Driving home from Wanaka

When we were driving home from Wanaka back to Dunedin, I took some pictures of the countryside to give folks a better idea of what Central Otago looks like in July.

This is typical Central Otago, or just Central as everyone calls it. Very open (some would say barren) grassland with very few trees or houses to obscure the view. Generally there are sheep grazing, sometimes a few cows.

I don't think anyone is living here at the moment. There are some very interesting looking old houses in Central. It used to be a big gold mining area so there are old houses from that time.

Typical Central town along the highway. Lots of coal smoke in the air...people burn coal to heat their homes especially older homes. Usually a pub and a dairy (grocery) and a few churches of the Presbyterian variety.

Another town in Central, this might have been Alexandra where there is a nice local bakery with flat whites (like a latte) and meat pies. I had the chicken; it was tasty.

This is something we never saw back home: trimmed hedges in pastures. Acres and acres of pastures have hedges between them instead of fences or as wind breaks, and most of the hedges are very neatly trimmed. These are huge hedges...like 30 feet high. People told us they need to do this to keep the trees from getting out of hand. Out of hand? You mean like regular trees?