New Zealand (part 1)

I have just arrived back in London from three weeks travelling around New Zealand in a camper-van. I am going to divide my blog posts on New Zealand into parts and post them separately, since I have quite a lot to say and plenty of pictures. Here is the first part with some "taster" photos from the trip. I’ll post the other parts over the next few days, which will give you more detail and photos of the places I visited.

 Is New Zealand as good as all the hype, triggered by movies such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit which have made it such a popular destination over the past five years? Yes, it is. Not only does it pack great scenic variety into a small geographic area, but it is also a very easy place for a tourist. The roads are paved and well signposted, traffic is light, the streets are clean, everything works, the food is familiar, taxis have meters, shopkeepers are honest, no need to haggle and bargain, people are pleasant, and (important for a uni-linguist like me) they speak English.

I was last in New Zealand for one day over forty years ago. I was on a ship which was in port in Auckland for the day and I rented a car and drove into the countryside a bit. All I remember of that day is fields of sheep, and fish and chip cafes. As a New Zealander commented when I told him that, “well then, nothing has changed”. In a way that is true. Agriculture is still the primary focus of life and business—front page newspaper headlines on my last day in Christchurch were “Dairy cows dried off” and “Lambs sold early”. And they do still make excellent fish and chips, and scones, and meat pies and pasties.

Maybe it is because it is in most ways a delightful and unchallenging place to visit, that the New Zealanders have led the way in dreaming up extreme sports and adrenalin-pumping thrills like bungee jumping, white water rafting, mountain climbing, caving, paragliding, jet-boating, sky-diving, zip-lining, canyon-swinging, quad-biking—as well as more tame activities like mountain climbing, kayaking, mountain-biking, motorcycling and “tramping” (New Zealandish for hiking).

And while on the surface it may seem like an orderly and civilised place with neat houses and lovely gardens, underneath New Zealand is an evolving and violent land. There are many active volcanoes and destructive earthquakes. The North Island sits right on the volcanic Pacific Ring of Fire and the west coast of the South Island sits at the point where the Pacific tectonic plate crunches over the Australian plate, regularly raising land metres higher , leaving wide cracks and crevasses, and creating new (in geological terms) mountain ranges.  In human terms as well New Zealand is new: it has only been inhabited by human beings for 800 years! In contrast, human beings have lived in neighbouring Australia for 30,000 to 50,000 years!

New Zealand had no native mammals (except two species of bats) and so the spectrum of living creatures was filled by an extraordinary range of flightless birds, a reptile (the tuatara) which evolved on Gondwana even before the dinosaurs, and strange insects, but no snakes, few native freshwater fish but plenty of eels. Most of the native wildlife is now extinct or on the verge of extinction as the country has been overrun by introduced northern hemisphere creatures: rats, possums, rabbits, chickens, dogs, cats, stoats, trout, red deer, pigs, sheep, cows and more sheep and more cows. There are 32 million sheep, 6.2 million dairy cows, 3.2 million beef cattle, 1.1 million farm-raised deer---I didn’t count them personally, but those are the stats.

The native forests have been cut down and the native grasses burnt for pasture land sown with northern hemisphere grasses: when the Maori arrived from the Polynesian islands 800 years ago New Zealand was 95% covered in forest, between 1200 and 1400 the Maori clearances reduced the forest cover to 55% and since the Europeans arrived in the early 1800s the forests have been reduced to 25%. Many of the native trees (southern beech, kauri, rimu, myrtle) are extremely slow growing (taking up to 500 years to reach a mature size) and so where reforestation has taken place it has been with quicker growing northern hemisphere species—Monterey pine for clear-cut “harvesting”, and oak, ash, lime, poplar, cypress, cedar, spruce, northern beech. It makes me wonder if there is some Darwinian principles at play here too—are northern hemisphere species perhaps more successful because they are faster growing and more productive, and so the “fittest”?

Still, I doubt that you can attach much credibility to my unscientific musings on evolution!

In my three weeks I covered much of the North and South Islands. I should have allowed at least another two weeks to “do” it properly and so I had to cut corners. Of the “must sees” I did not visit  the Bay of Islands or the Coromandel Peninsula or the Abel Tasman Park  or Mount Cook (although I got a superb view of Mount Cook from the air) so there is plenty of scope for a return trip.

My camper-van was a joy. In my view camper-vans are the way to go in New Zealand. That is clearly also the opinion of many locals and thousands of other tourists –it often seemed that every third vehicle on the roads was a camper-van, usually with a tourist at the wheel. New Zealand is very well geared up for this form of touring. There are hundreds of public and private camp sites, and there are still many lovely scenic places and beaches with no or only basic facilities where you can “freedom camp”. The high end “holiday parks” such as the Top Ten network where I stayed come equipped with all mod cons—showers, kitchens, wifi, laundry, swimming pools, TV rooms, kiddies playgrounds, picnic tables, electricity, water, rubbish disposal, and sewage, and often a small shop and lots of travel information. And they are cheap. I paid an average of £15 a night.

The campervan I had, which was a converted Mercedes Sprinter van, would have slept two, had a shower and toilet, gas stove, microwave, sink, electric kettle and toaster, fridge, barbeque, table, all necessary saucepans, glasses, cutlery and plates, an electric fan heater, as well as a good amount of storage and seating space. It handled as easily as a car and had good acceleration. I miss it already J. I was travelling at the end of the summer season and after the children had returned to school so I had no problem getting a site each night, although in the high season I expect it would be more difficult to get into the more popular grounds. The only problem was parking it in the cities since it was 7.2 metres long and 3 metres high.

But then travelling in New Zealand is not about seeing the cities, which (whisper it!) are not all that interesting. It is about the scenery and natural wonders: the volcanoes, the mountains, the beaches, the vineyards, the rugged coasts, the cliffs, the rainforests, the thousands of rivers large and small.

New Zealand is no longer cheap, particularly if you are from the UK. The exchange rate for pounds sterling is bad and is getting worse day by day. But New Zealand also takes  a huge gouge by treating all debit and cash cards as credit cards and levying penal levels of commission and charges on ATM transactions and purchases.

And the people? New Zealand’s British and Irish heritage is still unmistakable in the family names, the physical characteristics, the food, and of course the language. On the North Island the Maori are definitely a presence, although very few are full-blooded and a large influx of immigrants from Samoa and other Pacific Islands as cheap labour in the mid-twentieth century makes it impossible to tell at a glance whether or not someone is Maori. And you cannot tell from the family names—the Maori guide at the major Maori site in Rotorua and who certainly looked the part, was named Paul McGarvey! 

But the Maori language has certainly made an impact on place names, particularly on the North Island. For a foreigner these names can be very confusing since they look and sound very similar and are full of vowels. One page of my map book has the following places which start with “W”: Whawharga, Waitamo, Waimahora,Waiteti, Waitanguru,Waipo,Waikawau, Wharedrino, Waiharakeke, Whatewahte,Whitikahu, Waikokowai, Waikorea, Waerenga, Waiterimu, Wharepapa,Waitetuna. And you could do the same with the “Ps”, the “Ts”, the “Os”. Pronounciation is also a problem for an English speaker used to diphthongs. Each vowel is pronounced separately in the Maori language So “Wai..” is not pronounced “why” but is pronounced “W..ah..ee”.

And there are many many Oriental faces now. A number of these live in New Zealand, but many are tourists from China. (It is interesting watching a campervan full of Chinese young women getting to grips with the sewage dump for their toilet unit.)

 Actually, this is the second wave of Chinese to be in New Zealand. Although today’s Chinese are successful immigrants who are integrating into mainstream society or are well-to-do tourists, the nineteenth century saw a darker period. Large numbers of Chinese men came to the South Island to work in the gold mines which flourished and then flamed out in the last half of the nineteenth century. They did not come as immigrants but to seek their fortunes and return to China. They were overworked and given the most menial and difficult of mining tasks and required to live quite separately from the British and Irish miners and their families. Many died of disease, mining accidents and overwork and the rest returned to China, so by the early twentieth century there were virtually none of this first wave of Chinese remaining in New Zealand. Their contribution to the opening up of New Zealand is being belatedly acknowledged and documented in museums and tourist sites. One can’t help thinking cynically that this is occurring since New Zealand, like Australia, is recognising that Asia and not Europe or the Americas, is likely to become the major influence on their country's welfare over the next decades.

I’m going to stop now and load up some photos from various places in New Zealand to give you a taster of what I saw. Further posts will follow over the next few days, including what I regarded as the highlights of my trip. 

My wonderful camper-van

The interior

The coastline at Kaikoura on the east coast of the South Island

Seals have relaxation  and sunning down to a fine art

The bare dry hills of Marlborough, rejuvenated with irrigated grape vines. These hills used to be covered in trees but these were stripped by the Maori and the Europeans.

Marlborough Sound at dawn, from the ferry going from the South Island to Wellington on the North Island

Some of NewZealand's the 32 million sheep and 3.2 million beef cattle, on the grazing plains in east central North Island 

Another bloody tourist counting us!

New Zealand farms Scottish red deer. There are 1.1 million of them. They remove the horns when they are fauns.

One of the art deco buildings in Napier on the east coast of the North Island. More details in my next post about this small city and the 1931 earth quake that lifted the city over 4 metres.

The Maori guide's name was Paul McGarvey (like so many Maori he had an Irish ancestor in there somewhere too)

Me waiting for the performance of the Pohutu Geyser in the Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve in Rotorua

The extraordinary pseudo-Elizabethan Rotorua Bathhouse built in1908 (now a museum) 

Overlooking Auckland's many seascapes, with my aunt and cousin

Me on the lava fields on the slopes of the volcano Mount Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park in central North Island.   in the background is the volcano Ngauruhoe, which starred as "Mount Doom" in the Lord of the Rings

"Mount Doom" from the air

The craters of Mount Tongariro belching sulphurous fumes

One of the wide, fast-running crystal clear rivers that are so numerous in the South Island. This one is  the Wairau which runs almost clear across the South Island from Blenheim on the East coast to Westport carving a wide fertile valley for grazing cattle.

As mentioned in the blog post, since New Zealand sits right on the faultlines caused by the  meeting of the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates there are frequent eathquakes and the land is often lifted metres in the air. This particular uplift lifted one bank of the Buller Rive 4.5 metres above the other bank

This is typical of the tiny wooden churches that are found in all the small communities  on the South Island.  These communities served the miners who flocked to the west coast of the South Island in the gold rushes of the late 1800s. Usually there are several of them, one for the Roman Catholics, one for the Presbyterians, etc

A model of the huge gold nugget found in 1909 in Ross on the west coast of the South Island. It was given to George V for his coronation and was made into  a gold-plated tea set which apparently is still at Buckingham Palace.

Sunrise over the campground in Westport on the west coast of the South Island

Some remnants of the huge slow growing native trees from the rainforests which used to cover 95% of New Zealand. 

The whole of the west coast of the South Island is dotted with strange limestone pillars and  rocks and rocky coves. More pictures and details in next blog post.

The is called "Pancake Rocks"

Me at Pancake Rocks.These are thin layers of limestone which look like a stack of pancakes

One of the driftwood -strewn beaches on the West Coast

The Southern Alps from the air. These include Mount Cook, Mount Tasman, Mount Sefton,  and Mount Brun. More details in next blog post

Aerial view of the Southern Alps looking eastward towards Lake Pukaki which lies in the centre of the South Island.

Me beside our helicopter on the top of the Franz Josef glacier

The Fox glacier

One of the hundreds of single lane bridges that are found throughout the western part of the South Island. It is fortunate that the traffic is not very light so there is little risk of a collision.

The north end of Lake Wanaka, which you reach after crossing the Southern Alps. Because the Alps are so high and the prevailing wind is from the west, the clouds drop all their moisture on the west coast leaving the central and eastern part of the South Island dry and hot. The barrenness is accentuated because all the trees have been cut down.

kitted out with wetsuit and lifejacket for the jet-boat ride on the Dart River at Glenorchy at the top end of Lake  Wakatipu . Glenorchy is a favourite spot for film crews (lots of Lord of the Rings sites around here) and many commercials are also shot here although purporting to be in the western USA (eg for Coors Light). I guess it is cheaper and easier to shoot in New Zealand.

Our inflatable "funyaks" in which we explored the upper reaches of the Dart River

The limestone Rockburn Chasm. Note the milky blue water--dissolved limestone.

A hanging valley in Milford Sound (see future blog posts for more photos and details)

Milford Sound. Those cliffs are over one kilometre high.

It is hard to get the size perspective of Milford Sound. This shot of one of the huge Princess  cruise ships gives you some idea of the scale.

Flying back to Queenstown over Lake Wakatipu

What would the world's tourist industry do without the old London Routemaster buses! This one in Queenstown.

The wild southern coast 

A pretty waterfall in the southern rainforest in the Catlins

The Nuggest Point lighthouse on the south coast

Delicious Bluff oysters from the southern most town in New Zealand

The strange Moeraki boulders. Apparently they are limetone accredtions around a seashell.

Me with a glass of my favourite  sauvignon blanc at the Cloudy Bay vineyard in the Marlborough wine districe