Village Squire, 1975-11, Page 21Lawn Bowling at New Zealand's Rotura resort.
Travel
Taking a steamy break at ,, lake while skiing in New Zealand.
In New Zealand even the cabbies frown on tipping
BY MICHAEL SHELTON
Seven hours out from Tahiti, six hours from
Fiji or four from Australia you will see
through the aircraft window the billowing
fluffiness that signals a South Sea island. In
this case�,yu,there are two big islands, plus
many smafer'ones, and the cloud formed by
evaporation from the land below stretches for
more than a thousand miles.
The Polynesians, who still navigate the
ocean by sea color, wave shape, bird life,
stars and cloud formation, named it Ao Tea
Roa - the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Centuries later, somebody gave it a
European name, New Zealand, which has
some of the mystical qualities of the other,
befitting a country both beautiful and full of
paradox.
Its settlers have tried to make it the most
British place outside of Britain, and in many
ways have succeeded. The early arrivals were
obviously unhappy enough with the Old
Country to endure a three-month voyage to
the other end of the earth, yet they
immediately began to create the image of
their unhappiness again.
A century ado, Anthony Trollope had this
to say: "The New Zealander among John
Bulls is the most John Bullish. He admits the
supremacy of England to every place in the
world, only he is more English than any
Englishman at home. He tells you that he has
the same climate, only somewhat improved;
that he grows the same produce - only with
somewhat heavier crops; that he has the same
beautiful scenery at his doors - only
somewhat grander in its nature and more
diversifield in its details; that he follows the
same pursuits and often the same fashion -
but with less misery, less of want, and a more
general participation in the gifts which God
has given to the country."
Yet in many ways New Zealand does not
look or feel like Britain at all. It is part of
Polynesia, that great swath of the Pacific
which touches Hawaii, Tahiti and Fiji. A
Pacific people called the Maoris, who arrived
600 years before the Europeans, form a tenth
of the three million population, and with other
Pacific islanders moving in all the time (the
Cooks, the Tokelaus and the Kermadecs are
New Zealand trust territories), Auckland, the
largest city, is thought to have the biggest
Polynesian population in the world.
There are other differences, too, besides
the brown skins. Britain is geologically old,
ground down by successive ice ages. New
Zealand is young volcanic like many other
South Sea islands, and almost undisciplined
in its scenic manners.
Miniature cone-shaped hills poke oddly
through the sheep pasture in some places,
spiky relatives of the palm are common and
there are so many versions of the fern that its
leaf is a national symbol.
These things and the geographical position
give the country a unique character, a
character which seems to be a blend of so
many other places. Its latitiudes are the same
as those from Northern France to Southern
Spain, so the sun is hotter than in Britain. But
it does not benefit from a Gulf Stream, so
there is a whiff of Antarctica as well as the
aroma of the tropics.
If there were an equatorial jungle and a
Greenland icecap you could truly say that it
was the world in miniature.
An Englishman could mistake for home the
swans and willows of the River Avon in
Christchurch. A Scot could equally recognize
the sea loch, the gorse --covered hills and the
names about Dunedin (which itself means
Edinburgh of the South).
A British Columbian would instantly tune
into the West Coast rain forests and the
Southern Alps, which rise precipitously from
the Tasman Sea.
A Norweigan would remember his
homeland if he ventured into the remote
southwest fiordland, and Mount Cook -
(12,349 feet), the alpine Queenstown and
Tongariro national park would strike a chord
in any Swiss or Austrian - many of whom
teach skiing there.
Central Otago's rugged rocks recall
northern Iran. The Canterbury Plain could be
a snippet of the prairies. The desert road in
the middle of the North Island could be in
Arizona. Wellington's fine harbor, steep
streets and cable car are the image of San
Francisco. And the Kaikoura coast road could
have been borrowed from the French Riviera.
The list of comparisons is endless. The
volcanic triangle of Mount Egmont, complete
with snowy mantle, is Fujiyama transplanted,
while the bubbling mud, boiling water and
shooting geysers of Rotorua compete with
anything in Iceland.
The surprising thing is that all this is
contained within the same area as the British
Isles. The ocean, with its magnificent surf, is
never more than 40 miles away (but be sure
there are lifeguards on duty where you go
swimming; the currents and undertows belie
the idyllic look of many a bathing beach).
Nothing is more than a 48-hour drive from
anywhere else, or about three hours by plane,
and only then if you had an irresistible urge to
rush from Auckland to Milford Sound. You
wouldn't, of course. There is too much lb
divert a tourist in between.
This is the great drawing card of the
country. It is tailor-made for tourists. One can
VILLAGE SQUIRE/NOVEMBER 1975, 19