Rolling over southern rails

Press, 14 January 1986, Page 24

Rolling over southern rails

By

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor Shunt on to a siding, Blue Train, Orient Express, and Indian Pacific — clear the tracks for the Great Southern Rail Experience. New Zealand Railways (in conjunction with Air New Zealand), is promoting a seven-day chug around the South Island by train and coach for $938 (including share-twin accommodation), with a special introductory offer of $B3B for the first departure on February 26. Five trips are planned for 1986 with a further three in 1987.

The tour includes the Southerner to Dunedin (overnight stay), special train from Dunedin to Clyde and from there, coach to Queenstown for three nights, a trip on the Kingston Flyer, coach to Greymouth with an overnight stay at Fox Glacier and another at Greymouth, and then train from Greymouth to Christchurch.

The “experience” can be taken in either direction.

Two grand dames reign supreme over San Francisco’s nose-in-the-air Nob Hill. They are elegant, wellheeled dowagers, hostesses to all the right people, given to the occasional facelift, known for their courtesy and discretion and, in recent times, stars of prime-time Hollywood soaps. They are The Fairmont and The Mark Hopkins, two hotels operated with such panache and personal style that they have assumed the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of dear old ladies.

The Fairmont was used for many of the interior scenes in the TV series “Hotel.” The producers wanted an opulent, cosmopolitan setting and they couldn’t have made a better choice. The sweeping, richly furnished lobby with its musicians’ balconies and viewing boxes is just made for the comings and goings of the fashionable and famous.

The large, sumptuously appointed rooms offer panoramic views of San Francisco, and such little touches as monogrammed bathrobes, candies on the pillow at night, and prettily packaged soaps and other niceties in the bathroom all add to the aura of luxury. The hotel was built in 1905 and most of the original structure survived the San Francisco earthquake of the following year. In 1961 a 252-room tower was added