The Virtual Reinhard
Created | Updated Jun 8, 2005
A Letter from Lake Wakatipu Part 1
Queenstown, New Zealand, sits at one end of the beautiful Lake Wakatipu. If you've ever seen a postcard of snowcapped mountains refelected in limpid New Zealand waters, then this is where it was probably taken.
From our lakeside hotel room we could see the twin funnels of a steam ship and, after a few days of skiing, bungy jumping, rafting and lugeing (Queenstown has got to be the adventure sports capital of the world), we felt that we could do with a change of pace, so one morning we clambered up the gangplank to see what was going on.
As soon as we got inside we were greeted by the gorgeous smell of hot steam and hot oil and we realised that we had entered another world. The enclosed decks consist of galleries around a lightwell that drops down through the centre of the ship, giving an unobstructed view of the two enormous steam engines, the furnaces, and the busy crew of engineers tending to the vessel's every need. In its heyday it ferried some eight hundred passengers at a time, but there seemed to be only a few dozen people aboard, so we had plenty of room to watch.
The crew scurried around the engines, checking gauges and lubricating everything in sight with long-nosed oil cans, while stokers piled coal into the twin furnaces. Finally the oil cans were put away, the enormous brass indicator rang 'Ahead' and, in a cloud of steam, the two screw shafts began to move.
I was spellbound. As the Earnslaw accelerated up to its thirteen knots, the ship was filled with the mighty rolling thump of the engines and the comforting deep rumble of the prop shafts. The stokers stepped up the pace; the Earnslaw burns a ton of coal every hour.
Up on deck, the scenery was just as beautiful and, in between mesmerised trips down to the steam room, we sat and watched the shore and snow-capped mountains slide by.
