Kauri Tree Nazis

While we were on New Zealand’s north island, we took the opportunity to visit a few of a handful of remaining Kauri trees in the Waipoua Forest. Years of logging the forests severely reduced the numbers of these giants, which are among the most ancient in the world. In fact, the antecedents of the kauri appeared during the Jurassic period (between 190 and 135 million years ago). Anyway, the largest remaining tree is approximately 1200 years old and still growing.

Now, to state the obvious, this tree has been around for a very long time, long before the department of conservation was ever dreamed up. People have undoubtedly lived around, near or underneath the tree, walked and tramped around it, hugged it, danced around it, attempted to climb it and hunted in its vicinity for all this time and yet it still lives. Pretty tough and hardy I’d say. Not according to the DOC who some time ago, as soon as the Kauri Forest was promoted as a tourist attraction, put signs up declaring that “the feeding roots of Kauri trees are shallow and delicate. Walking off the formed protective paths and boardwalks can kill these giant trees.” So let me get this straight, for thousands of years this tree has happily co-existed with indigenous peoples and has miraculously been spared the blade of the logger’s saw, and now, after all this time, walking around it may kill it? Unreal. Just another example of controlling the masses. The nanny state comes out to play again.

 

This kind of bureaucracy is also applied to spring water, which has sat protected several metres below the ground for thousands of years. Filtered by mineral-rich rocks, and preserved in its own spring, it is usually the purest water known to man and the longer it is left, the more minerals it absorbs. That is until we extract it for commercial sale and slap an expiry date on it. Our water of choice in NZ was ‘Waiwera’, bottled spring water that was voted “the world’s best water” by Decanter Magazine, 2008. On the strip label at the back it states that “GOOD TASTE TAKES TIME…15,000 years, in this case (by carbon dating). The natural artesian water you are about to drink predates civilization in New Zealand, not to mention the last ice age. Which makes it about as pure as you could find anywhere on the planet.” The best before date on the mid-section of the bottle read “30 MAR 2013.”

Overrated New Zealand

Of all the countries we have visited on our expedition, probably the most disappointing has been New Zealand. However, before you throw your arms around and screw up your face in incredulous disbelief, read on. We are not philistines, who cannot appreciate what is in front of them, nor do we like to go against the grain just because everybody is going a certain way. Simply, we think New Zealand is overrated. Let me explain. Have you ever been to see a film after you have spoken to various people and read numerous reviews that have told you how amazing it is and, in doing so, inadvertently hyped the film to the point where you had to see it and you were consequently expecting big things from it? And then all your expectations accumulated into anti-climax and disappointment when you discovered that, while the film was really good and you were glad you went to see it, there was no way it could have lived up to all the hype it was receiving through various forms? I’m sure you came away wishing that you had held no pre-conceived ideas about the film so you could have formed your own opinions about it. Know what I mean? Well, this is exactly how we felt about New Zealand.

There is no doubt in our minds that New Zealand is a beautiful country on both islands and it would be hard to convince you otherwise on account of the photos we recently posted but the fact is, any remark by anyone previous to our visit there usually consisted of something like ‘I loved it’ or ‘New Zealand is amazing’ or ‘I want to emigrate there,’ and so on. So, as you can imagine, we went there with all kinds of positive expectations that no country could live up to. What we found was that the north island looked a lot like Wales in terms of the green hills full of sheep (incidentally there is actually 40 million sheep to 4 million people in NZ), ruggedly beautiful deserted beaches and small, scarcely populated villages of not-so friendly people. Unlike in Wales though, New Zealand’s towns and villages contained little or no historical value and consisted of faceless, pre-fabricated buildings, which consequently formed places seriously lacking in soul or character. The south island is more alpine with mountains and glaciers, glacial lakes and the kind of scenery that comes with it. Certain places of interest billed as “voted number one in New Zealand’s 100 must-see places to visit” paled in comparison to those you might see in, say, Canada. And therein lay the problem. Without trying to sound pompous and conceited, we have been across the Canadian Rockies. We have seen this kind of scenery before in a place that is even more epic. We acknowledge that to not evaluate it in its own right and compare it was unfair, but that is exactly what we couldn’t help doing since the scenery was so similar to places we have been, either those attached to England or across the Atlantic.

 

There is another aspect to my argument here, in addition to the country being unhelpfully overhyped for us. Those who professed to us that New Zealand is amazing undoubtedly visited on holiday with a significantly different monetary budget. When you are able to pay for skydiving, bungee jumps, helicopter rides over glaciers and every boat trip offered around a lake, of course it’s going to be bloody amazing! If we were on holiday there is no doubt those things are exactly what we would have done too. But it brings up an interesting consideration. Why should a place be amazing because of the things you did? Can’t it be amazing without them? If the answer is no then surely the place itself is not actually that amazing. After all, when it comes down to it, in the grand scheme of tourism a holiday is a chance to meet a country’s representative – its metaphorical sales rep who will show and sell all the good bits while everything else gets conveniently and temporarily shoved in a corner until you’re gone. To see what a country and its people is really like, one would have to spend a significant amount of time there assimilating into society and allowing it to get under their skin. I am not suggesting that we have been able to do that in many of the places we have been to, such is the nature of our trip, but perhaps we would have liked some of them more if we had spent extended amounts of time there, even New Zealand. It is important to form an opinion of a country as it is with no ideas pre-attached but in this technological day and age, where one can acquire information from inescapable amounts of communication, this is impossible. What I am sure of, though, is that those countries we visited with little or no preconceptions about them very often left us with very positive and favourable views, enough to make us want to go back there. And more often than not, it is the people of a place that significantly determined our opinions of it – the old adage that it is the people that make a place is truer than you can imagine.

Our journey so far continued...New Zealand.

April 2011

4th – Flew to Auckland to pick up Harakeke, our campervan for the next twenty-something days. Got supplies and went to Otamure to spend the night with high hopes for NZ.

 5th – Spent a lazy morning at the beach and drove north to the Bay of Islands.

6th – Sailed around the islands on an 80ft sailing boat built for the late Sir Peter Blake to compete in the 1985/86 Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race, in which it finished second. It also won the 1984 Sydney to Hobart Race. Brilliant experience being on such a fantastic boat and even had a pod of several dolphins playing around the bow on our outward journey. Bonus! Also paid for an incredibly disappointing Maori culture display. Booo!

7th – Drove north again to Cape Reinga, the northern-most tip of the north island and walked about 100 metres of 90-mile beach.

8th – Drove south from Hokianga area to Wenderholme to visit more rustic beaches.

9th – Drove to Auckland.

10th – Drove to the Coromandel Peninsula and visited Cathedral Cove and had a bizarre and surreal experience at the originally named Hot Water Beach where you dig a hole, which fills up with hot water and hey presto, you have your own personal hot spring.

11th – Drove to Rotorua.

12th – Visited one of many thermal geoparks around Rotorua. Unique experience exploring the geothermal activity for which geologists would turn down sex.

13th – Went to Lake Taupo, a beautiful lake in a volcanic crater containing crystal clear water where we had a swim while keeping a keen eye on any volcanic activity.

14th – Wellington, aka the windy city. Visited Te Papa museum and saw the world’s only giant squid on display. And it was a giant.

15th – Ferry to south island where we immediately found a spot to grab a few hours sleep as a night in the queue for the ferry the night before was hardly profitable. Drove west to Nelson and stayed at what amounted to nothing more than a trailer park. No wonder it was a bargain.

16th – Visited much heralded national park, Abel Tasman. Or at least it would have been if it wasn’t pissing it down with rain. Went for an hour’s walk but essentially, owing to the weather, nothing to see here people, move on.

17th – Drove the wild and woolly west coast and visited the ‘pancake rocks’ and Hokitika beach that contained more driftwood than we had ever seen and made us ponder over the possibilities. Slept at lake Mahinapua.

18th – Went to Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Fox glacier, incidentally, was named after a former Prime Minister Sir William Fox, who narcissistically named it after himself in 1872. Interestingly, Franz Josef usually advances at a rate of one metre per day, but sometime ramps up to five metres per day – ten times faster than the Swiss Alps' glaciers. Visited Kiwi sanctuary to see the fiercely nocturnal New Zealand icons.

19th – Drove from Fox Glacier to Lake Wannaka where we met many retired Americans touring in shoebox campervans so removed from what they’re used to. Don and Judy from Texas, for example, usually roll in a full-size rockstar-style bus that makes a National Express look small, while towing a full-size Hummer behind. Unbelievable. Well, what else are they gonna drive around in, it is Texas!

21st – Drove to Queenstown, the extreme sports capital, which was more akin to a snowy resort in the Alps except, because of the time of year, there was no snow. Explored pretty town and ate fish and chips on the lake front.

22nd – Drove to Te Anu to stay the night before heading out to Milford Sound the following morning.

23rd – Drove to Milford Sound, a picturesque but overrated experience that frankly, wasn’t worth the long drive. It was overcast and raining on the day we went, which was supposed to be the best conditions for seeing the area but the jury is well and truly out on this one. Of course, since the weather is regularly like this here, my cynical side tells me that they have to promote this or they’ll have no visitors. My realistic side bluntly acknowledges that the whole thing is bollocks.

24th – Drove to Dunedin and the Otago peninsula to see Yellow-Eyed Penguins. Usually one has to jump on the tourist conveyor belt that pulls wads of money out of your pocket as you move along just to see these little guys. But we read about a beach where we could see them for free and in their most natural surroundings. It was a bit of a trek but we saw two clumsily make their way up the dunes to their burrows. At the end of the same beach, big male sealions noisily fought for dominance by butting chests and barking. Scary. But we did get to pretend we were David Attenborough for a brief spell and that was worth it alone.

25th – We went to a beach to see the quirky Moereki boulders, huge and cool marble-like rocks formed over thousands of years of weathering that were the subject of a long photoshoot. Visited Omaru, also known as Penguin Town for their obvious public displays of affection for the little critters. Drove to Christchuch to spend the night.

 
26th – Drove to Kaikoura, a place famous for the whales that pass through during migration and subject place for the brilliant film Whale Rider. Must-see film by the way. Stayed at Christchurch again.

27th – After getting the van sorted for handing back we hit Christchurch, though we had significantly less of an impact than the volcano a couple of months previous. Weirdly, random scattered buildings were affected rather than a concentrated area but the devastation was plain to see nevertheless. Flew to Perth to continue our Aussie adventure.

THE Bells Beach

Near the end of the Great Ocean Road, 100km south-west of Melbourne, a renowned surf beach called Bells Beach is located along a stretch of coastline aptly named Surf Coast Shire (I am not kidding). It is the home of the world’s longest-running surf competition, the Rip Curl Pro Surf & Music Festival. Formerly known as the Bells Beach Surf Classic, the competition was first held in January 1961 and has been held at Easter every year since. Apparently, as early as 1939 surfers from Torquay (Australia not Devon) made their way to surf the waves at Bells but it wasn’t until 1960 when the considerable problem of access to it was resolved. A bunch of Torquay surfers and, bizarrely, an Olympic wrestler named Joe Sweeney hired a bulldozer and cleared the road along the Bells cliff, then charged surfers a dollar to recover his expenses. Interestingly, such is its fame, the last scene of the brilliant and fast-paced action film Point Break starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reaves is set at Bells Beach, although it was not actually filmed there. We stood at the lookout for probably an hour watching experienced surfers paddle out around the rocks, where the surf was calm, and out to where it started to break. There must have been fifty or more surfers in the water waiting for the perfect ride. The most interesting thing was that not all of these surfers were in their mid-20s as you might expect. Some were old enough to be our fathers. They rocked up in their cars with full heads of grey hair with their boards thrown in the back, got changed in to their wetsuits, attached their leash and headed down to the beach. There was nothing flashy or showy about these guys. This is just what they did. Like playing pub football on a Sunday morning. Except to us it was the coolest thing ever and they were sort of carrying on a legacy.

Life on the Wild Side

When considering Australia in terms of its wildlife, iconic images consist of Kangaroos, Wallabies, Koala bears, Sharks and generally everything that can kill you in a second. Well, we were fortunate not to have any encounters with any lethal creatures during our first week in Australia, but we did visit Kangaroo Island, off Cape Jarvis, which is renowned for its abundance of wildlife including, yep, you’ve guessed it, Kangaroos. Of course, we were not guaranteed to see anything, such is the unpredictability of wildlife, but we were blessed. They must have known the Poms were coming. In fact, on our way to catch the ferry to the island, we spotted the silhouetted figures of a family of ‘roos on the peak of a hill whose sighting had us content enough that if we had glimpsed no more of the unconventional animals we would be satisfied. But the island lived up to its name by giving us a close-up experience with a wild one who seemed oblivious and unbothered by our presence. We could have almost shook his hand, or sparred with him, but instead we respected his personal space and made him the subject of many a photo. Odd as they are, their mannerisms are almost human, except for the fact that after he was done entertaining us he hopped away effortlessly. This was on a farm that had been planted with Tasmanian Blue Gum trees that soon attracted the attentions of many a wild Koala Bear. The farmer consequently opened an informal sanctuary for the admission price of two dollars for any visitors. Since they are nocturnal, like many other creatures in this part of the world, we didn’t hold out much hope of seeing them. However, since there are not many places for Koalas to hide in the sparse branches of the gumtree, it just meant that they would not be so active during the day. But a sleeping Koala bear is just about as cute as you can get, and they soon tested the capabilities of our zoom lens. Further down the road, we took the opportunity to ‘walk with Sealions’ on a beach inhabited by a huge colony of the mammals. For a creature that can be at sea for weeks on end, they need their rest and hundreds lazed around on the beach and in the sand dunes allowing us a prime view of their natural lifestyles. If Kelly Slater could catch his pick of a wave as effortlessly as they do, the annual world championships would be a cinch. Walking through the dunes also afforded us our only sighting of a live Wallaby as, unfortunately, too many can be viewed by the side of the road as roadkill. A quick-witted joke as we made our way around the island renamed those unfortunate ones Wallabeens. On our way back from the beach toward the ferry terminal to make our way back to the mainland we couldn’t believe our luck as hawk-eyed Helen spotted the Porcupine-like Echinda sniffing around in the dirt by a bush at the side of the road.

Once back on the mainland, we continued on our journey to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road where we spotted the bulbously fore-headed Kookaburra, made famous by branded cricket bats of the same name (you’ll be pleased to know that no kookaburras are harmed during the making of their bats), sunning himself on a high-wire. Before we left for New Zealand in the following days, we had one more stop to make at Penguin Island in order to see the subjects of a BBC wildlife series narrated by Rolf Harris, Little Penguins (yes, that is actually their official name since they are the world’s smallest), who arrive every night on a specific beach in their droves. Hundreds arrive nightly after being at sea for as long as three months at a time to waddle up to their burrows in the dunes for some rest. Some can venture up to one and a half kilometres inland to find their burrows. They appear from the surf, shake from top to tail feather and wait for others to join them until they are a group of around a dozen for protection as they are very vulnerable to predators, before they make their way up the beach. Since it is hard work for the little creatures to traipse up such unforgiving terrain, they have to stop every thirty yards or so for a rest, which provides for great viewing. We were lucky to see 860 penguins the night we went. Sadly, but understandably, photography was prohibited.

 

As you can imagine, we hoped we would see the kinds of wildlife for which Australia is famed, but we did not imagine seeing and experiencing as much of it so soon after we arrived. Add to the list those animals we saw in New Zealand; the obligatory and fiercely nocturnal Kiwi (in a conservation centre so sadly there are no photos), eccentric Emus, several Dolphins that swam and played right by the bow of our sailing boat in the Bay of Islands, and some Yellow-Eyed Penguins that appeared from the surf on a beach in the south island, it was like we were on some kind of reserve. It was a gentle but stark reminder that there are other majestic beings with whom we share this planet and we consider ourselves privileged to have been given the opportunity to experience some of the more obscure ones.