Chesterfield MO, January 3

So odd to be back on the ground in the Heartland of USA. December is almost a blur, but before New Zealand becomes a faded memory, a few thoughts.

The country was beautiful, from the Bay of Islands to Milford Sound, blue green water and snow-capped mountains, heat vents and glaciers, and delightfully friendly people. It is a continent in its own right, pushing out of the sea with pressure from active faults and rich volcanic soil for food production. Isolated and welcoming in the same breath.

Traveling was exciting at first, then tiring, then draining. The last three days in Devonport were so refreshing and welcome, breaking the pace that had become a struggle at the end. We began to realize the joys of sitting still or at least browsing without a deadline.

Isolation from the political and economic stress of the U.S. was blissful. We avoided mentioning certain political names on the trip till the very end. Detachment from the melodrama of public life was welcome and liberating. This morning I felt compelled to reconnect with it on MSNBC for an hour. Then I realized I did not miss it that much.

We met some stimulating and unselfish people on this trip, and many who had made many similar excursions. Among the Overseas Adventure Travel alumni, we met repeaters of 3 to 20 times on OAT trips. Amazing breadth of travel and diversity of interests. They had the system of packing, laundering, eating and resting down to a science, so the pace seemed to affect them less. I doubt we will reach the expertise of such experienced travelers in the near future.

Our “tour experience leader,” Catherine Hickey, was among the kindest, most efficient, and conversant people I have met. She knew plenty about all things New Zealand, but she was also a logistical genius and a thoughtful leader, taking care for any that could be left behind. She took great pains to recover a cell phone for a certain careless person who had lost it between the seats on the bus.

The overwhelming impression of New Zealand was its engagement with the diversity and the history sharing the Maori culture. The Maori get lots of attention from guides, museums, political parties, rugby teams, and through the public integration of the cultures.  We constantly heard “kio ora,” “hangi,” puku,” and “Aotearoa”reminding us of another language taught in the schools. We heard the story of the Treaty of Waitangi at least three times, once on the property where it was signed. The pride in country swept over us on our trip.

We are often guilty of idealizing other countries at the expense of our own, but I will risk saying New Zealand is exceptionally beautiful, remarkably tolerant of differences, reflectively proud of its heritage, and refreshingly welcoming to its visitors. Emerson says, “Comparisons are odious,” so I will avoid comparing New Zealand to the United States. It is good to be home, yet inspiring to remember the best of Aotearoa, the land of “the long, white cloud,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aotearoa.

The weather continues warm and breezy in Devonport, making our departure sad and inevitable. Still we walked into town, had a great breakfast at the Stone Oven, sat in the harborside park with an unidentified black bird, who might actually might be a Black Bird, and browsed leisurely through the Paradox bookshop, unintentionally harvesting five books.

Other photos show restaurants we patronized (Manuka’s and Portofino’s) and the main street looking up toward Mount Victoria, which we ascended on New Year’s Day, a great day to have heightened perspective.

Interior – Stone Oven

Stone Oven Cafe

Blackbird?

Breakfast on New Year’s morning

Portofino’s – Dinner New Year’s Eve

Mt. Victoria at the top of the street

The fragrant Jacarinda was blooming and shedding blossoms furiously from the day we arrived. This shot is on the day we departed, as well as the porch garden at Karin’s Garden B & B.

This will be a good place to add the perspective on three week’s of travel, but I am headed for the airport. Will expound later.

One more New Zealand edition about our 2-3 days in Devonport, most beautiful of tourist lairs in the northern island. We retired here on December 30, following a joyfully frenetic tour of Bay of Islands, Northern Island and Southern Island of the newly-constituted Oceania, the eighth continent. This was our own post-trip in New Zealand

The two full days were well-planned and well-spent decompression. Our first dinner was at The Esplanade, right near the wharf. You can see the Skyline beyond our window seat, but you’ll see a lot of that in Devonport. It is the postcard that puts it on the map.

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Below you see the sign of our B & B, where we spent more Bed than Breakfast. The two photos of Victoria are each within 0.5 miles of Karin’s Garden Villa. The mountains side view over her shoulder extends toward the Auckland skyline. The one with the fish in the fountain is at the foot of the street that connects the B & B with the downtown. The third photo with some towering species of palm, is the front yard of another B & B  directly on the harbor. You can see that tree from most anywhere in the town.

We spent a lovely New Year’s Eve morning on the hilltop near our B & B and in the souvenir shops of Devonport, not really as vulgar as they sound. Made a good harvest of T-shirts and coasters for the families. I found Shrek: the Story of a Kiwi Icon, which you can see when you visit us. A wonderfully photographed account of the sheep who ran wild for five years and was recovered overgrown with wool– wool-blind, as they call it. Our guide gave us the substance of the story a week earlier. Shrek went on to raise $170,000 dollars for “Cure Kids,” as a world-wide celebrity.

For the rest of the evening we anticipated the New Year at Portofino’s Restaurant. Two photos below feature locally brewed “Tuatara” and Victoria contemplating the scaled neck of the bottle, symbolic of the lizard, its namesake. If you were with me a couple of days back, you learned that “Tuatara” is the name of an ancient lizard endemic to New Zealand and being studied and preserved in Wellington’s “Zeelandia.”  The orange emblem with the vertical black slit represents the sinister lizard eye.

The next photo shows the Sky Tower ready to go off with fireworks, but the footage of the fireworks will not load here, so your memories of New Year’s fireworks will have to stand in for actual documentation.

If you can recall intermittent mid-air explosions of color and position one explosion over the Sky Tower, the other  a mile further down the shore, if you can recall ten-second countdowns and unison cheering, if you can recall at least one pub rumbling with drunken singing and the streets full of kids and families of all ages– then you’ve captured New Years in New Zealand. Pretty much the same as the other side of the International Dateline, but I had to adventure here long enough to make sure it wasn’t more surreal than U.S. Central Time Zone.

So then Victoria negated that whole paragraph by sharing actual fireworks from her camera. (But I like that paragraph, so it stands, redundant).

New Years’ morning, we slept in a little, went out to breakfast, then walked to the head of the street where the path up Mount Victoria welcomed us. Some might claim she is an over-sized hill, but she is steep enough and scenic enough to deserve  mountain status. Below is the view halfway up the trail, enhanced by my personal Victoria and still another skyline view from near the top.

In the afternoon we hiked down to Cheltenham Beach, which was well-populated in windy weather. You could see hundreds of local tourists enjoying the beach ( a handful swimming) or preparing elaborate picnics with plenty of grilled fish and sausage. No parties would be pooped by a little wind and chilled air.

Our final hours in town were at the Victoria Theater, seeing The Good Liar, a better-than-average con game story with Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen.

Two and a half days in Wellington were hardly enough. From the tour of Weta Studios to Zeelandia to Te Papa, the National Museum, we were merely skimming the cream.  It is  gorgeous seaport with an entertaining waterfront and a sanctuary for natural preserves, such as the Botanical Garden and Zeelandia.

We delighted in Zeelandia on Saturday, the best day outdoors:

 . . . the world’s first fully-fenced urban ecosanctuary, with an extraordinary 500-year vision to restore a Wellington valley’s forest and freshwater ecosystems as closely as possible to their pre-human state. The 225 hectare ecosanctuary is a groundbreaking conservation project that has reintroduced over 20 species of native wildlife back into the area, some of which were previously absent from mainland New Zealand for over 100 years.  https://www.visitzealandia.com/

We ate lunch, then climbed the central Lake Road to the Dam.  There was a fair amount of foot traffic, but the birds displayed themselves with little concern for their safety. Many came to feeding areas, like the Takahe and the Kaka below. The Kaka feeder had a platform that sprung open a cover, so he could grab a bite from inside. Like any parrot he grabbed a bite, took it to the neighboring branch, consumed it, and returned for more

Kaka

Takahe

The Paradise Shelduck was actually in an open area with two chicks and would make assault maneuvers at anyone who approached too closely, but at a respectful four feet was content to have us watch her and the chicks.

Paradise Shelduck

The New Zealand Falcon “(kārearea) . . .  is the country’s most threatened bird of prey, with only around 3000–5000 breeding pairs remaining” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_falcon.  We encounter this guy calmly roosting over a path on the main Lake Road on our return trip. While we watched, one of the docents radioed a colleague to come see this wonder. Apparently even the resident naturalists are amazed by rare sightings in Zeelandia.

Less surprising was the Tuatara (lizard) sighting in a protected research area. We could view them  from behind a fenced in area, almost invisible in the brown undergrowth. The single species of tuatara is the only surviving member of its order, which flourished around 200 million years ago.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatara

Tuatara

Saturday evening Victoria and I dined at the Hotel Bristol with good New Zealand fare and Mac’s beer, probably the best brewery I tasted here. Below a shot of Andy Gartrell, who performed a good version of Gordon Lightfoot at the bar.  We stayed through his first set and applauded enthusiastically, sometimes by ourselves. Probably in a generational time warp.

On Sunday morning we had a selective and fascinating tour of the National Museum with our guide Bruce, including highlights of the Treaty of Waitangi, a rare preserved “collossal squid,” and a frozen room full of confetti. Most noteworthy was the exhibit designed for the commemoration of the soldiers of New Zealand in their skirmishes of World War II.

Guide Bruce Introducing Gallipoli

These larger-than-life images were constructed by the artists of Weta Studios for display in this exhibit, which has been recognized as the outstanding museum exhibit in the world (by somebody, I forget whom).  The first figure (right) of Lt. Spencer Westmacott and figure of Dr. Percival Fenwick, represented the most bloody Battle of Gallipoli. The eight-month campaign with  7,991 New Zealand casualties  “is often considered to be the beginning of Australian and New Zealand national consciousness; 25 April, the anniversary of the landings, is known as ANZAC Day, the most significant commemoration of military casualties and veterans in the two countries, surpassing Remembrance Day (Armistice Day).” wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_campaign#Casualties.

Westmacott

Fenwick

The Battle for Chunuk represented the later contributions of the Maori regiment, which was refused weapons at first, because the British feared they would turn them on their own troops. After some negotiation the fierce Maori regiment obtained the right to bear arms, as witnessed by the machine gunner below.

Maori warrior

Gunners Asst

Lottie Le Gallais

Other images include a nurse, Lottie Le Gallais, and an infantryman Cecil Malthus. I am sorry I have less documentation on them, because they show the breadth of the exhibit’s view of the Gallipoli campaign. I will add photos, as I find them.

https://discussionsbytopic.com/Tree-weta

At the arrival gate of the Wellington International Airport, you are dwarfed by this soaring mobile of Gandalf on an eagle, the first sign that you are in Peter Jackson’s town. This is easily thirty feet in wingspread and twenty feet from beak to tail.

Victoria’s troll friend below greets you in front of the Weta Workshop, along with two companions’ not pictured here.

In the gift shop you are treated to this flying orc over the checkout desk, while this festive Gollum perches in the middle of the shop.

Here we saw a special movie production about the evolution of Weta Studios from a creator of grotesque monsters in the 1980’s to the center of  special effects for the Lord of the Rings trilogy around the turn of 2000. Weta developed a reputation for ground-breaking special effects and has gone on to earn five Oscars and thirty-eight other production awards (https://www.wetaworkshop.com/about-us/awards/).

SE view of Wellington Harbor

SW View of Wellington Harbor

After Weta, we drove up Mount Victoria for the  best view of Wellington and the harbor.  Our second day in the city was brilliant and warm and afforded the best visibility the mountain offers.

Christmas Day was our first night in Christchurch. After Evensong, we went to our group’s Christmas dinner at the hotel.  We all agreed it was super-abundant in quantity and variety. At least four courses and each one had 3-4 bowls of differing food groups: peeled carrots, peas and green beens, baked potato– all in one course.  Memory fails me in the transmission of the mighty spread.  

Background, peerless leader, Catherine next to Jock, her partner. Steve (from Dallas) in the foreground right.

Foreground, Rosemary, our spunky eldest by ten years at least.

Rick, Sporting his Christmas Shirt

On the day after Christmas we visited a demonstration sheep farm about an hour’s drive from Christchurch.. We saw both herding by dogs and sheering, by Chris, the host and

Hunt-away Flynn

I wanted desperately to load the Quicktime video of the dogs herding the sheep, but the blog could not handle the memory, even for 20 seconds. What we saw was the amazing Flynn, a border collie, stare seven sheep across a yard into the counting chute.  In between, Dee, the Hunt-away, practiced barking the sheep the other way across the yard, but her technique was more shotgun, than the laser stare of Flynn.

After that drama, we saw the more methodical sheep-shearing, illustrated above. Chris, our host, used both the electric and the hand shears, making it clear that the electric were about five times as fast.

Chris’s farm produces the “romney” wool that makes wool carpets. He has 3,000 sheep, which are prodigious producers.

The monument to the World War I New Zealander casualties, remembers the specific places where the deployed New Zealand forces died. Gallipoli, the site of modern Istanbul, is particularly remembered for the sacrifice of New Zealand soldiers.

Next are a few days around Christmas, when we are on the move, and one day I thought I had lost my phone, so there are some photo gaps we may fill in later.  We are traveling from Queenstown to Franz Josef Glacier (Christmas Eve), the Fox Glacier (Christmas Day), and Christchurch (later Christmas Day). Despite all the hiking and traveling, we had a lovely Christmas Eve on the steps of Our Lady of the Snows, and an inspiring Evensong at the “Cardboard Cathedral” in Christchurch on Christmas Day.

Our Lady of the Snows

Our Portable Creche

The Cardboard Cathedral

Franz Josef was a sleepy rural community with about four hotels and the Franz Josef  Glacier looming above it. We had planned a helicopter trip to the summit, but the low clouds made it dangerous and fruitless to land.  We had a delicious meal at our hotel and walked fifteen minutes down the road, where we heard the church was open 24 hours for meditation. No, it wasn’t. An 8 a.m. mass was posted for Christmas Day, but we would be on the move to a park where we could view the Fox Glacier, so we parked ourselves on the steps and read our Richard Rohr devotional (with three scripture readings) and sang “O Come All Ye Faithful.” It was splendid. We even had sheep bleating in the background.

We had a strenuous walk to the Fox Glacier in the morning, partly because we had the only flight out of Hokitika to catch and had to be back on the bus by 11 a.m. At this point I thought I had lost my phone, so no photos to record. When we returned to the bus it was discovered by Victoria, miraculously appearing between the seats. Undocumented here was a mighty rock-strewn river bed we navigated to reach the glacier, a receding patch of white and blue ice in the distance. Before its shrinkage, it had lodged much further down the riverbed, but it continues to shrink in its temperate rainforest, among only four such glaciers in the world.

We flew into Christchurch just in time to attend Evensong in the Cardboard Cathedral. Christchurch, especially the Anglican cathedral, was devastated by an earthquake February 22, 2011.  Empty lots and broken buildings still testify to the impact of the 6.5 tremor. The rebuilding of the Cathedral is fraught with cost problems, especially weighing the mission of the church against its structural existence. The “Cardboard Cathedral” is a temporary answer, an A-frame built entirely with recycled materials. [www.christchurchcathedral.co.nz]

We attended “Evensong” on Christmas Day and felt the reverence and joy of the people, the space, the choir. The choral singing came from a 10-voice men’s/ boys’ choir, divided antiphonally. They filled the high-ceilinged sanctuary with the “Magnificat,” the “Gloria,” “Puer natus est nobis” (anthem), and responses, celebrating a memorable Christmas Day. Our final carol:

“Omega and Alpha he! /Let the organ thunder, while the choir with peals of glee /now rends the air asunder,”

Amen

The awe of the southern Alps is hard to describe, from the plane’s approach to the airport till Christmas Day when we arrived and departed Franz Josef Glacier. The mountains surround you everywhere, sometimes across a flat plain, more often rising above the windows of the bus and descending to lakes or rivers. Below are two shots approaching Queenstown, the tourist magnet of the region, where we stayed three delighted days, our room fronting Lake Wakipitu and the mountains looming above.

En route from the airport we went to a wine tasting at the oldest local vintner, Gibson Valley. We briefly stopped at the grandfather of all bungy jumping sites and witnessed one jump, a harnassed jump fairly high above the riverbed that looked relatively safe.

Each day in Queenstown we had a lavish buffet breakfast, which looked more like a banquet. The dining room had large windows all round displaying the mountains. Below a shot of friends Ron and Christie planning their day at breakfast. Another shot of the mountains en route to Milford Sound, where we rode “The Wanderer” under the fiords into the Tasman Sea.

Two group shots below.  The small group is the five that went together to the Bay of Islands: Ron, Christie, Vickie Meitus and Bill and Victoria. The larger group, our present touring cohort including two Vickies as well as Victoria.

All of the shots below were taken on the long trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound. The two of us are taken at Mirror Lake, with the lake in the shot next to us.

Our trip through the fiords was spectacular, but many of the photos are on Victoria’s camera, so will add later.

Below you can see our approach into the fiords, a waterfall along the way, and a shot of our ship “The Wanderer.”  Among the highlights, slipping under a waterfall and getting dampened, a trip into the Tasman Sea (west of New Zealand) along with a company of dolphins, brisk winds and towering mountains, dwarfing us with awe.

Bill with larger than life Kiwi

Covered with geo-thermal heat vents, Rotorua began to reveal volcanic New Zealand.  Driving through the center of town you see vents of steam everywhere, not at the street corner, but on the way to the store or scattered through the surrounding fields.  Our adventure in exotic New Zealand began in the Waimangu Valley, where the Pink and White Terraces attracted royalty and the elite around the world, when it was a geothermal spa. The terraces allowed you to ascend to your level of comfort, as it cooled approaching the top.

The eruption of Mt. Tarawera in 1886 ended all this, as the terraces collapsed into a lake. The pink and white silicon was thought to be lost until divers recovered some intact pieces.

What we witnessed in the valley was a semi-tropical forest surrounding several crater lakes. Our guide, Dan, walked us into the pre-historic setting of the valley, pointing out botanical life as well as the various geysers and vents spouting water and steam. At the foot of the hill, he loaded us into a small school bus, which took us down to the lake.

On Lake Rotomahana

In Waimangu Valley

After lunch, we were transported to Hobbiton, the site of the filming of several movies, including “The Hobbit,” and “The Fellowship of the Ring.” It is literally built into a hillside of the Alexander farm, leased to the film company and now a joint venture with Director Peter Jackson to display the sets of the movies.  The entrances are merely facades, with the actual interiors set up indoors in Wellington. We trudged up and down the gravel paths in the sometimes driving rain, but accompanied by hundreds of undaunted visitors who were bus-shuttled there from a visitors center.

Below you see Frodo’s apartment at left, another apartment we adopted for its shallow interior, and at right the site of Bilbo’s party and final speech before he goes on his vacation. The photo shows the imposing background tree, but there was plenty of flat green space for the festivities, famous for its inflamed birthday cake.

In the evening we attended the Mitai Maori cultural center, where we witnessed the warriors in the waka (canoe, holding 6-12 men); a welcoming performance, including dancing, singing and acting; and finally a banquet, served buffet-style with hundreds of guests. I’ve seen similar cultural festivities in Hawaii and this compared favorably. We were welcome with warmth and enthusiasm and pride in the culture this center preserved. A long, but very satisfying day.

All seasons in a day, as they say of New Zealand. Woke to cloudy and cool and roused ourselves to go to the Auckland Museum at the top of the city. There the sun burst out and the wind rose dramatically. The museum divided itself on three floors– the Maori heritage, the natural history, and the war history. We did not make it to the third floor for lack of energy and time., but had a good review of Maori culture with Catherine as our guide. Below a model of the house of meeting, which is intended to symbolize the welcoming Maori: the head at the peak, the roofline the welcoming arms, the inner frame, the ribs, etc. The Maori were fierce warriors, signified by their war tattoos, but once you were identified as well-intentioned, by the picking up of the silver fern branch (in photo below)  you were heartily welcomed. The early missionaries proved their intentions by earnestly studying the Maori language and transcribing it into its first written form. They made it possible to write the Treaty of Waitangi into the Maori language to circulate among the chiefs.

Catherine shows the silver underside of the national symbol

The Winter Garden, adjacent to the Museum, housed many familiar summer flowers, but some exotic ones like the “lobster claw” pictured below.

Our last evening, Rosemary (ab0ve), Victoria and I walked down to the wharf, which is webbed with enormous yachts and lined with restaurants. We ate in the plastic-sheltered Conservatory, enjoying the snapper and quinoa salad. The winds were gusty, but the beer and fish were excellent!

Dorothy, George HIggins and Vicky Meitus

Our trip to Rotorua Thursday morning was brisk and sunny. We enjoyed the hospitality of George and Dorothy Higgins en route. They own an organic dairy farm and a luxuriously rustic farm house, where they served us lunch.  We arrived in Rotorua mid-afternoon and begin to witness the many geothermal vents common to the city.  dinner at the Waiora Resort and Spa, Holdens Bay.