Friday, June 15, 2007

Travelling in the OFF season.







We found lots of advantages travelling at this time of the year. There was little need to pre - book anything. There were generally just enough people around to make it pleasant, but we had one really funny experience.
The photos here are of Lake Te Anau; we stayed 2 nights at a Hotel on this waterfront and one shot shows the lovely view from our window. It was a huge 2 storied building, with corridors 100 metres long.( R paced it out ) We were on the upper floor. We found out later that there were in fact 9 guests at the hotel ( somewhere ). We decided to have dinner in the hotel the first night. There we were the 2 of us in a dining room that could seat 200...just us and our young waiter James. Of course he was so bored he spent a good part of his time talking to us ( just for the company ).
We said " Do you know what this reminds us of ? "
"No, what ? " he replied.
"Did you ever happen to see a movie called The Shining?" we asked.
"Oh, yes I did," he said. "Ooh my."
"I have been watching for Danny on his tricycle, " I said.
The Shining was a Stanley Kubrick horror movie in the 1980s, based on a Stephen King book of the same name. It starred Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall and was set in a snow bound hotel in the Colorado mountains in winter. Their little son Danny cruised the long empty corridors on his tricycle. ( Nicholson of course was weird as only he can be )
For the rest of our stay we had a feeling of deja vu......I think young James did too. We ate out the 2nd night!

8 comments:

Françoise said...

This looks beautiful. But I'm glad you didn't meet Jack in the hotel corridors... Brrr...

Susan D said...

What beautiful views you had. Nice to have all that space to yourselves but must have been a bit eerie at times.

Lynda (Granny K) said...

Looks like a great place to be. I've seen the film twice and it terrified me both times!
Thanks for the lovely comment about my quilt.

Suzi-k said...

he he don't blame you! But what a beautiful place!

Unknown said...

Fabulous, fabulous views - not so sure about being the sole guests in the dining room though

meggie said...

Wonderful pics again Ali. Keep em coming.
Loved the eerie story too!

Shirley Goodwin said...

Ooh, I love trains! (referring to your earlier posts here, I am a bit behind)I haven't done the taieri Gorge one yet.

Deb Hardman said...

I really like traveling off season. I don't enjoy big crowds, & off season travel seems a little more sane.