Four Months in New Zealand
Arrival in New Zealand seems to inevitably refresh travel exhaustion with local inspiration: even before I finally touched down at my Northland destination, I was privileged to take a small prop plane over the ‘Long White Cloud’ of Aotearoa (NZ): how aptly the Maori named it. My imagination was set in peaceful motion from the off and, sure enough, the following weeks and months put me amongst the most vibrant natural world I had seen since I last was in NZ.
Immersing in the re-remembering of flourishing nature is like visiting a paradisical childhood. I feel wont to throw off my clothes after a hike in the bush and skinny-dip in natural waters;
dive-bomb waterfall pools under a dappled sunlight which belongs to me as much as I belong to it;
have a little chat with the giant kauri snails sliming off to exact some carnivorous fate upon some other weird creatures before the sun is even up;
pedal my laughable folding bicycle through the flocks of yellowhammers and amongst the wandering pukekos (swamp hens) to the ancient soggy mysteries of the mangrove and beyond;
circumpaddle the secret islands on my ropey old blow-up kayak before anyone else is awake;
float motionless, breathing softly through my snorkel in the water gully with the frightened squid until their colour-changing frenzy settles… And I simply walk as much as possible: small off-shore islands, where every path leads to a beach
and native wildlife is positively reclaiming the once livestock-ravaged landscape;
the stunning wetlands at Whatipu which spread like a vast magic carpet of life from the cave-ridden cliffs all the way to the distant ocean;
coastal walks; walks which run past running cascades or through some of the graciously remaining groves of hundreds of years old kauri trees
or manuka and tree fern bush, spilling with birdsong;
through the sunrises that are welcomed by the water, by the hills, by the stream and the trees. My new, very amateurish field guides to native trees and ferns have started to work their magic and become my little friends and companions on walks, raise questions which fizz in my head for days, and occasionally answer questions too. Nature itself feels like my good companion, one who radiates life even through decay: its dusty, spider web-ridden corners and the lichens and mosses flourishing over fallen trees and ‘dead’ matter. All in all, the NZ natural world gives a happy boost to my optimism about the wheel of life of which I am inevitably part.
NZ environmental awareness and policies seem to be based less upon activism and rather more upon a commonplace grumbling amongst folk. People talk about their polluted rivers and how much it upsets them as a matter of daily conversation rather than waving banners outside the parliament. If many NZ’ers feel the impending environmental crunch time approaching (that the Extinction Rebellion movement is doing so well at bringing to public attention elsewhere) I’m not aware of it. A perhaps inevitable sense of being far away from the general madness of the western world leaves NZ to discern its own story, all of which, good and bad, is very recent, in the human sense at least. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the first landing of Capt James Cook aboard the Endeavour, come to find the great southern continent (which didn’t exist, obviously) and respectably chart any newly discovered British territories, such as NZ. Maori had arrived a few hundred years previous to this and, surprisingly (to me at least), exacted their own brand of environmental degradation (driving some flightless bird species extinct through hunting and the burning of forests for instance), but the coming of the pakeha (whites) marked the beginning of a new level of voracious environmental pillaging by a mixture of pioneer-spirited settlers, escaped convicts, whalers, adventurers, and not to mention the many ill-reputed missionaries, who apparently in many cases wanted more than their own fair share of the loot.
To put it in perspective, the NZ sealing industry collapsed in only six years in the early 19th century, such was its intensity. The whaling industry endured longer, but has left whales relatively rare up until today. The logging of the kauri forests left an estimated 0.05% of the previously existing numbers of trees. The little town of Kororareka (now Russell) in the Bay of Islands was the country’s first capital, its centre of activities, and generally the most happening place, at the same time as being widely known as ‘the hell-hole of the Pacific’: a haven of grog, whoring, criminality and exploitation. These were the economic and social beginnings of modern NZ.
Environmentally, experts in the field tell me that NZ basically has, even until recently, an extremely poor record for regulation and protection. This can seem puzzling when arriving from the much longer-pillaged lands of Europe, or even the Americas, because NZ seems relatively so full of nature, so pristine. However, thirty years ago the population here was still only one million, on a land area the size of the UK, or slightly smaller than California: there simply weren’t enough people to destroy it wholesale. Which only goes to show, yet again, that people and their unfettered ways are the problem.
Fortunately, things have changed, and continue to do so. Today Kororareka/Russell is a quaint little tourist town that colourfully re-paints its torrid history for visitors’ amusement, based around what are some of the oldest buildings in the country, notably the Duke of Marlborough Hotel (now fairly posh), which boasts to having been ‘refreshing rascals and reprobates since 1827’ , or the local police station, from 1870.
The Department of Conservation under the current left/green coalition government seems to have passionate, knowledgeable people working to implement riparian planting schemes to clean up run-off pollution in rivers, to control invasive pests and create safe habitats for native wildlife to flourish, and many other pro-environment projects. Modern blights on the landscape are evident (such as the oil refinery at Whangarei Heads, seen here from a distance inland, one of the (otherwise) most beautiful ports in the South Pacific I believe),
but clearly decisions are being made much more carefully than in yesteryear, especially in view of our increased technological abilities to mess things up quickly.
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The widely internationally reported response to the race-based shootings in Christchurch earlier in the year was a key indicator of the NZ social stance. One of my first impressions of NZ, years ago when I first visited by boat, was of a country of white people who were racist against the pre-existing settlers, the Maori. This was, indeed, a powerful impression upon me. If I am honest, I have not encountered this to the same degree for years now. I now know that the one million citizenry from thirty years ago has been more than quadrupled through controlled immigration, creating a real cultural diversity of Pacific islanders, Indians, Asians, Europeans, Maori and more, which thrives in a space of what seems to me, healthy tolerance. It is hard to imagine what number of people amongst this diverse citizenry would be represented by anyone proposing that white Christians are better, never mind causing such violence to bring the point home. On the contrary, there was a palpable national sadness and a real sense of swelling unity in diversity coming from the heart of NZ’ers when the shooting occured.
Believe it or not, my dear ukulele has brought me closer to understanding some of this. I have made an effort this time around to play some Pacific island and Maori songs, spurred on in no small part by the lovely Litara, a NZ friend of Samoan origin. I now realise that all NZ’ers learn many of these Maori language songs at school, so everyone knows them. This is surely some basic social integration policy: singing the same song together. I know that the poorest demographics tend to be rural-living Maori, and I know there are many social problems, and I know there exist poverty, need, racial discrepancies, but here is a positive manifestation of unity, and considered effort toward unity in diversity.
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As the sunlight softens and the nights turn chill, Northland NZ loses none of its charm. The warmth of the day only extends to limited, only just catchable hours in the middle of the day, but loses its aggression; the morning chorus comes after sunrise rather than before, suggesting that even the birds love a lie-in in the autumn and winter; the cicadas, whose clamorous song has dominated the bush all summer, simply cease; the giant kauri snails come into their time and can be found most days about their business; the hot smells of resin and dry earth in the bush are replaced my damp humus and rain-washed fresh air.
As I write there is a steady autumn rain is falling straight down through the breezeless air above these western hills where I am making a last visit to Al before I sail away. The spiders’ webs are decked in their full dewy finery and shiver with the downpour. The trees are green indeed: there are no deciduous trees: autumn is heralded in different ways here. Still some trees are in flower, and the stout native pigeons with their iridescent throats and long, creamy underbellies come to feed from the remaining fruits on the cabbage trees. There is no bleak greyness here, nor bone-chilling depression, but still a warmth in the wetness, a deep and broad continuance of life.
Larger versions of the photographs (and a couple of others) are here:
