Thursday, November 30, 2006
New Zealand Travel Map
A map of my travels in New Zealand. It's a bit small at present, but if you click on it, it will open in a new window and you can magnify it a little bit. I'm working on enlarging it. But at least it gives you a sense of where I was in New Zealand...
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
BELOW YOU WILL FIND
A slew of fotos from New Zealand. Many here, and many more to come. I will warn you that should you easily tire of fotos of sheep, cows, and mountains, you will most likely grow weary with their many photographic depictions contained herein. I tried to be selective, but there are just so damn many of the aforementioned subjects in New Zealand. The most recent fotos are found nearer the top. More to come. Check back soon. As I hope the pictures will demonstrate, New Zealand is a beautiful, breath-taking country. Thanks for viewing... JC
NZ Department of Conversation
New Zealand is a land of contrasts. It is possible, in a matter of mere minutes, to go from a tropical environment to a glacial one and back again. This constant changing of scenery is indeed one of the most striking features of the islands. You’re never quite sure what to expect around the next corner and down the road a bit: raw and jagged snow-covered peaks, meandering rivers, lush valleys, lava-licked plateaus, broad fields of boulders, sandy expanses of shoreline.
Changes in climate and weather are just as unpredictable. One minute brings sun, the next snow. Followed by more sun, and perhaps a rain shower. It is as if the weather gods, indecisive about which course of action to take, finally settled on a smattering of everything, in a well-placed gamble to play the odds. A speck of this and a smidge of that.
New Zealand is a watery nation. As a chain of islands, it is bounded on all sides by the sea. Even the most inland of locales is a short couple of hours’ drive from the coast. Everywhere on the interior, rivers course through beds laid down by glacial movements eons ago. On rainy days, water gushes from every crevice and crack. At one point I saw a river form from within what looked to be rock. The endless cycle of water seems to be at the center of the energy that drives this land. Clean, clear water, pure and untainted, unfettered in its abundant flow.
Trees follow a similar cyclical pattern. All shapes and sizes, in various stages of growth, blanket the land. They are a renewable resource here, and wherever there is evidence of logging there is equal evidence of replanting and new growth. The old-growth Kauri forests, largely decimated long ago to fuel the economy, have been replaced by tree farms and pastures.
To say that New Zealand is full of pastures would be like saying that the ocean contains a lot of water. New Zealand is pasture. There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand, and only 4 million people. Add to this the large numbers of cattle, deer, and other farmed livestock, and you get a pretty accurate sense of what it’s like to drive down the road in New Zealand, with the overwhelming feeling that as a human you part of a miniscule minority. Everywhere, lambs and calves run alongside their parents, suckling and playing with siblings, darting away from the road at the sound of your approaching tires. They gaze curiously at you as you pass, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.
Some of the female sheep bear evidence of their recent breeding, their backs marked with a spray-painted dot, fired from a device rigged on the males that triggers upon mounting. I kid you not.
Watch as the lambs feed on their mothers’ milk, punching at the teets with their mouths to increase the flow, an act bordering on violent for its abandon of gentleness in favor of raw efficacy. The mothers don’t seem to mind.
In this environment, it’s hard not to find yourself questioning your thoughtless consumption of lamb, beef, venison; harder still not to anthropomorphize the creatures and be overcome by that most human of tendencies to “ooh” and “aah” at the cuteness of all the little sheepsie-weepsies and the cowzie-wowzies, as if you were witnessing the innocent, endearing acts of a toddler testing the world outside of itself.
And then there are the birds, everywhere, swooping, dive-bombing cars, soaring majestically on high. Many seemed suicidal, for their propensity to fly out in front of each and every passing car. Quite luckily, I escaped with only one fatality. One unlucky bird (not sure what kind – I didn’t even see it) found my side-view mirror in its flight path. From the crack, I could be certain it was dead and not merely injured, a fact for which I was glad. If I possessed my grandfather’s great knowledge of birds, I could describe in detail the avian life on the islands. I don’t. But I do know this. There are song birds in every tree, raptors circling and hunting on every gust of wind, and Keas awaiting every car at the entrance to the Milford Sound tunnel, just hoping to get a chance to rip off a piece of the undercarriage.
The more you see of New Zealand, the more it seems that the entire country is just one giant National Park with many different attractions. Thermal pools and parks, tramps (hikes), rivers, rock formations. Or one big amusement park, with its growing accumulation of adventure activities catering to outdoor enthusiasts and thrill-seekers of all shapes and sizes. Flying foxes (zip lines), bungy-jumping, trekking, skiing, skydiving, hot air balloon rides, helicoptering, luging, swimming with seals and dolphins, Zorbing – it’s all here. If these sort of activities don’t float your boat, then how about a wine tour, offered at any one of the hundreds of Kiwi wineries? In the end, it seems, every nook and cranny is a tourist attraction, and every activity is for sale.
The country is accessible to tourism like no other I have previously visited. Campervans are the transportation of choice, carting travelers from all over the world between sites and feeding and resting them in between. Holiday Parks house Rvs of all shapes and sizes from all of the most visible chains like Tui and Kea, as well as the more obscure companies, even serving as the occasional landing dock for Spaceships. Information sites abound, in even the smallest of towns, and the Department of Conservation has visitor sites in all of the Parks. Leaflets, pamphlets, brochures, maps. All yours for the taking. Need to pee? There is a public toilet, well-marked and well-maintained, in every town on the main tourist thoroughfares.
If you care to glean a different brand of knowledge than that which the printed literature has to offer, simply stop into any shop or café and strike up a conversation. Everywhere you’ll find locals and foreigners alike discussing the merits of various sites of interest and the best routes by which to travel.
I should take a moment to comment on the actual inhabitants of New Zealand, know commonly as Kiwis. A mix of Maori and pakeha (think gringo), all migrants in a sense. The Maori came to New Zealand what is estimated to have been about two thousand years ago. The Europeans arrived about eighteen hundred years later, after James Cook “discovered” the islands. In a short span of time all of the Maori land came under British ownership and custody, culminating in the Treaty of Waitangi, the wording and essence of which are still in dispute. Suffice to say that the tribes lost most of their land for very little compensation and have been working on regaining some of it ever since. Still there is a sense of cooperation here, of compromise and compassion on all sides. Everyone, diverse backgrounds aside, is a Kiwi.
The prevalence of Maori culture in present-day New Zealand is a
testament to the spirit of unity and a respect for the indigenous inhabitants. The Maori customs, language, and history are very much alive. New Zealand is a bilingual nation. Some places have European names, but every place has a Maori name. Unlike the United States, where the Native names of places such as Cincinatti and Seattle seem to exist at random as evidence of cultural thievery and decimation, here the names serve testament to the fact that the native culture is just as much a part of New Zealand as it has ever been. Well, not as much as before the British arrived, but you get the point.
Allow me to return, if you will, to the tourist experience. Everyone travels at their own speed here. Some take two weeks to take in the whole of the country. In actuality this affords but a small taste, given the speed at which such an undertaking must be done. Myself, I spent seven weeks transiting the islands, and felt that I had seen much of what they had to offer. Surely I could have seen and done more. That will always be the case. But I saw enough to grow a well-founded appreciation of the land and the people and the lifestyle. Others more patient than myself find work in New Zealand, working the fruit farms, or perhaps teaching. Some come for a short stint and stay for a ski season, a semester, or even a lifetime.
Everyone finds something different in New Zealand. Different things to see and to do. Different reasons to stay or to move on. Though the time came for me to move on I will surely have to return some day, to see friends and to get a taste of the winter snow. There are always more things to jump off of in New Zealand and an ever-growing crop of wines to sample.
I realized a few things about myself in the nearly two months I spent on the windy two-lane roads, the narrow one-lane bridges, the sleepy hamlets and bustling cities. I discovered that I am capable of driving on the left-hand side of the road for extended periods of time, that I am surprisingly fond of glaciers, and that there’s always time for one more cappuccino.
COMING SOON: MORE FOTOS OF THE BEST NZ HAS TO OFFER
Changes in climate and weather are just as unpredictable. One minute brings sun, the next snow. Followed by more sun, and perhaps a rain shower. It is as if the weather gods, indecisive about which course of action to take, finally settled on a smattering of everything, in a well-placed gamble to play the odds. A speck of this and a smidge of that.
New Zealand is a watery nation. As a chain of islands, it is bounded on all sides by the sea. Even the most inland of locales is a short couple of hours’ drive from the coast. Everywhere on the interior, rivers course through beds laid down by glacial movements eons ago. On rainy days, water gushes from every crevice and crack. At one point I saw a river form from within what looked to be rock. The endless cycle of water seems to be at the center of the energy that drives this land. Clean, clear water, pure and untainted, unfettered in its abundant flow.
Trees follow a similar cyclical pattern. All shapes and sizes, in various stages of growth, blanket the land. They are a renewable resource here, and wherever there is evidence of logging there is equal evidence of replanting and new growth. The old-growth Kauri forests, largely decimated long ago to fuel the economy, have been replaced by tree farms and pastures.
To say that New Zealand is full of pastures would be like saying that the ocean contains a lot of water. New Zealand is pasture. There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand, and only 4 million people. Add to this the large numbers of cattle, deer, and other farmed livestock, and you get a pretty accurate sense of what it’s like to drive down the road in New Zealand, with the overwhelming feeling that as a human you part of a miniscule minority. Everywhere, lambs and calves run alongside their parents, suckling and playing with siblings, darting away from the road at the sound of your approaching tires. They gaze curiously at you as you pass, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.
Some of the female sheep bear evidence of their recent breeding, their backs marked with a spray-painted dot, fired from a device rigged on the males that triggers upon mounting. I kid you not.
Watch as the lambs feed on their mothers’ milk, punching at the teets with their mouths to increase the flow, an act bordering on violent for its abandon of gentleness in favor of raw efficacy. The mothers don’t seem to mind.
In this environment, it’s hard not to find yourself questioning your thoughtless consumption of lamb, beef, venison; harder still not to anthropomorphize the creatures and be overcome by that most human of tendencies to “ooh” and “aah” at the cuteness of all the little sheepsie-weepsies and the cowzie-wowzies, as if you were witnessing the innocent, endearing acts of a toddler testing the world outside of itself.
And then there are the birds, everywhere, swooping, dive-bombing cars, soaring majestically on high. Many seemed suicidal, for their propensity to fly out in front of each and every passing car. Quite luckily, I escaped with only one fatality. One unlucky bird (not sure what kind – I didn’t even see it) found my side-view mirror in its flight path. From the crack, I could be certain it was dead and not merely injured, a fact for which I was glad. If I possessed my grandfather’s great knowledge of birds, I could describe in detail the avian life on the islands. I don’t. But I do know this. There are song birds in every tree, raptors circling and hunting on every gust of wind, and Keas awaiting every car at the entrance to the Milford Sound tunnel, just hoping to get a chance to rip off a piece of the undercarriage.
The more you see of New Zealand, the more it seems that the entire country is just one giant National Park with many different attractions. Thermal pools and parks, tramps (hikes), rivers, rock formations. Or one big amusement park, with its growing accumulation of adventure activities catering to outdoor enthusiasts and thrill-seekers of all shapes and sizes. Flying foxes (zip lines), bungy-jumping, trekking, skiing, skydiving, hot air balloon rides, helicoptering, luging, swimming with seals and dolphins, Zorbing – it’s all here. If these sort of activities don’t float your boat, then how about a wine tour, offered at any one of the hundreds of Kiwi wineries? In the end, it seems, every nook and cranny is a tourist attraction, and every activity is for sale.
The country is accessible to tourism like no other I have previously visited. Campervans are the transportation of choice, carting travelers from all over the world between sites and feeding and resting them in between. Holiday Parks house Rvs of all shapes and sizes from all of the most visible chains like Tui and Kea, as well as the more obscure companies, even serving as the occasional landing dock for Spaceships. Information sites abound, in even the smallest of towns, and the Department of Conservation has visitor sites in all of the Parks. Leaflets, pamphlets, brochures, maps. All yours for the taking. Need to pee? There is a public toilet, well-marked and well-maintained, in every town on the main tourist thoroughfares.
If you care to glean a different brand of knowledge than that which the printed literature has to offer, simply stop into any shop or café and strike up a conversation. Everywhere you’ll find locals and foreigners alike discussing the merits of various sites of interest and the best routes by which to travel.
I should take a moment to comment on the actual inhabitants of New Zealand, know commonly as Kiwis. A mix of Maori and pakeha (think gringo), all migrants in a sense. The Maori came to New Zealand what is estimated to have been about two thousand years ago. The Europeans arrived about eighteen hundred years later, after James Cook “discovered” the islands. In a short span of time all of the Maori land came under British ownership and custody, culminating in the Treaty of Waitangi, the wording and essence of which are still in dispute. Suffice to say that the tribes lost most of their land for very little compensation and have been working on regaining some of it ever since. Still there is a sense of cooperation here, of compromise and compassion on all sides. Everyone, diverse backgrounds aside, is a Kiwi.
The prevalence of Maori culture in present-day New Zealand is a
testament to the spirit of unity and a respect for the indigenous inhabitants. The Maori customs, language, and history are very much alive. New Zealand is a bilingual nation. Some places have European names, but every place has a Maori name. Unlike the United States, where the Native names of places such as Cincinatti and Seattle seem to exist at random as evidence of cultural thievery and decimation, here the names serve testament to the fact that the native culture is just as much a part of New Zealand as it has ever been. Well, not as much as before the British arrived, but you get the point.
Allow me to return, if you will, to the tourist experience. Everyone travels at their own speed here. Some take two weeks to take in the whole of the country. In actuality this affords but a small taste, given the speed at which such an undertaking must be done. Myself, I spent seven weeks transiting the islands, and felt that I had seen much of what they had to offer. Surely I could have seen and done more. That will always be the case. But I saw enough to grow a well-founded appreciation of the land and the people and the lifestyle. Others more patient than myself find work in New Zealand, working the fruit farms, or perhaps teaching. Some come for a short stint and stay for a ski season, a semester, or even a lifetime.
Everyone finds something different in New Zealand. Different things to see and to do. Different reasons to stay or to move on. Though the time came for me to move on I will surely have to return some day, to see friends and to get a taste of the winter snow. There are always more things to jump off of in New Zealand and an ever-growing crop of wines to sample.
I realized a few things about myself in the nearly two months I spent on the windy two-lane roads, the narrow one-lane bridges, the sleepy hamlets and bustling cities. I discovered that I am capable of driving on the left-hand side of the road for extended periods of time, that I am surprisingly fond of glaciers, and that there’s always time for one more cappuccino.
COMING SOON: MORE FOTOS OF THE BEST NZ HAS TO OFFER
Father William's Amusings
I sat down with good friend and father of good friends of mine Bill Idol in Coromandel, NZ on November 29th, 2006, as a guest on his weekly radio show. We explored some of the music that has had great meaning for me in my life, and talked about some of the adventures I'd fallen into in Australia and New Zealand. It was a real treat. The show later aired on the Mad River Valley's own WMRW.
To listen, either click on the "Audio" icon below or on the provided link... Enjoy...
To listen, either click on the "Audio" icon below or on the provided link... Enjoy...
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
Nu Ta Tu
My friend Inia imbued my arm with new meanings, all of his own design and discerning, but meshing completely with what I had in my heart at the time and wanted expressed on my skin. I am grateful that he found the energy and took the time to give me this Maori moko.
The blue bits speak to water, echoed in the shaded depictions of waves and the triangular pattern of mountains. The three spirals in the center come from the point of creation shared by every living thing in the universe. They represent new beginnings, growth, and change.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Canyoning in Queenstown
My good friend Sara's boyfriend Shay
hooked me up to go canyoning - his friend from childhood runs a company in Queenstown. Sara opted out - she doesn't so much care for the cold, hence her hemisphere-hopping, following an endless summer. It was a chilly, overcast, rainy day, and the river was raging.
We did a couple of zip lines across the river,
abseiled (rappeled) down a cliff,
jumped into the river, swam through rapids. It was crazy. It made me feel so alive,
knowing that it was up to me to keep myself from injury. One guy, Mark,
whose camera we shot these fotos with, actually broke his ankle on one of the swims, caught it underneath a branch or a tree log when he was coming into a cave. I escaped with a few minor bumps and bruises, one from slamming myself back-first into a cliff. I considered myself very lucky. It was an amazing experience,
and we had a great dinner with Mike (the owner) and his wife Tinika later that night, bonding over some drinks and a heated game of Cranium...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
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