New Zealand

After several days at sea our ship docked at Wellington in New Zealand, in the Land Down Under. When the Polynesian Maoris from the South Pacific discovered New Zealand they called it “Antearoa,” or the Land of the Long White Cloud. The name may have come from the heavy clouds that gathered around mountain peaks and spread for many miles along the horizon. This was one of the signs the Maoris used in their remarkable navigation feats.

Our guidebook says New Zealand was one of the last large land masses to be settled by the human race. The Polynesians arrived between 800 and 600 years ago and established their Maori culture. Dutch sailors discovered the land about 500 years ago and began to include New Zealand on their maps of the world. A Dutch cartographer christened the land “Nova Zeelandia” after a Dutch province named Zeeland. The far-ranging Captain Cook surveyed the land in 1769. Whalers arrived, eventually leading to missionaries and colonization.

Wellington is New Zealand’s bustling capital city. Part of it struck us as veddy veddy British, with gothic cathedrals, shady streets and uniformed schoolboys in ties and white shirts being herded to class by their schoolmasters. But sad to say, most modern construction in New Zealand seemed to range from undistinguished to downright ugly. It looked like fake Danish Modern in the US during the building boom of the 1950s, boxy little houses and apartment buildings with no ornamentation or softening touches anywhere.

Wellington was headquarters for the Hollywood crews that filmed “Lord of the Rings” several years ago. This was an enormous event for the people of New Zealand, since the three films were shot at over 100 locations there, and involved the work of 20,000 New Zealanders. Wellington was transformed into “Welliwood.” Their special effects were created by Weta Studios and Weta Workshops, which provided a fascinating evening for us in a local theater. They paraded their live characters with full costumes and makeup for us, and demonstrated many scenes and stunts used in the Ring trilogy. For their efforts they won a dazzling array of Academy Awards, all on display for us. They also had on hand fantastic special characters with bizarre costumes and makeup.

The next day we went to Christchurch, a city similar to Wellington but softened by the meandering Avon River that ran through it and greenbelts laid down by a farsighted 19th century city planner. His idea was to re-create an English town, and he very nearly did.

In Christchurch our tour bus took us up the coast to a huge sheep farm with a lodge on a bluff high above the sea. There was an unbelievable view of the rocky coast before us and rolling grasslands and scrub behind us as far as the eye could see. There we had high tea at 11:00 in the morning, and stuffed ourselves with scones (biscuits) and jelly and cream.

The climate in New Zealand is quite dry, so it takes a lot of land to support sheep. Someone said land there is sold not by the acre, but by how many sheep per acre the land will support - typically two or three. Our sheep farm host told us he and his family once had 8000 sheep and 3000 acres, but now they have found the tourist industry to be more profitable. So they keep only enough sheep to demonstrate shearing and herding for tourist groups. With that, we went out on the porch and watched while he demonstrated sheep herding with his two dogs and a dozen sheep. It was an impressive show.

Dunedin is in a part of New Zealand originally settled by Scotch immigrants. A couple of our well-traveled fellow guests said it looked very much like a town in Scotland. The architecture was Victorian and Edwardian, with many spires, gables and gargoyles.

While in the area we went to the scenic Shotover Gorge, where we took the boat ride to end all boat rides on the Shotover River. This was in a 28-passenger jet boat, powered by two 260 HP car engines that took us skimming over the shallow water of the river at what must have been 30 mph. The river twisted at the base of the towering rocky walls of the gorge. It was lined and pockmarked with enormous boulders, any one of which could have smashed our fragile red craft to smithereens if we had brushed against it. The boys driving these jet-powered boats obviously loved what they were doing and made sure we were drenched with spray and other unmentionable fluids. It was quite a morning. After that we watched bungee jumpers leap off a 120 foot bridge to the river below.

Our final visit was a bus ride down to the southern tip of New Zealand, which was much wetter than the rest of the country. Our destination there was Milford Sound, New Zealand’s Alaska. It lies nearly in the same latitude as the tip of South America. Nearly the whole area is a national conservancy, because of the many species of rare and endangered flora and fauna. Milford Sound itself is the site of magnificent waterfalls that are usually seen only from cruise ships and other watercraft, because of the wild and mountainous terrain surrounding it.

It was dark and chilly by the time we finally disembarked from our faithful little bus and once more took a tender out to the Crystal Serenity, which had steamed up a fjord and waited patiently for us all day, circlling Milford Sound and entertaining the passengers by gliding almost within touching distance of the spectacular waterfalls that spill into the sound. We gratefully sank back into the luxury of pampered guests.

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