Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
UNDER THE SUN
New Zealand; Somewhere in Nowhere.
Or, in Maori, Aotearoa (the land of the long white cloud)
Things we all know about New Zealand: Kiwis' are New Zealanders, vitamin c enriched green fruit and exceedingly rare flightless birds mostly seen as furry toys in tourist centres; The ozone is super thin, so you can't walk out the door without SPF30 slapped on your face; Explorer and navigator Captain James Cook sailed around the islands aboard his ship the Endeavour making contact with the Maori in 1769 while looking for rich lands the English might exploit; Jonah Lomu plays for the All Blacks rugby team; It was the first nation in the world to give women voting rights in 1893; Helen Clark is the Prime Minister; Greenpeace's flagship 'Rainbow Warrior' was mysteriously blown up in 1985 by French agents (perhaps); Peter Jackson directed the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and has become inconceivably rich;
Something's that you might not know: It rains a lot; The Maori first found Aotearoa around 1000AD while looking for new lands but did not settled properly until 1300 onwards. It is speculated that these first Polynesian explorers were searching for new pastures due to over population in their homelands; The only native land mammal to New Zealand is the bat; Maori hunted Moa, a huge flightless bird, to extinction 400 years ago; NZ is a little larger than the UK but has only 3.8 million people (14% Maori) and 40 million sheep; It nestles in the Pacific Ocean between Latitudes 34 and 47 degrees south which means the water is freezing and there can be very chilly south westerly winds coming off Antarctica; It is at this point 13hrs ahead of British time - GMT, but 24hrs away by airplane; It is the first country to see the sun rise (Fiji made a little change to this for 2000 by diverting the International Date Line to flank its east coast so that it would be credited with being the first to see in the new millennium...but New Zealanders say they can be the first to see the sunrise by climbing a number of high hills; The Weta or mount cook flea can weigh up to 71grams and size near a small thrush...they're not dangerous, despite vicious looking and were possibly the inspiration for Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger's 'alien'; The islands are 70% self-sufficient, although, and this is perhaps a model for the rest of the world, its gas and oil reserves are due to run dry in 20 -30 years. The nocturnal possum was introduced from Australia in 1837 to kick start a fur industry...there are now 70 million running amok, munching 7 million tons of vegetation and native fauna every year. Chemical 1080, banned everywhere else in the world, is used to control possums.
First impressions on Auckland - Auckland is a tad boring, you can't buy fresh fruit and it rains intermittently every day. Like Glasgow on both counts then. I kinda caught one of those unfathomable tropical colds in Fiji and spent the majority of my initial three days in New Zealand a bit sick and tucked up in a grotty wee room.
- comments