Author: Jon and Judy Rick

Culture, Caves & Cows (Sheep Too) – October 30, 2016

~ Jon and Judy Rick

Taupo, New Zealand

The big insight for today came over breakfast with our Rotoura hosts Peter and Mike. I mentioned my conversation last night at the Te Puia geyser about Maori relationships with the Pakeha (non-Maori) culture and I wanted to get their reaction to what she said.

She mentioned the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between the Maori tribal chiefs and Queen Victoria’s government. The Maori were granted property rights and British citizenship; the British became the sovereign government of New Zealand. There were two versions, one in English and the other in Maori. They differed in both wording and interpretation by both sides. The definition of “ownership” is to this day disputed. Air New Zealand avoids flying over Lake Taupo, where we are this evening, because the Maori claim ownership and demand payment for use of its airspace. The British claimed absolute sovereignty; the Maori assumed they retained rights to manage their own affairs. Disputes have been constant to this day.

That, at least, was my understanding based on reading I did before arriving in New Zealand. I’m interested in finding out how Maori and Pakeha view things today.

The young woman who was our geyser guide (early 20s) is Maori and was educated in the local Maori school. I asked her how she viewed the Treaty. She, quite diplomatically, acknowledged that there have been differences in interpretation. She feels that the Queen Victoria’s government in England was sympathetic toward the Maori and wished to respect Maori rights. The queen’s Representatives in New Zealand weren’t sympathetic and in fact violated the spirit and letter of the treaty. But, she said, relationships between the two have improved greatly in the past 20 or 30 years. The Te Puia complex was built and funded by the New Zealand government and will revert to tribal ownership when it is complete. The Maori language and culture have been saved from extinction.

I mentioned this conversation to Mike and he said (paraphrasing), “Well, let me give you our (i.e. non-Maori) point of view. It’s the Maori who have forced interpretation of the Treaty in their favor. The government has leaned over backward to provide education, health care, employment and programs to further the Maori language and culture. Sure, the Maori are a great boost to tourism but the Maori are in it for the money and as soon as they see a chance to make money they claim tribal rights to a piece of the action.”

“Furthermore,” he went on to say, “Maori culture is quite different from Pakeha culture. Maoris live in a communal society in which all wealth is owned by all. If my TV breaks down and you have money, I can say to you, ‘I need a new TV. Buy it for me.’ The Maori live for today with little concern for the future.”

So, I would conclude, that while Maori/Pakeha relations have improved greatly, that the Maori language and culture are being saved from extinction and the situation in general is much better than in the U.S. and Canada there is still a cultural separation between the two.

I wouldn’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that there is racial/cultural prejudice at work in New Zealand, but the exchanges lead me to believe that points of friction do exist and the two cultures retain their distinctive characteristics.

OK, enough of the cultural stuff. What did we do today? We went on a road trip from Rotoura to Toupo. It’s a trip of maybe 70 km and takes about an hour. We went instead by way of Waitomo where we visited the Glow Worm and Ruakuri caves, driving almost five hours and visiting the caves for over three. And while the glow worms were interesting and the caves in which they live were beautiful the ride through North Island country side was the real highlight of the day. I’ll post pictures of each.

Glow worms are the larva stage of a bug that, when hatched from its pupa stage has no means of eating. It has a three-day life span during which it mates, lays eggs (if it’s a girl bug) and dies. But while it’s a larva it hangs from the ceiling of a cave (or even outside if the conditions are right), lets down a gossamer thread and lights up its body with a phosphorescent glow. The light attracts bugs that become ensnared by the thread. The larva pulls up the thread and its prey. The hungrier the bug, the brighter the light. Seeing them in the cave is like looking up at the Milky Way on a clear night. Beautiful. The caves themselves are very nice but even our guide admitted, in effect, that if you’ve seen one limestone cave with stalagtites and stalagmites, you’ve seen them all.

We continue to be impressed by the New Zealand landscape. almost constant rolling hills, some of them hundreds of feet in height, covered by grass and dotted by sheep, cattle and the occasional pig or goat. I’ve never seen so much grass in my life. We didn’t see any sign of a crop – corn, vegetables or whatever. I read somewhere that New Zealand’s main export product is grass. Sheep and cattle are merely delivery carriers for the grass. I believe it.

Tonight our hotel room is maybe 10 meters from the shore of Lake Taupo. The beach in front of our room is called a warm beach. We watched a couple go to the edge of the lake and scoop out a depression in the sand in which they sat. The sand gave off faint clouds of steam. We were warned not to dig too deep for fear of being scalded by the hot water.

In fact, the floor of our room is heated by hot water from thermal springs as is the soaking pool just outside our room. Speaking of which, it’s time to stop babbling and time to hit the pool to unwind after another great day.

Day 4 – All Steamed Up – 10-29-16

~ Jon and Judy Rick

Rotorua, New Zealand

Lat time I was on the dance floor was last spring in Cuba. Some of you may remember that our dancing on that trip involved rum shots, salsa dancing and some rather young and attractive young salsa instructors. Tonight was a little different. After admiring the All Black’s Haka war dance on the flight to Auckland, I found myself with a bunch of other old geezers from all over learning the basics of Haka. I can’t wait to get back to Florida this winter for some good old fashioned fox trotting.

The deal was an evening at Te Puia here in Rotorua for a comprehensive package of entertainment by the local Mauri Te Arawa tribe. They gave us the whole nine yards:

  • Viewing of the Pohutu geyser, which went off within 15 minutes of our 4:30 PM arrival
  • Viewing of the thermal mud pit
  • Attempted viewing of a real live Kiwi bird that, unfortunately, was hiding in a corner of its habitat. Kiwis are nocturnal and the habitat is set up to be dark during tourist hours so she’s hard to see even when out in the open
  • A gift shop opportunity
  • A traditional Maori welcoming ceremony
  • Performance of Maori song and dance. Some time back traditional Maori chants, which are a form of oral history. Some time back the chants were augmented with guitar, harmony and a modern sound. The quality of the singing and dancing was quite good. This is where the Haka dancing came into play.
  • A pit-baked dinner, which for a tourist meal was actually not badYou’ve probably experienced something like this in a different part of the world. A western cowboy dinner production perhaps.The thing that made this one different was an observation made by our guide nicknamed Rob (his Maori name has more characters than I’d care to count say nothing of pronounce). Rob is a member of the Te Arawa tribe that owns the Te Pua complex. He told us that preservation of Maori culture highly depends on the degree to which a tribe is able to participate in the tourism industry. His tribe, and the other local tribe, own property and earn an income stream. The tribes plow the money back into the community in the form of educational scholarships and programs. In the case of the Te Araawa tribe they operate an arts and crafts educational program that teaches Maori wood carving and weaving skills in a formal classroom setting.Not too long ago Maori were punished in school for using the Maori language. That’s not true today. The government recognizes the value Maori culture and communities brings to New Zealand’s toourism industry. So one reason for the Maori’s acceptance in the broader New Zealand community is the economic advantage the Maoris bring.

    That was the evening. Let’s backtrack to the morning and afternoon program: a trip 30 Kms south of Rotorua to the Wai-O-Tapu “thermal wonderland.”

    New Zealand is at the southwest most extent of the famous Ring of Fire – an arc of tectonic plate collisions that encircles the Pacific Ocean, extending from Chile in South America, up the coast through California and Alaska and then looping southward to Japan and eventually New Zealand. I’ve swiped a picture from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_F ire#/media/File:Pacific_Ring_of_Fire.sv g to remind myself. Wikipedia says 90% of earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire. New Zealand has its share of them. They say that Wai-O-Tapu is New Zealand’s most colourful and diverse volcanic area: a place where the Ring of Fire comes to the Earth’s surface for us to see.

    Wai-O-Tapu has two parts: a spew on demand geyser and a whole series of thermal pools with walkways leaing to the near each. The geyser normally goes off when ever it feels like it. But somehow local prisinors working in the area figured out that chemicals placed in the cone would break the surface tebsion and cause the geyser to errupt. Today the park rangers set it off at 10:30, about 20 minutes after we arrived.

    After we walked around three areas of thermal pools. The brochure said the walk should take 75 minutes. We took a bunch of pictures and needed 150 minutes. In fact, rather than blathering on any longer (it’s getting late) I’ll let you look at the pictures.

    Tomorrow we pull up stakes and head off for Tapau, which is only 100 Km or so south, but we’re taking a significantt swing out of our way to visity the glow worm caves at Waitomo.

WWHD – Day 3 – Traveling to Rotoura via Hobbiton

~ Jon and Judy Rick

“What Would Hillary Do?” was my constant mantra all day long today.

The answer: “Keep to the left!”

It must have worked because we made it safe and sound, all the way from Auckland to Rotorua, without any problem.

Of course I had Judy in the left seat playing the role of Bernie: “LEFT, LEFT, LEFT, EVEN MORE LEFT” at every step of the way.

The GPS lady took us on an interesting route, from freeway to the outskirts of Auckland, normal two lane roads, one-and-one-half lane highways and one-lane byways. Driving on a one-lane, twisty, hilly road that is posted at 100 Km/hr (60 mph) is a bit unnerving but we didn’t meet an oncoming cars and everything worked out just fine.

I only had two problems. First, I tended to drive a bit left of central, leaving more room in the center of the highway. Judy was afraid I would sideswipe someone or end up in the ditch. Tomorrow I’m going to do what I hope Hillary does (assuming she’s elected): move a little bit to the center of the road. Second, because the turn signal is on the left side of the steering wheel and the wiper control is on the left, we arrived with a squeaky clean windshield. Old habbits are hard to break.

The country through which we traveled was a series of beautiful farms and undulating hills decked out in Spring green. Lots of cattle and sheep grazing on the verdant pastures.

Our destination was Hobbiton, as in Lord fo the Rings and The Hobbit.Why? Because it was on the way to Rotorua and so that we could avoid fanatic LoR/H fans who would otherwise say, “You didn’t go to Hobbiton? A once in a life time opportunity and passsed it by? What kind of fools are you?” Judy and I read the books back in college and watched the first half of the first Lord of the Rings movie but don’t qualify as diehard fans.

Our tour guide told us of some fans who came to Hobbiton dressed in costume and then walked for two days, barefoot, to the mountain where the volcano sequences were shot. Upon arrival they bought expensive gold rings and flew via an ultralight over the volcano and then threw the rings into the firey chasm.

We had no idea how to go about touring Hobbiton. Our taxi cab driver in Auckland told us only guided tours were allowed. Solo vistors were not accommodated. Nonetheless, we drove to Matamata to the iSite tourist information center. The lady asked, “How soon can you be ready?” We lucked out by scoring a parking spot directly in front of the visitor center’s entrance so five minutes later we were on the bus and off to see the 44 Hobbit houses set in the side of a hill.

It was a fun visit even for lukewarm fans like us. The setting is beautiful and our guide told us stories about the making of the movies and the incredible detail that was observed to make the movies as realistic as possible.

A sideline benefit was that the setting was some of the prettiest countryside like what we’d been admiring on our drive that morning. Pastoral views of sheep and cattle grazing on lush green hillsides.

We arrived at our B&B in Rotorua around five. Our hosts, Mike and Peter, helped us set our itinerary for the next two days. First up: hot springs baths tonight. Tomorrow, gysers and bubbling hot springs in two locations, a visit to the town museum and a Maori cultural presentation and dinner tomorrow afternoon and evening. On Sunday we’ll press on to Taupo, driving there via Waitomo to see the glow worm caves. That ought to keep us out of mischief!

So we’re in our room, all tingly and glowing from the thermal hot springs and a nice steak dinner. It’s only 11:00 and we don’t have to be up for breakfast until 8:15 AM tomorrow.

Oh and by the way: Judy’s hobby is to rate toilet facilities wherever we go. Compared to squat pits in many parts of Asia, New Zealand’s are just fine. She was especially impressed by the public loo in downtown Matamata that sported fresh cut flowers.

Day 2: Waiheke Island

~ Jon and Judy Rick

Well, the love is back: my blog is back on the approved list.You know, maybe travelpod.com ought to apply their spam-checking algorithms against Hillary and Donald’s blogs and see if they get shut down too.

First today’s bad news: We didn’t come across a new single historical, cultural, political, anthropological, psychosocial or geological factoid to enliven today’s blog entry. We’ll just have to go with the story of today’s activities for this entry. Maybe one or two snapshots. Let’s al hope for better pickings tomorrow.

What we did today was to take a 35 minute ferry ride to Waiheke Island, a 1.5 hour bus tour, a three hour hike through a heavily forested wildlife preserve, stopped for lunch at the Stoney Mountain vineyard (food but no wine: too expensive!) and came back across for a nice supper at the top of the Sky Tower here in downtown Auckland. Judy’s Garmin recorded 18,450 steps,43 flights of stares and 8.67 miles. I shot almost 300 pictures so all in all not a bad day’s work. Garmin also recorded 2,015 calories burned but don’t worry, intake exceeded output by a significant margin as I’ll discuss in a minute.

Briefly, the story of Waiheke is:

– Erupted from volcanic activity quite some time ago, although nearby Rangitoto came into being 600 years ago. New Zealand is an active geothermal area for sure.

– Polynesian sailors arrived in New Zealand about 900 years ago. They discovered the island and named it Motu-Wai-Heke, “island of trickling waters”, a spiritual site for the Maoris.

– The Brits came and set up shop in the 18th and especially the 19th centuries, driving off the Maoris through sickness and war and mangling the perfectly good Maroi name into Waiheke.

– Waiheke became a quiet part of greater Auckland. Ferry service started in 1930 but otherwise a pretty quiet place.

– Hippies populated Waiheke in the 1970s.

– Lately it has become a playground for the rich and famous. Median home prices hover around $1 million.

– You would be hard pressed to find a good location for a pool table. It’s hilly everywhere except on its more than 100 beaches.

So a pretty unremarkable story. It’s actually the story of a whole bunch of places on our planet:
Geological upheaval; indigenous populations discover the place; Europeans rediscovers the place, take the land and kill of most of the indigenous people; Hippies come and smoke a pipe of peace, love and all the rest; The rich and famous rediscover the place and build mega-mansions and drive property values through the roof. Ho, hum. Another story of Imperialism gone bad.

But I was supposed to save this stuff for tomorrow. Sorry.

The trip on the ferry was fun: a sunny day with great views of Auckland as we left port. Then a really fun hike through the heavily forested nature preserves near the town of Onetangi. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. The trip home was cold and windy, which gave us the excuse for a nice quick nap inside, rocked to sleep by the gentle swells. It was a much needed nap since having gone to bed at 10 last night Judy awoke at 2 and I at 5 so were just a bit jet lacked and sleep deprived at this point.

I’m sorry to say this big bird shooter pretty much struck out in the woods today. It was maddening. One beautiful, exotic sounding bird after another close by but hidden high in the branches of a tall, dense tree. All I got were a few shots of shore birds that would just as soon grab the sandwich out of your hand as anything else.

Dinner tonight was at the top of the 300-odd-foot Sky Tower in the heart of downtown and about six blocks from our hotel. It has a revolving dining room on the 52nd floor. Really nice gourmet dinner. The only catch as that each person is required to order NZ$40 of food, a target we greatly exceeded. Actually it was a pretty good deal because the dinner reservations gave us tickets for the ride up, normally $28 per person. So dinner, after subtracting $26 from $40 and converting to US$, came closer to US$10. You can hardly eat at McDonalds for that anymore.

Speaking of dining, so far we’ve had Malaysian, French, Italian, Museum and Bagel Shop food. But sooner or later we’ll tuck into a big, gnarly, cured-on-the-hoof shank of sheep. We’ll let you know how that comes out.

So now it’s on to the next phase of the adventure: the rental car. Think “Left, Left, Left” for us tomorrow. We’re off to Hobbitton and Rotorua.

Day 1 – Auckland

~ Jon and Judy Rick

Traveling for 14 hours in economy class is a pain in the you-know-what. And by that I mean that it really hurts to sit that long on a poorly-padded, narrow chair.

Other than that the flights were quite pleasant. Pretty much on time although we had to sprint to make the connection in Houston.

People ask us, “How do you stand a 14 hour flight? I just could never do it.” But you know what? It really isn’t all that bad. You just have to channel the inner couch potato that lurks inside each of us. What’s wrong with vegging out for 14 hours? Read a good book; watch a few movies; eat and drink; take before bedtime naps. Before you know it you’re there. Try it. Don’t let long airplane rides stand between you and your bucket list.

We planned our sleeping schedule so that we retired for the night at about 9 PM Auckland time, which was about 4 AM Windham time. We had a nap on the Boston-Houston flight. We cleared customs, caught the busses and finally found our hotel about 9 AM. We felt well enough to tackle a full day out on the tourist trail so the plan seems to have worked (thanks, Jeff for the idea. We’ll probably crash and burn tomorrow and as I type this at 5:30 PM Judy’s down for a nap and I’m feeling it too. A quick bite to eat and then we’ll call it a day early.

Finding the hotel turned out to be an adventure. We figured on a three-block walk from the bus stop to the hotel. What we didn’t figure on was the construction project that pretty much obliderated Courthouse Lane. Three locals, including an Office Max delivery guy, didn’t have a clue. But a nice lady took us right to the hotel. Nice folks, these Kiwis. Our room is in an apartment high rise (we’re on the 30th floor). A company has purchased a number of units and rent them out as hotel rooms. We have a beautiful view of the city and waterfront and it has all the features of a good downtown city hotel. The price isn’t bad, either ($100-ish U.S.)

We came to New Zealand interested in the Maori people and their culture and their relationship with European-descended New Zealanders (Pakeha, as the Maroi call them). We expected to dive into this subject later on but our education started on the flight from Houston and continued during the day.

First, we watched videos on the plane of the recent rugby Test matches between our beloved All Black team and the arch rival Australian Wallabies. Rugby is a religion in New Zealand and it’s not hard to become a fan, even if you don’t quite know what rugby is all about. My interpretation of rugby is that rugby is to American football (not soccer) as collegiate wrestling is to Cagematch professional wrestling. The basic idea is to move the ball across the other team’s goal line. Kicking is involved. The action never stops except for penalties. And the penalties have nothing to do with kicking, gouging and other forms of mayhem and personal injury actions, all of which seem to be perfectly normal . Penalties seem to be highly technical and I never did figure the logic, if any, behind them.

But I digress. Before the match started, the New Zealand and Austrailian national anthems were sung. The New Zealand anthem was sung first in Maori and then English. The players all new the words to both versions and sang them with great gusto and emotion.

And then the most amazing thing: the All Black players performed a Haka – a Maori ritual war dance designed to align the warriors with the spirits, to bring them into a state of physical readiness and, judging from the Wallabies’ reaction, to strike fear in the hearts of the opponents. Really a spectacular display.

We stopped at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The Boar War and World War I are highly important in New Zealand’s history and indeed a good part of the museum is devoted to these conflicts. But an even bigger and more prominent part of the museum is given over to Maroi culture. We attended a Maori Cultural performance, which involved traditional Maori signing and dancing, including the finale: a Haka.

After the performance we chatted with one of the ladies who had performed, perhaps the leader of the six-person group. I asked her about how Maori people fit into New Zealand. She said that recently there had been great progress in establishing Maori culture within New Zealand, but that it had been a long, hard struggle. The British, in the treaty of Waiting (1840), took away soverenty from the Maoris, who had been on the islands for 600 years or so before the arrival of Abel Tasman in the seventeenth century. In return the Maori were granted the right to own land. But of course the treaty didn’t work out well for the Maori (the treaty written in Maori didin’t agree with the English version, for example). It’s implementation favored the Brits, as was often the case in the Empirial Age.

I asked her if the Maori language was being preserved. She said that language preservation was a problem but that progress was being made. There is a move to require Maori language instruction in the primary grades. She hereself attended a Maori language immersion school for all 13 years of her public schooling (she speaks excellent English).

So the tentative indication: Maori culture is apparently becoming recognized, respected and maybe even encouraged. We’ll hold final judgement until we’ve completed our travels.

Our journey today took us on the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus. We hopped off at the Museum, Eden Gardens and Mt. Eden. The bus ride itself took two hours on two intersecting loops. We spent the most time at the museum, including lunch in its pricy restaurant. Eden Gardens (botanical plantings in a reclaimed quary) and Mt Eden (a run up the hill to the highest pont in Auckland, featuring a huge crater) took exactly 30 minutes each so that we didn’t miss the bus.

Tomorrow we’re off on a ferry boat to explore an island.