gold 'n blog award (museum quest part 12)

Location: Central Otago

Baskets Left: 3

okay as of right now i really wish i hadn't taken this promotion at work. sure being a security guard was kind of dull. sure i did technically want more adventure and excitement. i did NOT want to be chased by supernatural entities though!!!

this current job of getting rid of three old maori artifacts for my boss ms. rhonwyn has turned from a delivery/sight seeing gig too a full out cat and mouse hunt... where i'm the prey!!!

a maori "atau", whatever that is (really need to look some stuff up once i'm in the clear!), named whiro is currently hot on my bumper in pursuit. the only good news somehow i evaded it around the mirror lakes in the fiordland. now that i've hit the open road i think i'm in the clear. there have been a few major forks in the road of possible routes i've passed. so by now guessing the correct order and sequence of them should be next to impossible.

so where does that leave me? well my course is taking me up straight through the spine of the south island of new zealand. the southern alps.

their quite remarkable (though as far as being mountains their just okay compared to say the rockies in canada) and pretty.

my main reason for travelling here is a stop requested by ms. rhonwyn at the gold field historic site.

you see back in the old days of settlement to new zealand the otago region (of which dunedin is the major urban centre) was given a big boost by the discovery of gold in these here hills. a HUGE gold rush ensued in the late 1800's, and dunedin as a result from all the tax income become the big impressive city it is today (almost all the nice buildings in duners are almost a hundred years old these days).

so based on this importance, i think, ms. rhonwyn wants me to see if the baskets will react to these now long forgotten sources of wealth.

okay maybe a i spoke a little soon when i said long forgotten sources of wealth. seems someone had the clever idea of developing this into a tourist attraction... so the old becomes the new. at least in the sense of income generation.

having just been driving through the alps this whole time, i was much more impressed with them now that i'd stopped the car and started wandering around them.

the first thing i couldn't help but notice was how different and nifty the water colour was around here. the picture only sort of captures the bright blue...

through my fav geologic process of erosion the river's walls were pretty cool with the weird blue water rushing through them.

than having crossed the river i hit the historic site.

immediately through the artifacts still setup and kicking around you got an impression of the activity that would have been present a bit over a century ago...

at the same time the presence of only the artifacts and buildings, minus the people, gave it a sad and depressed feeling. i've been to a couple ghost towns (worst name ever i might point out... i freaked out big time the first few times i visited a "ghost" town. a whole town inhabited by nothing but ghosts NO THANK YOU!), and this one was the same. i didn't feel like i should be here in a way...

still it was neat seeing how they used to do things in the olden days. heck if you black and whited my life at that moment it'd have felt natural!

up on the hill you could see the husks of the former miners huts. the last testament to those intrepid souls of long ago desperately trying to dig up their destiny...

my destiny on the other hand won't tie into this place. after half an hour of checking it out the baskets, like usual, hadn't done anything...

so back to the road i set. the mountains gave way to a strange, almost alien landscape. one i thought was nothing short of ubber cool!

they were fuzzy almost furry mini mountains. the grass or bushes (i couldn't figure out what they were) were like botanic tribbles scattered across an otherwise barren landscape...

interrupting my bedazzlement with the area, suddenly my "cell" phone went off!

i veered my SUV off the road (i hate SUV's for the record, but when i switched vechiles after opening one of the baskets i thought i'd make it a huge change!), and got on my phone...

oh man this couldn't be good! ms. rhonwyn had forbid me from using the phone, and she had only called me after i'd made a big boneheaded move... did i mess up at the gold fields? was i in mortal danger right now and not even aware?!?

"traumador, baby where were you? you silly little dinosaur," came the jubilant voice of my special talent agent peter bond.

"what?" i found myself asking on every level. i hadn't even imagined peter would call me during this quest. i'd been expecting it to be ms. rhonwyn...

"you missed your own party traum. where have you been?" peter said clearly a little disappointed.

"missed my own what?" i asked confused.

"the email i sent you. the one i sent you two weeks ago you peanut brain!" peter cheerfully said while being obviously very annoyed.

"i've been a little busy on something more important peter," i tried to explain.

"more important than, oh let's see, the annual surfers blogger awards?!?" peter forcefully retorted.

"the what's?" i again found myself asking. why is it people always confuse me so much on the phone?

"you didn't get the email than?" peter sighed, and than built his voice into a pitch/promo style voice. "well traum your efforts, and my hardwork on your behalf, have brought the tyrannosaur chronicles to the attention of the greater blog sphere. people are starting to take notice of your prehistoric ordeals my friend. as of such you were chosen to receive an award at this years surfers blog awards."

"i won an award?!?" i asked astonished. never in 65 million years did i think my blog would be that big a deal...

"oh yeah traum," peter said satisfied. "not only that you were double nominated for it! a flying trilobite and someone wearing a greenbelt both gave you the nod for it."

"the excellent blog award," peter's voice seemed to echo... in fact on second thought it did echo!

"are you using an echo machine?" i asked him.

peter awkwardly laughed. "yes. yes i am... its a feature on my phone."

okay that was a little weird. peter in typical him stride brushed that aside and got back to the business at hand... well okay his business. i had no idea where he was going to go.

"now as much as i don't mind accepting your award, as your designated agent of course, it still would have been nice for you to have acknowledged your public with an appearance or something," peter stated. "so what's so important that you couldn't be bothered to check you email?"

rather than try to lie or cover up my current predicament i decided to just level with peter...

"wow we have to sell the movie rights on this one!" peter mused to himself out loud when i'd concluded. "well that changes everything traum... to be frank you didn't miss much. the surfers blogger awards are a bit too commercial and over the top for you anyways. besides they were giving these awards out by the handful."

"oh speaking of which you're supposed to nominate 10 people for next years ceremony," peter informed me. "part of the requirement of accepting this one."

well that was pretty easy i just nominated people on my sidebar. Laelaps, Palaeoblog, When Pigs Fly Returns, Self Designed Student, Tetrapod Zoology, The Ethical Palaeontologist, Peter Bond's Blog, Prehistoric Pulp, and right back at The Flying Trilobite and The Greenbelt.

"the one big thing we got from this traum, aside from an award, is some major networking," peter paused and chuckled. "get it networking? anyways networking with other bloggers, and some great ideas for your blog."

"oh yeah?" i said with anticipation.

"the big one you need to get on is REPLYING to all the great comments you've been getting big guy," peter instructed me. "it'll show your readership you value their input, and could give them new insight into that fantastic tiny brain of yours."

"okay," i responded eagerly.

"don't know what you've been doing lately traum, but the blog is slowly catching on. you're close to having 10, 000 hits. not much by big blog standards, but it's a start. let's try and double that by the end of the year!" peter said all motivationally. than suddenly peter mumbled something to himself aloud that snapped me back to my mission...

"man my ear is tingly all of a sudden..." he complained out loud. why would his ear be so tingly he's complain out loud like that my brain started to wonder... than it hit me...

mystic gradient radiation! oh no!!! ms. rhonwyn had warned me to stay off the phone because the magic from both the baskets i carried, and the mystic energy i'd dosed myself in opening on of them, would flood through any electronic connections i made...

i was dosing peter in the energy... which causes tingly feelings i've noticed... more to the point. i'd just announced my location to the whole magical world!!!

"peter i can't talk anymore. have to go! i'll be in touch... if i make it through this!!!" i stammered into the phone as i started running back to my truck...

oh man oh man... why was i so stupid??? why did i answer the phone!!!

hopefully whiro had taken a really off path in its pursuit of me, and wouldn't be able to catch up till i'd hit several more junctions...

of course as i've come to learn in my life, especially since being fired from the tyrrell, i just don't have that good of luck...

on the upside people of the web wide world i pledge to respond to comments from here on in...

if i survive that is...

to be continued...

(Production Note: Due to complications in the lives of Prehistoric Insanity's creative team there will only be a few posts made on the Tyrannosaur Chronicles during March. However posting should hopefully be prolific come April. We applogize for the delays, and appreciate your stopping by to keep up to date on everyone's favourite tiny theropod.)