New Zealand (part 2)

This post will cover the most interesting urban centres of New Zealand. I have divided it up by town with photos following each entry so keep on scrolling. The final post on New Zealand (in a few days) will deal with the natural wonders which abound, especially on the South Island.

Wellington

Wellington is the capital of New Zealand but does not have a large population—only 200,000 in the city and 400,000 in greater Wellington. Although it has a fine setting in a protected bay which in turn is protected from the ocean by the Cook Straight which separates the North and South Island, it is not a particularly attractive city for a visitor. 

The downtown area, which is filled with a motley collection of buildings none of which have much architectural merit and are interspersed with parking lots, is on a narrow strip of flat land which runs around the edge of the bay and from there the city rises steeply up the surrounding hills. There has been a valiant effort to revitalise the harbour and docks along the waterfront but somehow it doesn’t seem to have much life to it. The worst aspect of the city is a motorway which cuts through its heart, built in the early 1980s before people fully understood how motorways destroy a city’s cohesion.

Although the business area is on the thin flat coastal plane and on the lower slopesof the surrounding hills , the residential area is scattered in the trees and shrubs of the upper hillside accessible in many cases by cable cars—apparently there are over 400 private cable cars to reach individual residences on the steeper slopes. The residential suburbs spread out to the north, east and the west. I suspect that there are some lovely homes up there on the wooded slopes.

Since Wellington is the capital of New Zealand there is a government section which includes the modern and aptly named “Beehive”, which is the new parliament building. Far more attractive is the original “Government House” which is actually made of wood although made to look like stone.

The best things about Wellington? The lovely Botanic Gardens on the upper slopes of a hill, reached by a fine nineteenth century cable car established in the nineteenth century. You can then walk down through the gardens to the main part of the city. It contains a wonderful  selection of trees and shrubs as well as flowers, with well-marked pathways. 

And the second noteworthy thing about Wellington is the fabulous new Te Papa (meaning “our place”) Museum. It is right on the waterfront in a dramatic modern building. And it is huge. You would need days to see it all. Excellent free guided tours by enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteers run frequently. 

There are informative exhibitions on Maori culture; the geology of New Zealand and its earthquakes and volcanoes; immigration to New Zealand; the native flora and fauna including the sad process of extinction of native species like the large ostrich-like flightless Moa and the denuding and erosion of the countryside by clear-cutting the native trees and the planting of foreign grasses for grazing sheep and cattle; and the vibrant film industry which has produced so many blockbusters in the last 15 years. All these exhibits make use of the latest audio-visual and interactive techniques but without any dumbing down of what is being exhibited.

The old Wellington cable car climbing the hill to the Botanic Garden, the university and the lovely houses on the hillside

The rather unattractive motley collection of architecture in the downtown area  of Wellington

Some of the fie houses which hide amongst the trees on the slopes of the steep hills surrounding central  Wellington

More such residential areas seen through the fine trees in the Botanic Gardens

Tombstones in the old settlers cemetery, which was partly destroyed by the ugly motorway which cuts through the centre of the city

The "Beehive", the modern parliament buildings of Wellington

The infinitely more attractive old Government Building which believe it or not is made of wood

The modernistic Te Papa museum which has wonderful exhibits (as explained in the blog post)

Beautiful begonias in the Wellington Botanic Gardens

a cheeky sparrow finishing off my carrot cake in the Botanic Garden cafe

Auckland

I didn’t see much of Auckland’s centre since I was staying with my cousin in the south eastern suburb of Half Moon Bay, but I am not sure that I missed a great deal. With a few notable exceptions large city centres do tend to be very much alike.

Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand by far—1.5 million. But it is also one of the least densely populated cities in the world: that population is spread out over 1090 square kilometres. This compares to the population of Greater London which is over 8 million people in an area of 1500 square kilometres. 

As a result Auckland consists of miles of suburbs and associated shopping centres and light industry reached by many motorways and major roads. It is really very like a US city in that way. I cannot imagine that you could survive in Auckland without a car.

Most people seem to live in attractive suburban or semi-rural single family dwellings with nice gardens (although there may be slummy areas that I did not see). The climate is subtropical and so trees, shrubs, flowers and grass flourish.  I was aghast to learn however that planning controls are very lax and there is very little restriction on people subdividing their lots (called “sections” in New Zealand) and building another house and selling it off.

Auckland is located at a point where the North Island narrows and the coast line breaks up into a series of channels and bays before reassembling and continuing on a long arm north to the Bay of Islands. 

As a result Auckland, with its benign climate, protected harbours, and easy access to the sea both to the west and to the east, was --and is-- a natural place for settlement. You are never far from the sea wherever you are in Auckland and because of the abundance of sheltered coves and beaches it is easy to pop down to a beach and none of them seem to be overcrowded.

An interesting feature of Auckland is the extinct volcanoes that dot the otherwise flat city-scape. These are not much more than hills and are not more than about 150 metres high. Many have been levelled and buried under houses built on the slopes, but nevertheless they are distinctive particularly if you are on the top of one of them and can see several more of them in the surrounding area. There are at least 50 of them. 

Apparently Auckland is situated on a “volcanic field”. This is different from the other better-known and more dramatic types of volcanoes—cone volcanoes and caldera volcanoes (for more on this see what I have to say in the next post about the volcanoes in Tongariro National Park). A volcanic field consists of a wide area that contains many small volcanoes that erupt once and then are extinct. Further volcanic activity in the area will come from a new small volcano not a further eruption from one of those that has already erupted. 

So in contrast to other parts of New Zealand the existing small volcanoes in Auckland pose no threat of future eruption---but of course there is always the possibility (probably remote) of a new small volcano popping up! There is a “proper” cone volcano on Rangitoto Island  off the east coast of Auckland which erupted only 600 years ago and is still a wasteland of lava.

Auckland is a place that I must return to since I never got across the bridge to the large part of the city on “North Shore” nor did I get further north to the long peninsula which runs a further 500 kilometres north to the Bay of Islands and apparently is full of nature sites and the few remaining forests of the once plentiful indigenous kauri tree.

The Auckland skyline from one of the many bays and inlets that surround the city

Not a good picture, but you can see the low mounds which are extinct volcanoes (see explanation in the blog post)

An early settler's cottage, preserved in an Auckland park. The New Zealand style of domestic architecture has not changed excessively ---still mostly bungalows with porches

One of the dozens of deserted beaches that are hidden along the coastline of Auckland's suburbs

My only swim

Christchurch

The other major city of New Zealand which tourists visit is Christchurch on the South Island. This was my first and my last stop on my trip. Christchurch struck me as a very liveable city. While it is quite spread out there are many attractive residential areas quite close to the heart of the city. The city’s crown jewel is the outstanding Hagley Park with the charming river Avon running through it.

As is well known, Christchurch was hit by a series of devastating earthquakes and after-shocks in 2010 and 2011. These quakes destroyed much of the business heart of the city including toppling the tower and walls of the neo-Gothic cathedral which was the focal point of the city. 

Even the houses and buildings which look unscathed are not so. The quakes caused a phenomenon called “liquefaction” which involves a change in the composition of the sandy soil so that the particles of soil compact, releasing the water which was dissolved in the soil. 

The ground sinks and develops fissures. This causes major subsidence below the buildings and cracks appear in the foundations and walls, while geysers of mud spray up through cracks in the ground and covers the buildings and gardens.  

As a result of these two years repeat disasters and the uncertainty of whether it may happen again, I understand that many people have moved away.

The central part of the city is now called the “Red Zone” which is a no-go wasteland of abandoned buildings and rubble-strewn half-cleared lots. A small section has been turned into a shopping and café area called “Re-Start” made out of brightly painted shipping containers.

To be perfectly honest, I was quite disappointed to see how little progress has been made in rebuilding anything or repairing and re-opening the buildings which are not condemned. Granted, the city fathers wanted to consult widely on how the city centre should be reconstructed, and there was naturally concern about whether the two years of earthquakes and after-shocks was really over, and I understand the insurers have put up one heck of a fight against claims (Quelle surprise!!).

But still, I really did think more could and should have been done, particularly in the lovely Botanic Gardens where even the cafes, conservatories and greenhouses remain closed. I didn’t sense any energy or “can do” spirit, particularly when one contrasts the public and private response to the devastating earthquake in Napier in the 1930s (see later in this post.) It almost looks as though Christchurch is marking time, maybe thinking that they won’t have to rebuild after all because the city is done-for.

One of the buildings destroyed in the earthquakes but not yet demolished

An abandoned shopping mall in the "Red Zone"

The ruined cathedral

The pretty Avon River that winds through Christchurch, with fencing behind which are more  earthquake-damaged  buildings

"Re-Start", the temporary shopping area made of shipping containers

Napier

Napier is the main city on the east coast of the North Island. From either Wellington or Auckland and the main north-south transport routes, it is a long and rather boring drive across dry brown hills and mountains denuded of trees and then miles and miles of grazing country interspersed with small towns. 

These towns are not very attractive,  usually consisting of one main street with a straggle of false-fronted commercial buildings with vacant lots in between, and a couple of cross streets with a few residential streets of small unimaginative bungalows behind the main street.  Quite “frontier”. 

But the long drive is worthwhile in my view. Napier is the centre of the famous “Hawkes Bay” wine district, surrounded by orchards and market gardens and with a fine large harbour for commercial shipping and fine wild Pacific Ocean beaches with plenty to please those looking for seals and sea birds.

But that is not why I went there. Napier is famous for its small but perfect Art Deco commercial heart, which has successfully avoided the developer’s wrecking ball and yet has remained a viable business centre for the city. This is in large part due to the fiercely protective and very active Art Deco Trust which has turned the city into a must-see for many tourists such as me and runs excellent guided tours.

I always loved the Art Deco buildings of Miami Beach, and Napier is if anything better since rather than being established as a collection of modest seaside hotels and boarding houses like Miami Beach, Napier was built as a proper commercial heart for a small city which had been devastated by a massive earthquake in 1931. 

The story of the earthquake and the rebuilding of the city is fascinating in itself. Before the quake Napier, which had been founded as the shipping port on the Pacific Ocean side of the North Island in the mid-1800s, consisted of a small cliff about 100 metres high sticking out into the sea flanked by two low-lying sand and shingle bars stretching on either side. One of these sandbars enclosed a huge saltwater lagoon deep enough to provide a good sheltered harbour. As the town boomed in the era where maritime shipping was the only way to transport goods and people, it grew up the slopes of the cliff and along the sand bars but by the early twentieth century it had started to run out of solid ground to build on.

This dilemma was solved for them in an extraordinary way in February 1931 when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake flattened most of the commercial centre of the town and raised the land on which the city was built over two metres (seven feet! Imagine!) .  This also raised the salt water lagoon which had been the original port, so that it was almost completely drained, delivering nearly 300 square kilometres of new land on which to build.  

Spared were the wooden buildings since they were more flexible than stone or brick to move with the swaying of the earthquake. However the raging fires which burnt over the next two weeks took care of many of they although many of the residential homes on the sides of the cliff most of which were of wood were spared. 

Also spared was a fine line of Norfolk pine trees which had been planted along the sea front promenade a few years earlier. They did were entirely unscathed, only suddenly seven feet higher!

In a unique display of common sense and foresightedness the city seized the opportunity to rebuild an harmonious commercial and civic town centre, in the latest architectural and decorative fashions of the day which in the early thirties were Art Deco, Spanish Mission, Arts & Crafts, and Art Nouveau. 

Because the world Depression was already taking hold, Napier had no difficulty attracting the best architects and craftsmen and labourers to create the new city in record time—in a mere two years the town was celebrating its fashionable, beautifully ornamented new downtown business area. (Contrast that with Christchurch which has hardly begun any rebuilding at all). 

And Napier was in the forefront of earthquake-savvy building regulations—the new buildings were no more than three or four stories high, all external protrusions and awnings were tied back to the main structure with heavy iron bolts, and in a move years ahead of its time all electric cables were buried under the roads leaving a clean uncluttered street-scape.

Napier sea front drive

Pre-earthquake wooden houses on the cliff (see blog explanation)

The top floor was added later in a tasteful alteration to the original Art Deco building

Interesting plaque on the Masonic Hotel in Napier. There are "Masonic Hotels" in many New Zealand towns. That is not because they were owned by the Freemasons or had anything to do with their activities, but apparently the Freemasons had a dinner every week and they were very particular about their food. So it was a badge of honour for a local hotel to be chosen for the weekly dinner. Hence the name "Masonic Hotel" became synonymous with excellence ---like today's "five star hotels"

The Art Deco building built for the main local newspaper of the time

Art Deco buildings were noted for their attention to detail in decoration, and the  buildings in Napier are no exception

And another one---note the use of colour in the decoration

None of the Napier Art Deco buildings are more than three or four stories at most, so as to be less vulnerable to earthquakes

This bank's decoration made use of Maori designs. This was very unusual since appreciation of Maori culture was not high in the 1930s

Another lesson learned from the 1931 earthquake was to ensure that any external protrusions from a building were secure. Note the heavy iron bars tying the awning back to the main building

Ditto

The fine parade of Norfolk pine trees along the seafront survived the earthquake unharmed. They simply carried on growing in the ground which had been elevated seven feet higher.

A vineyard in the Hawkes Bay wine region which surrounds Napier

The very fine Mission Wine Estate, founded in 1851 by Catholic missionaries in the countryside around Napier

Wine barrels in the cellars of the Mission Wine Estate

Me on the cliff-top look-out over looking the fine sweep of the bay on which Napier is situated

Rotorua

Rotorua is a funny old place. On the one hand it is one of the primary centres of Maori population and culture. On the other hand it was the destination for wealthy European tourists in the late 1800s and the first half of the twentieth century when it was a fashionable spa town based on its thermal hot springs, mud baths and geysers and was on the international club and entertainment circuit. And the area around Rotorua was turned into prime grazing land for the sheep and cattle which made New Zealand famous in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Even now these three strands remain for visitors to disentangle. On the one hand you can watch the men of the croquet club in their whites play croquet on the lawn in front of the faux-Elizabethan Bath House (now a museum) with the beautifully kept roses of the Government Gardens as backdrop. (I’ve never before seen anyone actually playing croquet! Beside the croquet club are the lawn bowling lawns -- lawn bowling is quite popular activity for seniors in New Zealand and many towns seem to have a club).

Then you can go to the “Polynesian Spa” (why “Polynesian” I wonder?) and have a soak in one of the many small pools heated to different temperatures. If you can bear the smell of rotten eggs from the sulphurous springs, that is.

Follow that up with a visit to the Maori’s Whakarewarewa Thermal Village (for obvious reasons, normally referred to as Te Puia) and watch the famous 7 metre “Prince of Wales Feathers” geyser and the 15 metre Pohutu Geyser, view the boiling pools where the Maori used to cook their food and follow this with a visit to the Maori carving (no women permitted to carve) and weaving (women are allowed to weave) schools on site. 

And in the evening in Rotorua you can go to a Maori cultural evening, of which there are several, each run by different tribes.

These cultural evenings are a must-do for tourists and follow a common pattern whichever one you choose to attend. They are touristy and a bit kitch but they are a good way—and the only way—to see the Maori traditions in action. They are well attended and not cheap so I expect they are a good source of revenue for the tribes. But all in all they are good value for money.The performers and staff are all young so clearly there are attractions for the younger generation to maintain their cultural heritage. 

You are picked up in a mini-bus about 6:30 pm from where you are staying, and taken to the Maori “village” (I’m sure they don’t actually live there anymore but the land is definitely tribal land) where you join several hundred other tourists in a marquee with trestle tables set for the “hangi”. 

This is feast of chicken and lamb with potatoes and vegetables all wrapped in leaves, buried and cooked in an underground pit, perhaps heated by  thermal activity but more usually by stones heated in a fire. I first attended a hangi 40 odd years ago when I was teaching at a private school in Hong Kong together with an enthusiastic group of New Zealand ex-pats. I remember it as being delicious, and the one I attended in Rotorua was also very good and the food was very plentiful.

But you don’t get to eat right then. First you watch a show of music and dancing in a reconstructed “traditional village”.  I found it quite fascinating. There was a good commentary from the “chief” who explained the purpose of the dances and songs. 

The Maori were a very aggressive and war-like people and the different tribes were always at war with each other. Before they acquired European guns (which they adopted with great enthusiasm and then engaged in the highly destructive inter-tribal Musket Wars between 1807 and 1845), they relied not only on skill in hand to hand combat but also in psychological warfare. 

Before each battle the tribes would engage in fierce-some war dances –the “haka” of rugby fame—dressed in full regalia and body tattoos and making hideous faces at the enemy. Apparently it often worked and the opposing tribe was intimidated by the agility and frightening looks of the warriors. 

In addition to the haka the Maori had  other dances and songs , all of which seemed to have a purpose. Both men and women used the dances to develop physical skills useful for their daily life and their battles. For example the dance involving throwing sticks back and forth to each other in a circle was to develop eye/hand co-ordination and peripheral vision. Their songs were also quite pleasing to the western ear ---not sure if they were watered down for tourist consumption.

The evening ended with a rainforest walk into the neighbouring Rainbow Springs Park where they have many of the now-rare indigenous species in well-designed open pens, as well as pools containing the massive brown and rainbow trout (not indigenous or even native! Just another import from the northern hemisphere, grown fat on lack of competition from native species and lack of predators.)  

So I got to see glowworms, the nocturnal kiwi , the weka and the kea as well as the pre-dinosaur reptile the tuatara which you never get to see in the wild anymore.

My final visit in Rotorua, illustrating another side of this town of contrasts, was the Agrodome. The show, while touristy, was quite informative about the mainstay of the economy of this area and of New Zealand generally since the coming of the Europeans in the 1800s, and that is the raising of cattle, dairy cows and sheep. It is at a farm (also owned and run by an enterprising Maori tribe I believe) on the outskirts of Rotorua. There is an entertaining sheep shearing and sheep dog handling show. On display were all the various breeds of sheep common in New Zealand (about 25!) including the most prized, the Merino, the source of all the lovely woollens that New Zealand produces. 

The sheep dog show was also interesting because the sheep dogs are different and work differently than the ones in the UK which are the subject of those popular TV shows like “One man and his Dog”. These are mongrel cross breeds with long legs. There are two kinds. One herds the sheep by intimidating them with their eyes---they have a glittering, almost horror-movie- like stare which seems to go right through the sheep and they immediately turn in the direction the dog wants. The other kind are equally bizarre. They herd the sheep by jumping over them and onto their backs. 

Although I didn't do this myself, they also offer farmyard tours in a hay-wagon, which appeals greatly to the hordes of  Chinese tourists who presumably have never seen a farm or farm animals except on their plates!

I’m going to stop this blog post now and add some photos. There will be one more post on New Zealand which will deal with the extraordinary natural wonders of New Zealand: the volcanoes of the central North Island, the glaciers of the Southern Alps and the famous Milford Sound in the South Island. I splurged and took helicopter and small aeroplane flights over these so I have some good photos. Check back in four or five days.

  

The croquet club in Rotorua, outside the mock-Elizabethen Bath House dating from the early 1900s when Rotorua was a thriving international spa town

The extraordinary Rotorua Bath House, dating from 1912

Zinnias, with visiting butterfly, in the Government Gardens, Rotorua

Me in one of the steaming hot pools in the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua. Note the steam and gases rising from the thermal lake behind

The famous Pohutu Geyser in the Maori's "Te Puia"  thermal area

And again. It erupts every couple of hours

Me in front of some of the steaming sulphurous landscape of Te Puia, Rotorua

Bubbling mud pools in Te Puia, Rotorua

Sulphur coating and staining the rock

Believe it or not the water in this steaming pool is completely pure and free of sulphur. It was used by the Maori for cooking food such as corn, which was wrapped in leaves and lowered in a basket into the pool

This is greenstone, a type of jade, which has mystical powers for the Maori. Under law they own all the native greenstone in New Zealand and are the only ones allowed to collect it.

Maori dancing skirts  in the weaving school at Te Puia. Since there were no mammals in New Zealand when the Maori arrived all their clothing had to be made from flax or bird feathers.

A project under way in the Maori carving school in Te Puia, Rotorua

Maori warriors arriving in a war canoe as part of the cultural show I attended in Rotorua

A "haka" war dance 

The purpose of the haka was to intimidate the enemy with threatening faces, fierce-some tattoos and  displays of agility . As rugby players who have watched the All Blacks perform their pre-game haka, it works!

The building behind the fire and totem is the Marai, or central meeting hall of a Maori tribal  village

Me with the sheep in the Agrodome outside Rotorua

A sheep being shorn

These are rams representing all the breeds of sheep which are to be found in  New Zealand, the most prized being the Merino

Note the sheep dogs jumping onto the backs of the sheep. This particular type of sheep dog herds the sheep by  barking and jumping on the backs of wayward sheep. The other type intimidates and controls the sheep with a glittering stare which even to a human being is quite startlingly powerful

As you can see, New Zealand sheep dogs are not like the ones you find in the UK or at Crufts. They are long legged and quite mongrel-like

Spinning wool at the Agrodome.