One of the very first things I noticed once my friend and I began our road trip around New Zealand was, this country seems to have a love affair with using corrugated galvanised iron to construct buildings, as in I’ve never seen SO many buildings made of the stuff. One of the towns that has embraced this material with a will is town of Tiarau, New Zealand.
Driving into town you won’t be able to miss this trio of buildings where the Iron’s been molded to look like a sheep-dog that houses the towns i-Site building, and the adjacent sheep & ram building, which house a coffee house and a woolen goods store, respectively.
To paraphrase the New Zealand tourism board’s website, there are over 80 i-SITE visitor information centers scattered around the country, many of them located in distinctive or historic buildings (like the one above). In them you will find no shortage of pamphlets, and trained professionals, who can inform you about everything there is to do in any particular area you’re currently in, including which parts were film locations — i.e., for those travelers who are Lord of the Ring fans. And, of course, while in these i-SITE centers, you can do some souvenir shopping — as I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t have a gift shop.
That said, the i-Site’s store doesn’t hold a candle to the one inside combined sheep and ram building next-door. The ram section is full of Marino Woolen goods, while the front of the Ewe (female sheep) section is is all things like New Zealand T-shirts, post cards, etc., and out towards the back there’s a coffee house that also has ice cream. (For some reason I didn’t take any photos in there.) If you have the time, I suggest walking around town because there’s a LOT of corrugated Iron statutes decorating the place. My friend and I were sort of in a rush to our next location, so we didn’t have time to really do the place justice, just a quick drive through… but there are at least eight different such decorations around town at last count.
Rebecca Radnor's Personal Blog: Consider yourselves warned! 