Nice little vignette on the “Beast from Stour Street”, as he is commonly known in Oamaru.
The Iconoclastic Bookbinder from Oamaru
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Category Archives: Messaged from the Outhouse
North Otago has self-destructed.
I recently had a ten days stint to visit friends and do some skiing on New Zealand’s South Island. Most of the hanging out and relaxing took place in my favorite part of this charmed country, the beautiful North Otago (also known as the Waitaki region). Last time I was here was a good 2 1/2 years ago, but to re-acquaint myself with the place I took my trusty forester and drove around all those familiar back roads around the hamlets of Enfield. Ngapara, Tokarahi, Five Forks and Weston. These used to be gently rolling hills, interrupted by native or old planted European trees, hedges and interspersed with rocky outcrops from the famous Oamaru Whitestone. While shaped by man for farming, the area nevertheless retained an oldwordly charm and invited walking, cycling and gentle excursions with my beloved Morris Minor.
When I drove through the area last week, all of this was gone. Instead I found numerous, enormous irrigation installations up to 500m long, the trees all gone, and the gentle, lush paddocks turned into garish muddy fields, trampled by tens of thousands of cows standing around this previously beautiful area. Kilometer after kilometer the same picture: cows, cows, cows, trampled brownish paddock, dirty stream, macmansion, milking shed, cows, cows, cows, and so on. The place looks like a landscape from Mars (or Moon, or just insert your favorite planet/moon here).
The toll dairying has taken on this once picturesque part of New Zealand is unbelievable, and the Waitaki District Council and the individual farmers have to ask themselves how much damage in the name of profit maximisation can be done to the environment. It’s not like this area was pristine prior to the arrival of dairying. Sheepfarming and crops all changed the look of the landscape since the arrival of the European settlers, but this pales in comparison with the damage that has been done over the last few years.
As a tourist destination, Waitaki has lost its natural attractions. There are only so many people wanting to see streams full of cow affluent and dug up paddocks devoid of trees, hedges and birds.
We are witnessing the self destruction of a whole district with its local government contributing to the damage.
Nice one, chaps.
Wanaka
Travelling…
Isn’t it weird that every journey somehow always begins in Whitechapel,
takes me through The Mall
and ends in Singapore. I must have some sort of built in autopilot.
Funnily enough, the lady at Dixon’s wished me a safe journey and didn’t understand that it wasn’t up to me, as I wan’t going to fly the bloody plane.
Nico’s Cafe-Diner
So my meandering lunch visits took me recently to Cambridge Heath Road, the border that divides lovely Stepney and Whitechapel. On the western side of this important traffic artery sits Nico’s Cafe-Diner, a little treasure trove of all things food. Not limited to the usual greasy spoon fare, they offer greek specialties, grilled bits and all sorts of other goodies.
The condiments are placed strategically at the heart of the table, like a group of Russian Energia rockets.
The eggbaconchipsandbeans is truly magnificent and clearly is so far the best I’ve had in the whole of London and now nudges Mr G off his long held number one spot as the best EBCB in the capital. Just look at this:
These are not chips, but lovingly sauteed potatoes hiding under this magnificent bacon and egg arrangement. The beans are almost hiding in shame, confronted with all this magnificence. The bacon and eggs are placed in a bit of an oppressive fashion, with the plebeic potatoes almost asking for more air. All in all an amazing display, and well worth every penny.
All hail our new favourite ebcb.
Messaged from the Outhouse 