Long night, White Night

Melbourne threw its own Nuit Blanche. I think this whole world's most liveable city affair has kind of gone to its head. Australian culture dictates that a night out must must must involve booze, lest it be labelled a waste and gay. My charming countrypeople! So what started out as a bright evening of culture and jazz dissolved, by about 3 or so AM, into a distopian day-night with tumbleweeds of empty vodka bottles, Pie Face wrappers and abandoned shoes. I wish I'd taken a picture of the bottle-o because it was empty. I mean it; spirits gone, two little miniature bottles of bourbon arranged thoughtfully on the middle shelf.

 

Aiie, but I am being negative. My own White Night was... multi-faceted. That has to be the word. Highlight of highlights: I saw Cent une tueries de zombies (have a look if you don't mind the gore). 101 zombie deaths cleverly edited into 40-something glorious minutes. Not for the faint of heart. (They even included my favourite zombie death, but be warned: this video is graphic.) I also got to see Flap!, the very best live outfit in Melbourne, perform, which was excellent as always. They have this way with an audience; it's hard to describe. Every time I've seen them (and I admit, there have been a few) it takes about three songs for them to win the crowd completely over. You know the kind of person you don't actually know, but feel close to and want to buy a pony for? That's this band. They're good value folks.

After the zombies and the music it was getting towards that eerie stage I told you about. I'd said goodbye to J and IMJ (soft!) and just sort of wandered. Things get very strange for me when I'm low on sleep. I don't remember much, but I have distinct memories of trying to walk toe-heel instead of heel-toe. What can I say? In the immortal words of Honey Boo Boo Child, girl's gotta get her beauty sleep.

I resurfaced at 6am, ate too much breakfast (cold scrambled eggs, bleagh) and went home, then to work. Probably should have had a lie-down beforehand; probably shouldn't have drunk six espresso shots in half an hour. Was it all worth it? You know, I think so.

 

WitW: Arrowtown, New Zealand

Welcome to Arrowtown; so charming it's frightening.

A long, long time ago, the Arrow Basin was carved out by glaciers and the Arrow River formed, "flowing like silver threads through the blackened scrub-clothed plains", on the banks of which Arrowtown sprung up in due fashion. It pattered along for a good few years until a shearer named Jack happened upon some gold and, well, you know how these things go.

These days, Arrowtown cashes in on its natural beauty, which you can sort of understand. I mean, this place has a week-long Autumn Festival just to celebrate how ridiculously pretty it is. They have a scarecrow competition and something called 'Bikes 4 Fun' and I am sure it's an absolute blast.



And they have a tiny little cinema. I mean, come on, Arrowtown. We know miniature is cute. You're killing us.

Of course, since 98% of New Zealand was used to film The Lord of the Rings trilogy (and subsequently the Hobbits, oh my goodness), Arrowtown's surroundings feature as the Fords of Bruinen, better known as the "if you want him, come and claim him" river.

It's probably more fun in summer.

 

All credit to my sources: Discover Arrowtown, Arrowtown Autumn Festival, eGlobal, Private Fleet, Dorothy Brown's, NZ Girl, Travel Blog

Where in the Wednesday is my weekly excuse to trawl through Google Images. It's a profile of the place I wish I was in and an attempt to draw my eye away from classic travel destinations. I write in the hope that you'll enjoy reading about all these places as much as I love learning and writing about them. Anywhere you think I ought to write about, from the obscure little town in your state to that place you visited in 1989? I'm at anscenicworld@gmail.com