Orchids

I arrived in New Zealand for the second time in 1982 after a multiyear overland journey across the Soviet Union, Mongolia, China, and Southeast Asia. After cycling down the North Island to spend Christmas in Nelson, I was ready for apartment life and some work. Both were to be found in Dunedin, at the southeastern end of the South Island.

Fun fact: The name “Dunedin” is derived from the Scottish Gaelic term Dùn Èideann, which is the Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. This name originally comes from the Old Welsh/Cumbrian term “Din Eidyn,” meaning “Eidyn’s fortress”.

Years before while using the Earl’s Court youth hostel as my London residence, I met a young Kiwi traveller named Rosemary. Her father, Geoff, who was one of the finest men I’ve known, had retired to his vacation home high on a hill overlooking Queenstown. There, despite conventional wisdom saying he was too far south, Geoff had a successful business growing Cymbidium orchids for export to Japan.

I wrote a suite of programs for Geoff on an early PC. He used them to improve the quantity and quality of his plants. I was often sent home to Dunedin with boxes of orchid spikes (the stem that holds about a half dozen blooms).

The experience let me get to know Geoff, and visit Queenstown frequently in the days before it became the overdeveloped home of prepackaged “adventures” that it is today. I also developed a fondness for orchids, Cymbidium and otherwise.