ティーポットから便器にいたるまで、陶器生産は資源の豊かなこの地域の代表的な産業の一つです。バルクルーサ近くのマックスキミング社は、サニタリー、特に便器の生産でニュージーランドでもっとも有名で、生産規模も大きい会社でした。

　しかし、この地に入植したヨーロッパ系住民の生活を安定させた資源は多く、陶土はその一つに過ぎません。ニュージーランド亜麻は、かつて繁栄を極めたロープ製造業を支え、石炭はボイラーの燃料や家庭の暖房に役立てられました。セントラル地区の土壌と気候は、果実の生育に適し、近年ではワイン産業が急成長を見せています。

　

　

Tapping into the region's natural resources

　

From teapot to toilet bowl, clay products were distributed far and wide from resource-rich Southern New Zealand. The McSkimming brand became a household name nationally, with the company's Benhar factory near Balclutha perhaps best known for its manufactured sanitary ware, toilet bowls in particular. Thousands were produced.

Clay was but one of a number of natural resources that ensured the survival of European settlement in the south. New Zealand flax was the raw material for a flourishing rope-making industry and coal seams were worked to fire boilers and heat homes. Central Otago soils and climate supported fruit-growing and, in recent times, a burgeoning wine industry.

　

　

　季節的な移住生活をしていた古代の「モア・ハンター」以来、人々は海岸近くに暮らしながら、内陸の奥、セントラル・オタゴにしばしば足を踏み入れてきました。今日でも、多くはレクリエーションや休暇のためですが、その行動はつづいています。

　夏や冬の休暇、セントラル・オタゴの山荘などへ旅行するのは、海岸近くにくらす多くの人にとってはもはや「伝統的な行動」なのです。

　

　

　夏の太陽、暑さ、日照時間の長さをセールスポイントにするリゾートタウンにとって、冬の雪も同じように重要な観光資源となっています。冬の寒さは、スキーやクロスカントリーのための雪と、スケートやカーリングのための氷をもたらすのです。

　

　

　

Since the seasonal journeys of moa-hunters, people have been venturing inland to Central Otago from bases on the coast. These days they mostly go for recreation and holidays.

For many coast-dwellers, it has been traditional to travel to a crib or cottage in Central for summer or winter holidays.

Resort towns trade as much on winter snow and ice as on summer sun, heat and long daylight hours.

Symbols of a Central summer ... sunscreen, sunhats, picnic baskets, deckchairs, barbeque, thermette, fishing rod, motor boat, water skis, kayak and caravan.

　

Winter cold has spin-offs - snow for skiing and cross-country adventures; ice for skating and curling.

Symbols of a Central winter ... thermos flask, hot-water bottle, antifreeze in radiators, ice skates, curling stone, skis on roof racks, chains in case of a snowstorm.

　

[Poetry/Prose]

O far from the quiet room my spirit fills

The familiar valleys, is folded deep in the hills.

-Ruth Dallas

'Deep in the Hills', 1953

　

Dream of the mountain creek that spills

Among the stones and cools your feet,

The breeze that sags on smoky hills,

The bubble of the noonday heat

- A.R.D. Fairburn, 'TO An Expatriate'

　

　

We, visitors or inhabitants, pass through.

Splendour remains, indifferent to what we do.

Peak, ridge and pilgrim water still remote, untamed;

Charted but all intractable, anonymous though

named.

-Basil Dowling

'By Lake Wanaka', 1973

　

'I sat down on a boulder in front of the cave, glad to be alone, and free to look in silence filled with that exaltation that comes to the heart of the lover of mountains, and filled, too, with the yearning to be one with it all - to understand - to let solemn majesty of the mountains sink into one's being. Awe they inspire; but fear, never.

- Maud Moreland, in the Matukituki Valley, 1908