Greetings, all!
Things have been fairly quiet here since the New Year. Linda is back in the office, and apparently one of the few who are – most of New Zealand goes on holiday from mid-December to mid-January. As for me, complications from my vasectomy kept me mostly inactive since Christmas, and only in the last week have I been out and about. (Yes, ouch. You don’t want to know.) Connor is enjoying his break, and is very busy being five. Today Linda took him over to the National Police College in Porirua, where a very kind constable treated him to a ride on a police motorcycle and in a police car.
The last week we had a run of Immigration Bureau summer weather – clear skies, bright sun and temperatures in the upper 70’s. This is the summer weather we moved here for. I fought back inertia and tackled some long-avoided work – weeding the flowerbeds and terrace, washing windows and cleaning the outside of the house and reclaiming the garage. I coerced Connor into slavery, beginning what I hope to be his long servitude in all things yard-related; a thoroughly selfish revenge for all the years my father so bound me to yard work in searing Florida heat and smothering humidity. The sins of the grandfathers shall be visited upon the grandsons, even down into the third and fourth generations . . . . Connor, being happy in all things, failed to notice it was slavery and had a great time. Oh, that this blissful ignorance and divine attitude will last. It was good to get active after three weeks of spuddom, and being outside in such weather is a treasure all its own. In fact, I even got sunburned for the first time in years!
Speaking of sun, I am amazed at its fervour here. We’re mid-latitude, but NZ is often under the famed southern hemisphere “ozone hole,” and has a very high UV index. It also has some of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. Now, growing up in Florida, I am no stranger to bright, hard sun. But honestly, though the temperatures and humidity are (thankfully) much lower, the sun is more intense. At times you swear you can actually feel the radiation ripping gleefully through your skin on its way to play marbles with your DNA.
The beautiful weather also motivated us to mount a Saturday exploration up the Hutt River Valley, over the Rimutaka Range and down into the Wairarapa Valley. The Rimutakas stretch about 55 kilometres (33 miles or so) north from the eastern side of Wellington Harbour, and form a natural division between the Wellington region and the Wairarapa. (Pronounced “why-ra-rap-a.” For obtuse fun I love to put on the Elmer Fudd voice and say: “Be wery, wery quiet, we’re hunting Wairarapas!” And no, I don’t know why Connor always calls me “Silly Daddy.”)
As New Zealand mountain ranges go, the Rimutakas aren’t overwhelming like the snow-shrouded ramparts of the Southern Alps, but they are beautiful and deceptively gentled by thick layers of bush. Beneath that nice green, though, lie craggy, sharp volcanic rock, numerous cliffs, gullies, deep-cut streams and steep inclines. The mountains are essentially unpopulated. The highest point in the range is only 940 meters (about 3200 feet), but the Rimutakas are still, even today, a formidable obstacle.
The range is crossed by the SH2, one of the two main –north/south roads in the North Island. The highway pinches down to what might generously be called two lanes through the range, and is a genuine hurl-o-rama with many, many switchbacks and S-turns. Sturdy railings are few, and for the most part the only thing between you and a nice 30 degree plunge into the green abyss are metal and wood poles supporting a wire “rail.” As someone who is horrendously afraid of edges (heights are fine; it’s the transitional zone between them and lows that bother me) I was not amused.
New Zealand is a young nation; the Rimutakas were not crossed by Europeans until 1841, when a party with Maori guides pushed through the pass to glimpse the broad expanse of the Wairarapa Valley beyond. Today, there is a little cafe, a scenic overlook and historical marker at the summit. You can watch cars wind their way up one side and down the other while sipping your mochachino and congratulating yourself on the fortitude of your inner ear and on making it this far in full possession of your breakfast.
Things have been fairly quiet here since the New Year. Linda is back in the office, and apparently one of the few who are – most of New Zealand goes on holiday from mid-December to mid-January. As for me, complications from my vasectomy kept me mostly inactive since Christmas, and only in the last week have I been out and about. (Yes, ouch. You don’t want to know.) Connor is enjoying his break, and is very busy being five. Today Linda took him over to the National Police College in Porirua, where a very kind constable treated him to a ride on a police motorcycle and in a police car.
The last week we had a run of Immigration Bureau summer weather – clear skies, bright sun and temperatures in the upper 70’s. This is the summer weather we moved here for. I fought back inertia and tackled some long-avoided work – weeding the flowerbeds and terrace, washing windows and cleaning the outside of the house and reclaiming the garage. I coerced Connor into slavery, beginning what I hope to be his long servitude in all things yard-related; a thoroughly selfish revenge for all the years my father so bound me to yard work in searing Florida heat and smothering humidity. The sins of the grandfathers shall be visited upon the grandsons, even down into the third and fourth generations . . . . Connor, being happy in all things, failed to notice it was slavery and had a great time. Oh, that this blissful ignorance and divine attitude will last. It was good to get active after three weeks of spuddom, and being outside in such weather is a treasure all its own. In fact, I even got sunburned for the first time in years!
Speaking of sun, I am amazed at its fervour here. We’re mid-latitude, but NZ is often under the famed southern hemisphere “ozone hole,” and has a very high UV index. It also has some of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. Now, growing up in Florida, I am no stranger to bright, hard sun. But honestly, though the temperatures and humidity are (thankfully) much lower, the sun is more intense. At times you swear you can actually feel the radiation ripping gleefully through your skin on its way to play marbles with your DNA.
The beautiful weather also motivated us to mount a Saturday exploration up the Hutt River Valley, over the Rimutaka Range and down into the Wairarapa Valley. The Rimutakas stretch about 55 kilometres (33 miles or so) north from the eastern side of Wellington Harbour, and form a natural division between the Wellington region and the Wairarapa. (Pronounced “why-ra-rap-a.” For obtuse fun I love to put on the Elmer Fudd voice and say: “Be wery, wery quiet, we’re hunting Wairarapas!” And no, I don’t know why Connor always calls me “Silly Daddy.”)
As New Zealand mountain ranges go, the Rimutakas aren’t overwhelming like the snow-shrouded ramparts of the Southern Alps, but they are beautiful and deceptively gentled by thick layers of bush. Beneath that nice green, though, lie craggy, sharp volcanic rock, numerous cliffs, gullies, deep-cut streams and steep inclines. The mountains are essentially unpopulated. The highest point in the range is only 940 meters (about 3200 feet), but the Rimutakas are still, even today, a formidable obstacle.
The range is crossed by the SH2, one of the two main –north/south roads in the North Island. The highway pinches down to what might generously be called two lanes through the range, and is a genuine hurl-o-rama with many, many switchbacks and S-turns. Sturdy railings are few, and for the most part the only thing between you and a nice 30 degree plunge into the green abyss are metal and wood poles supporting a wire “rail.” As someone who is horrendously afraid of edges (heights are fine; it’s the transitional zone between them and lows that bother me) I was not amused.
New Zealand is a young nation; the Rimutakas were not crossed by Europeans until 1841, when a party with Maori guides pushed through the pass to glimpse the broad expanse of the Wairarapa Valley beyond. Today, there is a little cafe, a scenic overlook and historical marker at the summit. You can watch cars wind their way up one side and down the other while sipping your mochachino and congratulating yourself on the fortitude of your inner ear and on making it this far in full possession of your breakfast.
Beyond the crest the mountains flow down to the Wairarapa Valley, a broad plain that makes up the south eastern portion of the island. Translated as “Glistening Waters,” the Maori so christened it for its numerous streams and large lake at its southern end. The valley is bordered by the Rimutakas to the west and a ridge of coastal mountains to the east, and varies around 15 to 20 miles in width. It’s lush and scenic and sparsely populated – at least by people. Farming, orchards, cattle and sheep ranching and a growing wine industry are the economic activities here, complemented by a small tourist trade.
Playing our role as weekend gawkers, we stopped in Greytown (2001 souls), one of the five main population centres in the Wairarapa. Founded in 1854, Greytown is one of the nation’s oldest inland settlements. Among its claims to modest New Zealand fame are the first New Zealand celebration of Arbour Day, the meeting place of the Maori Parliament, and (supposedly) that Greytown has more colonial-period Victorian buildings on its main street than any other NZ town. The locals take great pride in the later, and largely by virtue of convenient location (about an hour and a half from Wellington in good weather) have succeeded in turning their main drag into a tourist draw. Sidewalk cafes, art studios, antique shops and curio stores have sprouted where once grocers, cart wrights, blacksmiths, packers and dry goods merchants tended the needs of a farming community. On perfect Saturdays (like this one) the sidewalks are filled with casually and obliviously strolling Kiwis, oddly hiding heads under floppy hats while displaying thoroughly sunburned skin in shorts, tees, sundresses and ubiquitous Kiwi footwear – sandals, flip-flops or nothing at all. (Our theory is that many Kiwis prefer as little foot covering as possible because shoes are hideously expensive here. Evidently there is no indigenous Kiwi shoe industry. But where, I ask you, does Kiwi brand shoe polish come from, and why does it exist at all? These burning conundrums bother me.) We dutifully joined the flow in a sort of Brownian movement from one end of town to the other, across the street and back again, occasionally shunted off into a capillary store or studio. We enjoyed lunch under a patio awning fashioned from a surplus parachute and bookended by a beautiful willow. Connor’s favourite stop was the local vet and pet store, thrilled to be in close proximity to actual cats, and not his well-worn stuffed kitty. There was one little fur ball, a silver-tabby runt of the litter, that immediately made eye contact with me and did everything possible to appear as cutely pathetic as possible. “Please take me home. I am talking to you with my brain. It is your destiny. Do not resist.” I resisted. But only barely.
After this we drove up to another town, enjoying the scenery. Turning back, we stopped at a fruit stand, and went full bozo touristy and pulled off the road a couple of times to photograph sheep. Then, at last, it was back across the summit and home.
Interesting note: The Maori name for Greytown is “Te Hupenui,” which means “the big snot,” or, more accurately, “the fluid that comes out of your nose at a tangi or funeral.” I think something has been lost in translation.
In more recent news . . .
Awoke yesterday to something quite familiar but quite unexpected – hurricane weather! Or, more properly, cyclone weather. (Cyclone in southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean; typhoon in the western Pacific, hurricane in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic.) Cyclone Funa has wandered her way southwards in the Tasman Sea, and though no longer tropical in structure, she is still a tight storm and scheduled to swing across the North Island today. All day yesterday and last night it was textbook pre-hurricane weather – still as death, oppressive and humid. This morning the wind picked up and the barometer dived, and if The Met is right (and they are no more prone to be so here than NOAA in the states) winds may get up to hurricane force this evening. Not too concerned, we had several winter gales just as severe, and it is almost always windy up here on the ridges above the harbour.
New Zealand also continues to mourn the passing of its greatest legend, Sir Edmund Hillary --explorer, mountaineer, writer, philanthropist and environmental conscience. It is hard to describe, especially to Americans, the degree to which Kiwis appropriated “Sir Ed” and fashioned him into their icon. If in the last half century Americans have had any number of great figures to identify with, aspire after and take pride in, since the 1950’s New Zealand has had mainly one – Sir Edmund Hillary. Hillary always liked to present himself a simple Kiwi, representative of the strengths of the species – stoic, quiet, earnest, humble, self-effacing and above all filled with a determination capable of conquering anything, be it hostile Maori, a far-flung wilderness island, the trenches at Gallipoli, the jungles of New Guinea, or the world’s highest mountain. “If Sir Edmund can do it, I can too!” became a New Zealand mantra of self-motivation. A runty youth and late bloomer, insular and bookish, Sir Ed filled his youth with stories of adventure and exploration. He took to hiking – tramping – the bush and eventually climbing. By his late 20’s, his name circulated in the high stratosphere where only the top mountaineers breathed. He gained invitations to British expeditions in the Himalayas, and in 1953, at the age of 33, he and his Sherpa Guide Tenzing Norgay became the first known climbers to summit the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest.
Though it was this single feat that propelled him into history and made him a legend, Hillary continued a long life of travel, adventure and exploration. He led a New Zealand expedition to the South Pole in 1958, the first to reach it since Amundsen and Scott in 1911 and 12. He continued to explore and climb the Himalayas, and pursued a life-long mission to help the Nepalese build schools and hospitals. He flirted briefly with politics, and in his later years was gifted with a sort of “elder statesman” status by those concerned with protecting wilderness areas. Now, the quiet climber is off chasing peaks in another dimension, and his nation mourns him. As he considered himself a quintessential Kiwi, his death has taken a little of that old, colonial frontier, ANZAC essence from the land. Flags fly at half-mast and measures are pouring forth to rename a great multitude of things in his honour, from roads to lakes and parks and mountain peaks. I myself feel some historical and personal tremor at his passing, for he is one of the last remnants of a time when there were still frontiers in the world and that world had room for quiet, wiry heroes who pushed themselves against odds and elements to roll back the boundaries of the unknown. Today, commercial expeditions take scores up Everest’s slopes every season, in numbers so large that trash is now a major problem along its once inviolate slopes. And thus the story of human curiosity and the ironies of discovery and its eventual offspring, exploitation. From mystery to miracle to money in a generation, and on to other things. It horrified Sir Ed, who, having been there before all others, could not forget what had been nor drift into the easy ambivalence with which our modern world regards the once unassailable bastions of nature. Goodbye Sir Ed, may your journey of discovery and sense of wonder take you to new frontiers in what world lies beyond. Goodbye, and well done.
And that’s the latest from down under.
Playing our role as weekend gawkers, we stopped in Greytown (2001 souls), one of the five main population centres in the Wairarapa. Founded in 1854, Greytown is one of the nation’s oldest inland settlements. Among its claims to modest New Zealand fame are the first New Zealand celebration of Arbour Day, the meeting place of the Maori Parliament, and (supposedly) that Greytown has more colonial-period Victorian buildings on its main street than any other NZ town. The locals take great pride in the later, and largely by virtue of convenient location (about an hour and a half from Wellington in good weather) have succeeded in turning their main drag into a tourist draw. Sidewalk cafes, art studios, antique shops and curio stores have sprouted where once grocers, cart wrights, blacksmiths, packers and dry goods merchants tended the needs of a farming community. On perfect Saturdays (like this one) the sidewalks are filled with casually and obliviously strolling Kiwis, oddly hiding heads under floppy hats while displaying thoroughly sunburned skin in shorts, tees, sundresses and ubiquitous Kiwi footwear – sandals, flip-flops or nothing at all. (Our theory is that many Kiwis prefer as little foot covering as possible because shoes are hideously expensive here. Evidently there is no indigenous Kiwi shoe industry. But where, I ask you, does Kiwi brand shoe polish come from, and why does it exist at all? These burning conundrums bother me.) We dutifully joined the flow in a sort of Brownian movement from one end of town to the other, across the street and back again, occasionally shunted off into a capillary store or studio. We enjoyed lunch under a patio awning fashioned from a surplus parachute and bookended by a beautiful willow. Connor’s favourite stop was the local vet and pet store, thrilled to be in close proximity to actual cats, and not his well-worn stuffed kitty. There was one little fur ball, a silver-tabby runt of the litter, that immediately made eye contact with me and did everything possible to appear as cutely pathetic as possible. “Please take me home. I am talking to you with my brain. It is your destiny. Do not resist.” I resisted. But only barely.
After this we drove up to another town, enjoying the scenery. Turning back, we stopped at a fruit stand, and went full bozo touristy and pulled off the road a couple of times to photograph sheep. Then, at last, it was back across the summit and home.
Interesting note: The Maori name for Greytown is “Te Hupenui,” which means “the big snot,” or, more accurately, “the fluid that comes out of your nose at a tangi or funeral.” I think something has been lost in translation.
In more recent news . . .
Awoke yesterday to something quite familiar but quite unexpected – hurricane weather! Or, more properly, cyclone weather. (Cyclone in southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean; typhoon in the western Pacific, hurricane in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic.) Cyclone Funa has wandered her way southwards in the Tasman Sea, and though no longer tropical in structure, she is still a tight storm and scheduled to swing across the North Island today. All day yesterday and last night it was textbook pre-hurricane weather – still as death, oppressive and humid. This morning the wind picked up and the barometer dived, and if The Met is right (and they are no more prone to be so here than NOAA in the states) winds may get up to hurricane force this evening. Not too concerned, we had several winter gales just as severe, and it is almost always windy up here on the ridges above the harbour.
New Zealand also continues to mourn the passing of its greatest legend, Sir Edmund Hillary --explorer, mountaineer, writer, philanthropist and environmental conscience. It is hard to describe, especially to Americans, the degree to which Kiwis appropriated “Sir Ed” and fashioned him into their icon. If in the last half century Americans have had any number of great figures to identify with, aspire after and take pride in, since the 1950’s New Zealand has had mainly one – Sir Edmund Hillary. Hillary always liked to present himself a simple Kiwi, representative of the strengths of the species – stoic, quiet, earnest, humble, self-effacing and above all filled with a determination capable of conquering anything, be it hostile Maori, a far-flung wilderness island, the trenches at Gallipoli, the jungles of New Guinea, or the world’s highest mountain. “If Sir Edmund can do it, I can too!” became a New Zealand mantra of self-motivation. A runty youth and late bloomer, insular and bookish, Sir Ed filled his youth with stories of adventure and exploration. He took to hiking – tramping – the bush and eventually climbing. By his late 20’s, his name circulated in the high stratosphere where only the top mountaineers breathed. He gained invitations to British expeditions in the Himalayas, and in 1953, at the age of 33, he and his Sherpa Guide Tenzing Norgay became the first known climbers to summit the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest.
Though it was this single feat that propelled him into history and made him a legend, Hillary continued a long life of travel, adventure and exploration. He led a New Zealand expedition to the South Pole in 1958, the first to reach it since Amundsen and Scott in 1911 and 12. He continued to explore and climb the Himalayas, and pursued a life-long mission to help the Nepalese build schools and hospitals. He flirted briefly with politics, and in his later years was gifted with a sort of “elder statesman” status by those concerned with protecting wilderness areas. Now, the quiet climber is off chasing peaks in another dimension, and his nation mourns him. As he considered himself a quintessential Kiwi, his death has taken a little of that old, colonial frontier, ANZAC essence from the land. Flags fly at half-mast and measures are pouring forth to rename a great multitude of things in his honour, from roads to lakes and parks and mountain peaks. I myself feel some historical and personal tremor at his passing, for he is one of the last remnants of a time when there were still frontiers in the world and that world had room for quiet, wiry heroes who pushed themselves against odds and elements to roll back the boundaries of the unknown. Today, commercial expeditions take scores up Everest’s slopes every season, in numbers so large that trash is now a major problem along its once inviolate slopes. And thus the story of human curiosity and the ironies of discovery and its eventual offspring, exploitation. From mystery to miracle to money in a generation, and on to other things. It horrified Sir Ed, who, having been there before all others, could not forget what had been nor drift into the easy ambivalence with which our modern world regards the once unassailable bastions of nature. Goodbye Sir Ed, may your journey of discovery and sense of wonder take you to new frontiers in what world lies beyond. Goodbye, and well done.
And that’s the latest from down under.
