We wanted to have a Christmas adventure in Central Otago, away from the madding crowds. Which is only slightly different to maddening crowds. As usual, there was no real plan except it would involve Central Otago and there’d have to be a bit of toing and froing as we wanted to use both the campervan and the four-wheel-drive; dependent on the destination.
Central Otago is, without doubt, my favourite region in New Zealand – possibly the entire world.
When I arrived in Dunedin from Auckland as a Dickette, just nine years of age, I was mystified by most of my schoolmates talking about holidays in this place called ‘Central’ – hereinafter just plain Central, with a capital ‘C’.
I had no idea what they were talking about.
I found out a year later when we, the Dick family, had a camping/touring holiday through Central – a mix of sleeping under a tarpaulin stretched out the back of the car (and boiling water in a Thermette), to the occasional night in a hut (today a cabin) at a camping ground.
What I remember most vividly of that trip in the summer of 1950-’51 was the heat and the feeling of being on another planet – and a string of rabbit corpses strung on a length of Number Eight wire to mummify – the sort of thing a 10-year-old boy never forgets. The landscape was totally alien to me.
Since then I have been to Central so many times I have lost count, but never lost track.
Back when I was 10 years of age, Central Otago
