Shuffleboard on Ice

You'd think that means I think curling is lame, no? Well it definitely isn't. More on that later, though.

First things first, we took the Taieri Gorge Railway from the Dunedin Railway Station (gingerbread house, remember?) to Pukerangi. Basically, the railway is a tourist line that runs on the original railway that went into Central Otago back when its economy was driven by gold mining. It's quite popular, especially during the summer, although even today there were quite a few people on the train. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the Green Mountain Railroad, and the White River Flyer, in particular. And both are equally outrageously expensive (US$34 one way on the Taieri, $17 on the WRJ - and that's at least half the distance). Anyway, it was a nice ride, complete with commentary on the history of the railway and the gorge, and a snack car with nice mince pies...mmmm.

At Pukerangi, we got off the train and hopped on a minibus, which took us to the small town (permanent pop. of 100) of Naseby, which also happens to be home to the 'only dedicated indoor curling rink in the Southern Hemisphere.' That may sound surprising, but up on what is called the Maniototo (yes, this was Rohan - I was excited), curling has been popular here ever since it was settled by Scottish gold prospectors in the 1870s. In fact, the Olympic-regulation rink showed us an into to curling video taught by the skipper of the New Zealand Olympic curling team, based not far from Naseby.

History aside, the curling was actually pretty fun - it's a lot like either shuffleboard or bocce ball on ice. Shuffleboard because of the court layout, bocce because only the team with the closest stone to the target gets points. Of course, it's vastly different because you're sliding 42-pound pieces of granite (YES) across the ice (the 'curl' comes from when you release the stone with a little rotation, so its path will curl left or right). Then there are two sweepers, who'll sweep to either straiten your stone's path, or to speed it up; the ice melts slightly when it's swept. Each team has 4 people - one thrower, two sweepers and a skipper who directs the sweepers - and everyone on each team gets two throws per round, for 11 rounds. That's pretty much it. There's actually quite a bit of strategy and skill involved, since you have to be able to throw the stone the right distance without it going out of play, and be able to either hit or avoid other stones, depending on the situation. It's good stuff. Normally, as I'm pretty 'link-happy,' I'd include a link to the Wikipedia article on curling, but I'm pretty sure that no one would ever click it. I wonder if anyone will even read this paragraph I wrote about it...

Naturally, I ended up playing pretty decently in a sport that I may never play again. It's a shame, it could have been my true calling.