South Island Saga continued: Into the Southern Alps

I think it's the small things in life that I appreciate the most. Little things that surprise and delight me inordinately.  (caution: this post contains a segment of reminiscence.) 

Here we are, being chauffeured all over the South Island of New Zealand. Seeing sights most folks can only dream about.  At the end of travel each day, our luggage is brought to our rooms for us. We meet again in the bar for happy hour at today's swank hotel and talk smart, as Fred likes to say.  Then dinner, followed by a comfortable bed.  It doesn't get much better, except of course, when it does.   

Today's post starts by recounting one of those little surprises that popped up. But it does more.   

We're going to ride up into the Southern Alps later today. Our ears will pop repeatedly. We're going to a small town on the edge of a deep mountain lake and then cross it.  The scenery, and weather will at long last, both be spectacular; the surface of the lake like glass between snowy peaks.  

This begins what for me, was the highpoint of our tour. Let's be off. I'll tell you a little more as we go.  

What a great name...McCracken's Rest.  Got a ring to it.  It reminds me of Whatever Became of the McGowans? by Michael G. Coney. They definitely rested.  (No, this is not the reminiscing... just a literary reference...soon, though...I'll advise you.)  

It is from here that we begin to get into serious sheep country and later on, start to climb.  After McCracken's Rest, we drive north. 

It was just a couple of hours later, when we stopped for morning tea at a restaurant called Tui Base Camp, in the little town of Tuatapere, that one of life's little pleasures presented itself to me.  I was so pleased. It really made my day!  (Reminiscence begins...)  

I don't suppose that most of you have tried sweet breads.  They are the thymus gland of an  animal. I've now tried beef, veal and sheep sweetbreads.  

I first learned of them after Jeanne and I bought our first home and land from her uncle Albert outside Carney, Michigan in 1975. Her dad was a dairy farmer whose land started on the next forty to ours. Besides milking his herd, he would also raise an animal or two each year for beef.  The butcher who prepared our animal was very careful to ask about any 'special cuts,' that we wanted.  I loved the soft, almost juicy texture of the poached, then fried crispy morsels. They have a very mild taste that I think most people would relish, if they could lay aside their preconceptions of what is acceptable fare, and what is not.   

It was a few years later when I was working a furniture show in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that I surprised and I think shocked at least one of my dinner partners at a fancy French restaurant there. I ordered sweetbreads in a puff pastry shell.  My dinner arrived with a rich beef sauce completely surrounding my pastry. "What the h... is that, one of my bosses asked me? I told him and offered him a taste but he refused it, preferring his steak.   

We were being feted that night by a couple of French furniture company representatives who were anxious to get some their product placed into our showroom in future shows.  I thought that the price of my choice might have clued my boss into how highly the French value a veal sweetbread, but he probably hadn't even noticed it on the menu.  (Reminiscence ends: thank you for your patience.)  

Back in the present now, I've bought sheep sweet breads several times from Aussie Butcher in Henderson.

Anyway, here they were again in this restaurant. It made sense.  We were in the middle of sheep country. I admire these folks. They recognize value when they see it. 

"Why must we waste a good thymus," they must have asked themselves? "No sheep minus the thymus," became (my imagined) slogan of the Tuatapere area sheep industry.    

I absolutely had to taste some.  I all but dashed (well, shuffled) to the counter and placed my order. I got them just as others of our group were beginning to board the bus.  

They were delicious. Jeanne and I sat on the bus and popped them into our mouths over the course of several kilometers. I was grinning like a kid with a sack of candy. 

I thought of one of the most popular recipes for sweetbreads. You may not be aware that a famous song was inspired by that recipe. Think about it. 𝅘𝅥𝅮Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thymus.𝅘𝅥𝅮

Even a book was written, also undoubtedly inspired by this delicacy. It was by no less than Charles Dickens himself and his original text, before it was rewritten, began, It was the best of thymus, it was the worst of thymus.  

You probably didn't know that he was a restaurant reviewer for a local paper before he started his serious career as a writer.  

(Okay, I admit it, this is getting out of hand. I'll quit)    

Chewing them helped clear our ears as Alan and the bus now got down (or rather up?) to the serious business of climbing into the mountains.... 

We are now in Manapouri and about to board the ferry that will take us to the other end of the lake.  

Lake Manapouri I learned is 444 meters deep, or 1,456 feet.  Lake Superior is 406 meters, or 1,332 feet deep for comparison. 

Some scenes from around and on the lake. 

See, like glass, right?

We've reached the other end of the lake and have made our way by bus to the overlook above Doubtful Sound.  

Jeanne indicates, "It's cold up here."   

That is Doubtful Sound far below us.  It is a fjord that Captain Cook discovered way back when. He is said to have commented that it looked like a good place to sail into, but because of the prevailing winds, he was doubtful that he'd be able to get the ship back out again.  

We're now going to ride down The Wilmot Pass Road, the only road not connected to the rest of New Zealand's road system, and the road that cost New Zealand the most to build. I was told that it cost a dollar something per centimeter.  And that was back in 1963 dollars. It was built to allow transport of huge hydroelectric components to a project. The grades are steep; the corners tight and seemingly, never-ending.  

All this effort has finally deposited us at the Fjordland Navigator.  

We will explore Doubtful Sound on an overnight cruise.  Just wait until you see....      -djf