Sights and Sounds Across the Southern Alps

The TranzAlpine train travels from Christ Church on the East Coast across the Southern Alps to Greymouth on the West Coast.  The train stopped mid way at Arthur's Pass and again for an hour at Greymouth for us to have lunch.  I enjoyed not having to drive. 

"Trees Need Not Walk the Earth"

Trees Need Not Walk the Earth

By David Rosenthal (1920)

Trees need not walk the earth 
For beauty or for bread; 
Beauty will come to them 
Where they stand. 
Here among the children of the sap
Is no pride of ancestry: 
A birch may wear no less the morning 
Than an oak. 
Here are no heirlooms 
Save those of loveliness,
In which each tree 
Is kingly in its heritage of grace. 
Here is but beauty’s wisdom 
In which all trees are wise. 
Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread; 
Beauty will come to them 
In the rainbow— 
The sunlight— 
And the lilac-haunted rain;
And bread will come to them 
As beauty came: 
In the rainbow— 
In the sunlight— 
In the rain

Mount Fitzwilliam

It was a rainy, foggy day and storm clouds were forming over Mt. Fitzwilliam like a volcanic eruptions.

Clouds over Canterbury Plains

“So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.”

― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse    



Waimakariri River Gorge

That Evening Sun

 

  It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free    

By William Wordsworth      

     

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,

The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

Is sinking down in its tranquility;

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;

Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder—everlastingly.

Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,

If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,

Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;

And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,

God being with thee when we know it not.

The Road to Paradise

Glow of the evening sky at Lake Wakatipu on the road from Paradise outside of Queenstown, New Zealand.

Hear the Waters of Lake Wakatipu

This is Lake Wakatipu outside of Queenstown New Zealand.  The poem by William Butler Yeats describes the feelings one experiences at this beautiful lake.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in bee-loud glad.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

By William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

The Lonely Hunter

"The Lonely Hunter"

by Fiona MacLeod

Green branches, green branches, I see you beckon; I follow!

Sweet is the place you guard, there in the rowan-tree hollow.

There he lies in the darkness, under the frail white flowers,

Heedless at last, in the silence, of these sweet midsummer hours.

But sweeter, it may be, the moss whereon he is sleeping now,

And sweeter the fragrant flowers that may crown his moon-white brow:

And sweeter the shady place deep in an Eden hollow

Wherein he dreams I am with him -- and, dreaming, whispers, "Follow!"

Green wind from the green-gold branches, what is the song you bring?

What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?

Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,

But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a shadowy place;

White is the hunter's quarry, a lost-loved human face:

O hunting heart, shall you find it, with arrow of failing breath,

Led o'er a green hill lonely by the shadowy hound of Death?

Green branches, green branches, you sing of a sorrow olden,

But now it is midsummer weather, earth-young, sun-ripe, golden:

Here I stand and I wait, here in the rowan-tree hollow,

But never a green leaf whispers, "Follow, oh, Follow, Follow!"

O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing:

O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing.

Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,

But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

Dwell in the Green Mountain

Green Mountain

By Li Bai

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.

"Clown In the Moon"

Clown In The Moon

My tears are like the quiet drift

Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

By Dylan Thomas

"Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night"

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Milford Sound - Gallery I

These are photos from my one night cruise through Milford Sound to the Tasman Sea.  Fiordland National Park is New Zealand's rawest wilderness area of jagged mountains and forests.  It was cloudy and rainy in the evening so the sky was not clear enough to see the Fiordland's pristine skies.  The Southern Cross and Milky Way can be seen on a clear night. You have to be in the Southern Hemisphere to see Crux – the Southern Cross – in all its glory. Bluish Acrux, aka Alpha Crucis, is its brightest star.  I will probably never have the opportunity again.  Rain, Rain why didn't you go away?

 

Constellation Crux photo by Christopher J Picking in New Zealand. 

Te Anau Milford Highway

Driving to Milford Sound was probably the most nervous driving experience I had.  The sharp curves was a challenge for someone who is inexperience driving on the right side of the road.  I learned very quickly!  These photos were from the road side before heading up the mountains.

TSS Earnslaw Cruise Lake Wakatipu

 

The TSS Earnslaw is a 1912 Edwardian steam-powered boat where I took a 90 minute round trip cruise to the Walter Peak Farm.  It was a slow and pleasant experience of what steam boat transportation was like.  It is the only remaining commercial passenger-carrying coal-fired steamship in the southern hemisphere. 

Scenic Flight Over Lake Pukaki

Traveling to Mt. Cook Village in the South Island of New Zealand, I drove by Lake Pukaki.  How many shades does mother earth have of blue?  I call the color of Lake Pukaki Blue Ice.  I looked up the color "Blue Ice" and here is an explanation.



Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of the glacier. Air bubbles are squeezed out and ice crystals enlarge, making the ice appear blue.

On the scenic flight, we flew over Mt. Cook, Tasman Glacier and Fox Glacier.  Lake Pukaki is the largest of three parallel alpine lakes running north-south along the northern edge of the Mackenzie Basin.  The glacial feed to the lakes gives them a distinctive blue color, created by glacial flour, the extremely finely ground rock particles from the glaciers.