New Zealand is, we were told by several people prior to our visit, “good” at tourism. Many were from Australia – a short trip for them – but we struggled with planning our visit; the North Island or the South Island? Hotels or Air BnB? Which cities to visit, which to avoid? two weeks or four? A lengthy guide book didn’t help….it confused us more, leading us to wonder if everyone views this country with a kind of tentativeness, a reserve perhaps or simply an excess of politeness? Most people agree on its natural beauty and extraordinary topography, a geologists, photographer and outdoor enthusiasts dream. Its visual drama was sculpted by the islands volcanic nature which remains ever present from natural hot water springs to the earthquake devastation in Christchurch, it is a pair of South Pacific Polynesian islands still in motion; unsettled, unfinished and largely unpopulated.
We decided on comprise, to spend three weeks first touring the Southern part of the North Island (based upon a recommendation by a drunken acquaintance in a Sydney pub who couldn’t stop talking about Lake Taupo) and then to cross the Cook Strait by car ferry to the South Island where we would explore its northern region. It would mean missing the tourist pocket of Queenstown and the Fjords in the South and the less visited lovely beaches at the top of the North Islands which we both regretted. Next time perhaps.
Driving many miles across the two Islands I became aware of how little I knew of this country – It was place that had an unfair reputation when I was growing up in England as somewhere you went if you you couldn’t succeed at home, almost a statement of defeat and derision, an attitude that has reversed completely now with a more enlightened generation. I imagined small British communities where people built closed communities for themselves and relived their Northern European culture and cuisine on the other side of the world, amongst the wildness of the indigenous peoples and fierce creatures in the water.
Its our education system of course, and all the casual information we receive, accumulate and pass on that creates this bias, our deep prejudices, it’s a miracle that we make any sense of the world. I was reminded of an artist from England, Emma Kay, who had a moment in the 1990’s. Her work was centered around memory, she would use text and drawings to reveal the extent and limitations of her own knowledge, tackling topics like the work of Shakespeare or a map of the world. Sometimes humorous, other times sad, others impressive – a worthy exercise in humility and one which was much on my mind on the initial stages of the journey. My New Zealand could be written on a a single page; the All Black Rugby team with its Mauri war dance, the recent Earthquakes, the use of its landscape for the Lord of the Rings Movie franchise, its strict rules during the Covid epidemic, its recent female Prime Minister who was popular oversea’s but not so at home, but did I know how young the Island was? the extent and composition of its wildlife? Its culture? the answer was no to each of these questions.
We arrived in Auckland and checked into a boutique hotel with an optimistic, although perhaps reckless, policy of an open bar which provided our first revelation; that the best wines being made here are seldom found elsewhere. The most common Sauvignon Blancs from Marlborough in the South Island, such as Oyster Bay, are mass produced and distributed widely but most stay home and are enjoyed by the locals. The city of Auckland itself provided little interest for us, reminding us of Seattle both visually but also in its climate and temperament, leaving us cold as we were in search of the unfamiliar. Despite the initial disappointment with the city, we did strike up conversations with the locals who were quick to offer suggestions for the trip and had both genuine interest on our journey and a deep well of pride in their country. One surprise was the shortage of rental cars and so we ended up reluctantly with a tiny, high mileage, Toyota that we thrashed unashamedly throughout the country, half wondering if it was going to make it through the steep climbs and windy roads. Rarely have I felt so relieved on returning a rental car, only part of that was the sense guilt of its harsh treatment.
Our first stop was a lodge overlooking Lake Taupo a drive of about three hours south of Auckland. The famed beauty of the landscape was slow to reveal its self to us, an hour or so of suburban homes and industrial sites, but then the roads narrowed into single lanes and twisted around rugged, dense green hills as we approached the lake. Stepping out of the car we were overwhelmed by the perfection of the landscape. Surrounding us were high mountains, including “Mount Doom” from Peter Jacksons version of Lord of the Rings and in the distance the vast freshwater lake, the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
Arriving at the cabin we greeted by a pair of fierce looking dogs who within a minute became firm friends and then keen playmates within a few more, leaping to catch a ball that I found in the grass. The sunset made fools of us, trying to catch its colors and changing moods with cell phone cameras as it slipped below the horizon. The next day we took a Catamaran onto the lake itself and saw the sundown from the waters edge, a boat with good natured passengers from all parts of the world, many of whom stripped down to swimsuits and leapt into the water which was a little to cold for us. We left Taupo reluctantly stopped at a small former colonial town called Whanganui, a perfectly pleasant but forgettable town, where we again boarded at an AirBnB for a night. Driving was relaxed with very few other cars on the road at times and so it didn’t take long to become accustomed to the dramatic nature of the landscape, with large scale boulders, the residue of eruptions thousands of years ago, scattered across the landscape like careless litter.
We drove further south to Wellington, a city defined by its topography; a harbor surrounded by steep hills where the most prosperous people live with spectacular views of the water and its famous sea passage, a rare case of a place named after James Cook, separating the two Islands. We had met one of these home owners in a thermal bath by Lake Taupo who, when finding we were headed to Wellington, invited us to their home which overlooked the Sound. An interesting couple; she had been a TV announcer on daytime Television and is recognized on the street, as she told us modestly, by the unemployed and elderly housebound. And her husband, clearly from a wealthy family as he pointed down to his buildings in the city center, who in his youth was an Olympian rower for New Zealand, competing in Mexico City and Tokyo in the 1960’s.
The car ferry was initially uneventful but as soon as you pass into the clutches of the Sound it became remarkable to see how dramatically close the ferry was to the shore. Dolphins greet you, swimming by the side of the boat to screek’s of delight from children. Upon disembarking the drive south takes you past the vast Marlborough vineyards with seemingly endless fields of regimented vines, and because it was getting cold, most were protected from the nightly chill. Our first destination was the town of Nelson and a nineteenth century house once owned by an early landscape photographer. The town center itself was largely new, and without much interest for us other than the naming of the streets after the English seafarer – Nelson – and novelists of his period, almost comically so, with names like Vincent Street, Nile Street, Hardy Street and Bronte Street, the list went on.
Throughout the trip I had been reading biographies of James Cook, partially because this part of the planet owes so much to his cartography, and partly because he is so misunderstood here. In Australia in particular I had conversations with highly intelligent people who found it inconceivable that he was someone with a kind nature and approached the indiginous people he encountered with respect and genuine inquiry. They had been taught that he was a brute and the architect for all the latter crimes against the Aborigine and Mauri Peoples and culture, a constant source of frustration during the trip. The Mauri people in particular, who have such powerful claims to the land, are in fact recent immigrants having arrived miraculously by canoe from Polynesia between 1200 and 1300 AD, only a few hundred years before the arrival of the first European, Abel Tasman in 1642. They were warriors and in possession of high intelligence and a sophisticated culture, as noted by James Cook on his arrival in 1765, and had made the most of the hostile land which had few animals at that time other than the dogs and rats brought by themselves and the bats that preceded them. The water was another story, rich in fish and aquatic life, some vicious and deadly. The European visitors and settles brought much of the wildlife we see today; Sheep of course, Cats, Goats, Pigs, Deer, Cattle but also unfavorable creatures such as Norwegian Rats and Wasps that have unsettled the equilibrium and harmony of its natural landscape.
The Mauri’s became known to the many waves of European seafarers to be unpredictable and eventually hostile, a treaty was signed between the new European settlers in 1840 called the Waitangi Treaty, but this didn’t last long and they were forced into a process of integration and Westernization something that still haunts the population today and dominates the countries politics. They occupy a significant part of the population, about 20%, their culture is respected and their language can be heard on car radio stations, on street signs and in the names of the towns and communities.
The drive had already illustrated the stark beauty of the land, later we would discover the delights of approaching the rugged coast that border deep blue sea’s on both sides of the island. Like our nineteenth century predecessors, we too found the compulsion to photograph these views and stopped frequently on the side of the road to take them only to realize how futile it was to capture the moment in this way, so much of the experience is lost on these dull digital files; where was the sounds of the wind and birds? the burst of light on the Ocean from quick moving clouds? the gradation of light on the mountains….On one occasion we took a hike to the waters edge to see a seal colony and were astonished by the large number of these animals basking in the weak midday sun, making their bleak, harrowing cries.
The challenges we faced when planning our trip we found to be of our own making. There were in fact plenty of hotels available, many places we might have stayed had we the right information. But there are things that people don’t say about this country; it you are a visitor from Europe you may be shocked by the new towns – the lack of old buildings and the preponderance of bland high streets. If you are a visitor from the USA it is surprising to see the lack of diversity (other than the mix of Maori and European settlers) and this absence is felt particularly in its music, architecture and visual art culture none of which, at least on first sight, was particularly interesting. Instead it is a place for sportsmen and women, lovers of the natural world, not a place for introspection perhaps, somewhere where at one point we coined the phrase “beauty fatigue” to describe our feelings as we turned yet one more corner to see an exquisite tableaux.
jnmanson 