2016 - Trip Report - Like Minds in Te Anau, New Zealand
Like Minds in Te Anau, New Zealand
By Anne Stoll
So if this world blows up someday soon, one could do much worse than escape to New Zealand. The landscape is a lot like California – rolling golden hills, cattle ranches bordered by eucalyptus, distant snowy peaks, crashing surf along a rocky coast, cities (Wellington and Dunedin, for example) that look for all the world like San Francisco. They even have earthquakes now and then, just like at home. Of course, there are waterfalls and 20-foot fern trees here and there to remind you that you’re a long way from California. But when we reached the town of Te Anau on the South Island and visited the Fiordland Vintage Machinery Museum, we knew we’d found kindred souls that all DE-ers would recognize. Shades of the Laws Railroad Museum near Bishop, here was a cool toy collection! The FVMM is a social club where members get together to restore old machines.
We were so taken with the place we thought maybe our own Fearless Leader Neal should be entitled to name his own Machine of the Month?
