Otago/Southland Meetups and TGIO!

Road Trip to Invercargill! I know of two of us in Southland, Daveosaurus and I. I have a friend doing it in Dunedin this year....I might convince her to get in touch with you guys.

If it could be later in the month a meet up further south would be great! I'm in the North Island for the first half....I know its not all about me, but it would be nice to keep the motivation going when you'll be out in the country for half of the month.

I'm horrendously busy with work this year (again... or still... it's not as if work's ever tailed off in the interim) but may still be able to make the TGIO party if anyone's planning one.

If anyone really wants to make a road-trip to Invercargill, there's plenty of good places to go (coffee shops and the like), Three Bean Café seems to be popular with the younger generation these days, and the kiosk at Queen's Park is an old favourite. There is (or was) a café somewhere near where the Embassy used to be that's got (or had) some sort of internet connectivity as well.

Otherwise we could always carpool up to Dunedin (although please note I'm middle-aged and not much in the way of a conversationalist). I am capable of finding my way to any given address in rural Southland without aid of a map, though, so you won't need to worry about getting lost on the way to Winton...

2006 - Title: "Awakenings"; Genre: Horror; Words: 50,000+.
2007 - Didn't take part.
2008 - Title: "From The City Of Demons". Genre: Fantasy. Words: 50,000+.
2009 - Title "Thief". Genre: Steampunk. Words: Not nearly enough.

Its pretty hard to get lost on the way to Winton (well I haven't managed it yet! - it might happen one day...) its the other direction you've got to worry about, though again I haven't managed that either. Maybe I'm not adventerous enough. We might be able to figure something out.

Of all the coffee I've had in Southland I reckon Adagio's in Winton is the best so far. I haven't been to Three Bean yet though!

It would be good to see if we can organise something, its so popular up here, and then its just a bit quiet for the rest of the month when I head down, just want to spread the fun around......and as for conversation, I talk enough for eight people but am fully capable of shutting up when necessary.

It's this whole business about there being no direct route between Winton and Otautau, and Drummond being half way down the most logical indirect route (particularly when coming from the Otautau end, there are at least three points on the Otautau to Drummond road where, if you go straight ahead, you don't go where you're wanting to go...)

Not sure which café is Adagio's... I've only been to the place in the old post office, and bought quite a large number of pies from the Winton bakery at the south end of the commercial area (it's the first actual town shop looking shop driving up Great North Road from the Invercargill end)... Oh, and bought a few packets of crisps from the white shop in my time, too.

2006 - Title: "Awakenings"; Genre: Horror; Words: 50,000+.
2007 - Didn't take part.
2008 - Title: "From The City Of Demons". Genre: Fantasy. Words: 50,000+.
2009 - Title "Thief". Genre: Steampunk. Words: Not nearly enough.

I was like, that makes no sense! But it actually does....the route from Winton to Otautau via Drummond has always been the direct route to me, but five intersections where you have to turn doesn't really make it direct does it.....And you will either end up on the main highway between Winton and Invercargill, or Invercargill and Riverton if you follow those roads I think. Well I don't have trouble getting lost in Southland, you eventually hit something you know. Or end up on the west coast.

Adagio's had great coffee when I was down last summer though the very the last time I went not so much, but they had had to replace their machine so hopefully they are up and running again. And the bakery!!! Cream buns and their sausage rolls and pasty's, god I can't wait to get back home!!! (I'm getting really homesick now actually).

Adagios is on the right hand side when you are heading north from the Invercargill end. Its in the same group of buildings with the jewellers, before you get to the oval, and before Red's in the Post Office. The Magnolia Tree at the other end of town is quite nice too, also on the left. But the coffee at the Bakery wasn't so hot when I was last there, though that was last summer. Its funny anywhere you go in Southland (that I've been anyway (And not Starbucks)) has just modified the old cappa when you ask for something else. Like when I ordered a mocchachino at a place on Esk Street, It was a cappa with copious amounts of chocolate sprinkle on top. *shakes head*.

But I still can't wait to get home. Its exciting to see whats changed in old Invergiggle when you drive in for the first time in a long while. Ahhhh Southland

Are you guys gonna organise stuff in Invers? I think I stumbled across a third writer from your city on the forums (but not sure).

Ohhh really? I'm kindof Invers stalking at the moment. It would be nice to have something go on. So I'll keep my eye out for extras. Its more fun that way - the more the merrier!

But that could have been my friend who's in Dunners at them moment, I told her to sign up but can't seem to find her anywhere. She said she did.....hmmmmm

I wouldn't have a clue... I just have a random memory of finding someone from Invers... but then again it could just be my stupid brain. Ha.

Join our Facebook group? http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=162062123934

Another Invercargillian signed up again for this year. So will follow this thread as we go. :) (no emoticans.)

My mother always told me, "If at first you don't succeed, then try, try again."

YAYAY Another one!!! Thats so exciting! Maybe meetups will be feasible this year!

Mattherfrommaurituis (did I spell that right?) Obviously you would have realised I have joined the FB group, thanks for the admin spot! Hopefully I can put it to good use!

Ohhhhhhh exams tomorrow, but then its Saturday (excited jiggle). I don't get home from work until 11:30pm so I'll probably stay up and just start at midnight. (Happy jiggle again) Eeeeee.

I've just joined the Facebook group and introduced myself there - I'm another from Invercargill. And all the talk about coffee amuses me because I can't drink it!

Sorry for the lengthy silence... computer has been In Getting Fixed for most of the last week.

As for directions from Winton to Otautau... anyone who's not familiar enough with the roads to need directions, I tell them to take the Nightcaps road from Winton and take the first on the left after the Aparima bridge. It's a longer route but not as easy to get completely, hopelessly lost. Drummond township's also got other entertaining aspects to it... whatever bright spark surveyed out "The Village of Drummond" back in the eighteen-whatevers left a space between Boundary Road and Memorial Avenue for a railway that only ever existed in the surveyor's fertile imagination. I have no idea whether or not this is the same comedian which named a town at Isla Bank, "Calcium", because it was on the Limestone Plains...

Was hoping to get an early start made but have about 500 emails to wade through (that's what happens when I'm off line for a week) and don't know when I'll actually be able to start thinking up things to write myself...

2006 - Title: "Awakenings"; Genre: Horror; Words: 50,000+.
2007 - Didn't take part.
2008 - Title: "From The City Of Demons". Genre: Fantasy. Words: 50,000+.
2009 - Title "Thief". Genre: Steampunk. Words: Not nearly enough.

Well Davosaurus do you know how to get to Wrights Bush? Cause thats where I live, a good stone's throw to Drummond.

My mother always told me, "If at first you don't succeed, then try, try again."

Well, a fairly hefty throw anyway (the sort of throw that can lob a stone ten miles up the road).

Wrights Bush is comparatively easy to find... it's just on the main highway to Riverton between Argyle (now *that's* a hard town to find anywhere but on a survey map!) and Waimatuku. On the survey maps it's actually called "Woodfield" (which is why the main street through Wrights Bush got called "Woodfield Street" when the main highway was deviated out into somebody's paddock). There's a couple of other side streets there, going undercover and masquerading as people's driveways (or the hall car park).

2006 - Title: "Awakenings"; Genre: Horror; Words: 50,000+.
2007 - Didn't take part.
2008 - Title: "From The City Of Demons". Genre: Fantasy. Words: 50,000+.
2009 - Title "Thief". Genre: Steampunk. Words: Not nearly enough.

Wow you have got it in one Dave. We live in the old Wrights Bush store. We ran it for a couple of years, then like all the little country stores, closed due to the Supermarkets being too competitive for us little jokers & jokerettes.

I don't know if you are interested, but we have a writers group up and going, we call Southern Scribes. We meet every fortnight, a lot of fun, oldies reminiscing a bit, then we get on track. We meet at The Bookstop Cafe, 67 Glengarry Crescent, Invercargill, which may be a distance for you to travel, but you may want to come and have a look sometime.
The contact email is c/- Becs - thebookstop@xtra.co.nz she will put you on a mailing list of what is happening in the writing world of Invers.

My mother always told me, "If at first you don't succeed, then try, try again."

Hmmm... I think the son of a friend of my mother's would have lived either next door or fairly darned close to you for a while back about 10 years ago or thereabouts. Not giving out full names on the internet but his initials were M.S. and he was from an old family out that way. More recently someone fairly near you would have phoned me at work to ask why the post office had their address wrong in their Oh So Wonderful New Postcode System (the answer being that the post office refused to listen to people who actually knew about road names and RAPID addressing until their own system was found to have gone spectacularly pear-shaped and they had no option, and therefore when we told them about Woodfield Street they probably threw the letter in the bin, along with all the other information we sent them over a period of about fifteen years).

Writing groups sound a lot of fun but most of what I actually produce is fairly off-beat genre sort of stuff that most people would just bounce off again... the first time I did nanowrimo it was horror ("IT CAME FROM... well, somewhere around Mossburn way") (with werewolves; everything's better with werewolves); the second time it was one of those formulaic wizards-and-swords type stories (with motorcycles; everything's better with motorcycles) and this year I'm trying to do "steampunk" (and haven't figured out what this one is going to be better with yet, though).

Distance isn't going to be all that great as I'm just in town here.

EDITED TO ADD: Have you thought of using one of those Southern Scribes get-togethers as an impromptu nanowrimo meet-up? Preferably later in the month when BlackHellebore is back in Southland (I think you're going to be back later in the month - apologies if I'm wrong). That would save a lot of organising things and also there's probably only about half a dozen, max., people in Southland doing this so combining the two would make for a healthier turn-out.

2006 - Title: "Awakenings"; Genre: Horror; Words: 50,000+.
2007 - Didn't take part.
2008 - Title: "From The City Of Demons". Genre: Fantasy. Words: 50,000+.
2009 - Title "Thief". Genre: Steampunk. Words: Not nearly enough.

Ha, interesting about the postal system. We've been here 20yrs, so went through the drama of the new road. I rang up the council to find out if we were now a street in our own right and what number would we be. Depending where it started would we be no two, or number five, or still the Wallacetown-Riverton Highway, or remain as R.D. 4. Mainly for postal service but more so for an emercency, fire etc. The guy on the phone said, "you want to change your rapid number."

However I must have got through finally as we received a letter telling us they were having a meeting to decide on a name. It was then they came up with Woodfield St, number 57!!!! Huh!!

The lady next door gets into trouble with the post office, they keep ringing her asking what address was she exactly. She still used the highway address. I told her we are officially Woodfield St now. My husband uses the name of the old Wrights Bush Store, (its been closed about 18 years) but the locals, and posties know it. Talk about confusing.

Your stories sound very inventive, I love it, werewolves in Mossburn, that would indeed liven up the old town a bit.

I wondered myself about using the bookstop for a meeting, there's good coffee, snacks, easy chairs and it's quiet, plus heaps of books. Our fortnightly meeting may not come up towards the end of the month. The shop is open every day, but would that suit people? We could book it for an evening, except I don't know how to operate the coffee machine. One of our scribes members is doing Nano too. Will work on it, see what the lovely Helle thinks about it.
Cheers.

My mother always told me, "If at first you don't succeed, then try, try again."

Well if you rang the council you probably ended up either talking to me, or else talking to one of the engineers who'd go and bother me for the answer and get back to you... The main problems would have been that the roading deviation wasn't anything the Council had control over (it was Transit who did it, and they couldn't find a road name if it was tattooed onto them and they used both hands, a map and a periscope to look for it); the bloke who looks after road names had just retired and nobody else knew how to do what they had to do (it eventually got picked up by the engineers) and the council were changing over to a new computer system at the time (which meant people were working weekends and spending most of their time screaming obscenities at their computers). Eventually they got some poor mug to send letters out to everyone in Wrights Bush asking them what *they* wanted.

I do remember helping them figure out a name for the street... we went back to the original Wrights Bush survey from the 1860s or thereabouts looking for a street name (often they did give the highway through a town a proper name even though they didn't actually use it - like how the main highway through Dipton used to be called Crescent Street before it became part of the highway's new road name). Unfortunately it was just "Main Street" through the town and there are enough Main Streets in the district already... We just got "Woodfield" off the name of the town on the plan and hoped it wouldn't cause *too* much confusion.

Then we had the problem of where the street starts, considering it's not shaped like a normal street (it's more shaped like a stilt). That was what I had to do for calculating the numbers. In the end I chose the Waimatuku Bush Road turn-off as the datum point (we needed a start point for the street that couldn't be expanded any farther backwards - yes I've been burned a couple of times dealing with roads which peter out in both directions and then get expanded back beyond their zero point) and just used the original measurements from that point to calculate the RAPID numbers (which are based on the distance in metres, divided by ten, with odd numbers on the left). Therefore if you ever need to phone for an ambulance, whatever call centre person up in the North Island gets your call should be able to find you about 570m from the datum point and on the left.

And oh the post office... I have spent the last three and a half years telling them at great length about all the mistakes in their system. Three and a half years ago they started demanding that everyone use correct RAPID numbers and street names in rural addresses. The problem was that the post office didn't know them themselves. Their rural delivery drivers knew where everyone lived but not their RAPID numbers. Their head office boffins didn't even know *that*. I've had the same desk (in about four different offices) for all that time and there's a fairly accurate impression of my forehead right in front of where my keyboard sits due to regularly feeling the need to slam head into desk after dealing with this sort of thing...

Anyway on the much more interesting subject of writing get-togethers... If there's a meeting any time in, say, the first half of December it could double as the thanks-that-it's-over party... the combined Otago/Southland one was in Dunedin last year so we could hold the combined one down here in Shield country this year. (Thoughts, Dunedin writers?)

2006 - Title: "Awakenings"; Genre: Horror; Words: 50,000+.
2007 - Didn't take part.
2008 - Title: "From The City Of Demons". Genre: Fantasy. Words: 50,000+.
2009 - Title "Thief". Genre: Steampunk. Words: Not nearly enough.

Ha ha thanks for that great story in itself Dave. One never really knows what goes on behind the scenes.

I was the only one in our little hamlet who objected to Transit's realignment. It would mean we couldn't re open the shop in another direction, being off the highway. Preferably though we had hoped they would go for one of their plans of six, to buy us out and bulldoze through us. They bought the house on the corner and he did well, and we would have too, but they didn't.
Took them to council court, terrifying experience, little old me, verses Transit's Corporate Management. Ah well that's life, and an interesting experience. I used it in an assignment in a counselling course, and also used it in a novel, so there you go.

Early Dec sounds good for a wind up.

My mother always told me, "If at first you don't succeed, then try, try again."