The Other Down Under, New Zealand

(Plus Australia again, 9 flights, 23 days, 2017)

Feb. 14, 2017: Two OK flights on Qantas coach, connecting through Brisbane, brought us to Auckland on a mildly rainy day.  I am traveling with sister and spouse, on an OAT adventure in New Zealand and extended to Australia as independent travel.   Next day still off and on rainy, so we visited the Auckland Tower.  Next day a sunny bus tour around the hills and harbor areas of Auckland as well as the War Memorial Museum and introductions to the Maori.  Three weeks and I still have no grasp of the Maori place in current New Zealand society.  The tourist line is that Queen Victoria’s treaty of the 1850s gave them everything, then they gave it back – but they still own it??  I need to find a thoughtful non-fiction book that sorts this all out.  They are about 15% of the population, have no official political party, but own all the fish, timber, and resources of the country – while these are exploited by the general population.

Saturday, Feb. 18, 2017:  Today we go by bus to Rotorua, a day has been lost by crossing the International Date Line.  The drive, about 150 miles, is through rolling farm land maybe like Pennsylvania and Ohio, with many dairy farms, we visit one later, and uniquely deer farms.  The Rotorua area is characterized by extensive geothermal activity.  The smell of sulphur gas is prominent around the town and nearby is a very large park, Waimangu Volcanic Valley, with many geysers and bubbling mud pools.  The area erupted in the 1880s and is the only such geothermal area that appeared in a time of human recorded history.  It has much in common with Yellowstone in the US.   After two nights here, we flew through Auckland to Queenstown on the south island. 

Our visit to the dairy farm was very interesting – especially since sister and I both grew up on a small, a little more than 100 acres, dairy farm in western Pennsylvania.   Since NZ has no winter in the low lands their cattle need no shelter or food for a cold season in contrast to Pennsylvania, where we had to grow and harvest grain and hay to sustain the herd through winter.  The cattle eat nothing but grass.  On a farm about the same size as the Pa. one, 150 acres, they support about 150 head of dairy stock while the Pa. farm supported only 15 to 30.  The NZ farm is portioned into say ten 15 acre plots and the cattle all graze in same plot for a few days, then cycle to the next.  In this way 9 of the 10 plots are idle with the grass recovering for 9/10 of the time, and supports 150 cattle, 8 – 10 times the Pa. number.  Further, all the cows are synchronized to be with calf and subsequently producing milk at the same time.  As a result in the final month or six weeks before calving they are all dry, and the dairy family get a nice long vacation.  Many contrast to the dairy the writer grew up on where there was never a day off.  In 2017 organic food products are very popular.  This dairy is supposedly certified to produce organic.  When I asked what they had to do different to be organic, the response was “keep records.”

Monday, Feb. 20, 2017:  Today we flew to Queenstown on the south island.  Next day a long bus ride over mountains and grazing land brought us to Milford Sound, one of about four fjords on the west side of the south island.  A fjord is a river gouged out by a glacier in contrast to most rivers just washed out by water flow.  Population is very sparse in much of NZ and especially on the south island.  Indeed, not even many roads, but with majestic scenery.  However, much like several of our northwestern states, say Montana, so not as awesomely new and different as say travel to Africa or India.  On Wednesday most of our group went for a “Disney World” jet boat ride, while I chose to stay behind and hike up the mountain that fronts the south of Queenstown.  There is also a chair lift, which I skipped, and a lot of mountain bikers racing down a trail that sometimes crosses the hiking trail.

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017:  Today we, the OAT group, bused over Haast Pass to Fox Glacier, then north through Hokitika to Greymouth.   One morning from Greymouth area we were able to get a momentary glimpse of M.t Cook 12,218 ft., big deal for NZ tourists, but for us Californians who have packed to the top of Mt. Whitney, 14,505 ft. ……. Hmmmm.  On Saturday we explored Hokitika.  This is an interesting gold rush town that retains some of the 1800 character and a worthy visit.   A good book, fiction, written by a local, Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries, Is set in the 1860 gold rush days of Hokitika, about 10 years after the California gold rush.  Sunday we drive back to the east side of the island to Christchurch, and later flying to Wellington.  Along the way at a stop at a sheep farm (ranch) we’re treated to a demonstration of a well-trained sheepdog.  On that Pa. farm I had one of these dogs, Border Collie or Australian Sheepdog, that I trained, but not as well.  These dogs have a great instinct for herding.

Wednesday, Mar. 1, 2017:  After a couple days visiting Wellington today we disperse.   My sister, her spouse, and I fly to Sydney where I am priviledged to show us around Australia for more than a week.  We visited Sydney, the north coast around Cairns and of course a trip out to the Barrier Reef.