more sheep! It was absolutely hysterical, one of those "only in New Zealand..." moments. After a second or two I realised they were attached to leads, like the ones we put my dogs out on in my backyard back home. Katie even went into the cemetery to try and pet the sheep, but they were quite skittish.



When we finally got to the beach, the clouds were in the way so the pictures didn't turn out the best. I got some pretty colours out of it nonetheless:

After the sun had set, we returned to the bar. Barrytown is known for its "fancy dress" nights at the bar. The walls in the bar are covered with the most ridiculous (and sometimes nude) pictures from these nights. Fancy dress, really just means dress up. For example, our night in Barrytown we were having a "P Party." Our outfits had to start with the letter. P. There was a semi-dodgy closet, which we could build the contents of our outfit with. I tried to be a prep. Katie was a pirate, Meg was Paco the construction worker, Ashley was a pimp and Melissa was her prostitute.

"Paco the Construction Worker"

"Katie-Pi-rate"

The P Party wasn't nearly as exciting as we hoped it would be, so we went to bed not-too-late. The next morning, we woke up early to carve a bone necklace. It was frustrating because we were told to be ready at 8 a.m., but no one came to get us. It was cold, rainy and windy and no one could be found. By 8:30 we were annoyed and woke up our bus driver. He showed us where the house where we'd be doing the carving was and we walked there (it was just down the street). The woman had a full blown shop in the back (think a wood shop) and apparently wasn't expecting us until 9. The first think we did was pick out the design we wanted. I chose one of the fish hooks. I thought it was pretty aesthetically pleasing and it stands for strength and safe travels over water. After that, the woman picked out a piece of bone that fit nicely with design and we traced the design onto the bone with a pencil. Then, she made the piece smaller and carved the intricate curves out of the center. The rest was up to us, though she of course guided us, showed us how to use the machines and what to do. We trimmed the piece of bone until it was at the line we had traced and was curved. The rest of the steps were all about perfecting the piece of bone. We used a drill to smooth and round out the edges and used several different types of sandpaper. I was literally sanding for hours. I also added a line as a detail. It was a meticulous process. The whole experience took about four hours, ending with her polishing the bone by rubbing it on a fine sandpaper machine.

Working so hard made me really appreciate and care about the necklace. I originally thought about giving it to a friend of mine (I wonder if he'll read this...), but I might just keep it for myself. The woman who helped me explained to me that if you're planning on giving it to someone you're actually supposed to wear it first. That's because the bone will absorb your oils and so by the time you give it to someone it has the oils in it. In a way, you're giving him/her a piece of yourself.

After the bone carving was done, I headed back, packed up, ate some random snacks that were laying around in my bag of food and boarded the bus for Franz Josef.

That's all for now. Franz Josef was an amazing time. I climbed a glacier! Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog entry. Sorry they're so scarce, but the semester is wrapping up here and so I don't have very much free time. Miss you all!