So, a lot of the tours I took gave me a lot of information which I found wonderfully interesting, but had no idea how to put into my blog.
So, here it is. My solution. One post on all the stuff I remembered from the various drivers and guides. Wrote all of it here so I would know where my knowledge went when I forget it. Which I will. It is my super power.
No pics, just a lot of words.
Pull up a comfy couch and load up on your caffeine of choice, because this… is a long one.
Auckland history
Auckland was first settled by the Polynesians who traveled from the Pacific Ocean to the east coast of the island in the area of Waitemata Harbour.
When they arrived, they found a peaceful, calm harbor with golden sand beaches and abundant ‘kimawana’ or seafood. The area was also easy to navigate their big canoes around.
Later, the Europeans came via the Tasman Sea, to the west coast around the area of Manakau Harbour. The seas were stormy, rough, and rugged. The beaches were black sand and the rivers had bars across which made navigating them difficult if not impossible for the ships. In other words, it was not a place they wanted to land. Eventually they made their way around the island to the east side, and found the calmer side of the island.
After coexisting in relative peace for several years, the Maori and the Europeans signed the treaty of Witing in 1840, and that event is generally accepted as the founding of New Zealand.
In 1843, the local ronatiera (Chief of the local tribe) gave Governor Hobbson 3000 acres of land to build a city, and that is how Auckland started.
Today over 5.1 million people live in New Zealand. 1.6 million of those live in Auckland, which is the largest Polynesian city in the world, and the most spread out city in the Southern hemisphere.
Our bus driver said if you could travel at a consistent speed of 90 km an hour from the northern most point of Auckland to the southern most point, it would take over an hour to transverse the distance. So, more than 90 km long and thus ‘spread out’ is what I believe was trying to be illustrated with that information.
Auckland sits on an ismis, which we learned in geography class is a narrow piece of land bounded by two bodies of water. At the narrowest point, between Waitemata Harbour and Manakau Harbour, it is 1.5 km across.
Since it is a narrow piece of land, and vital to travel between the north and south, it was highly contested between the Maori Iwi (tribes).
The Europeans had their 3000 acres, so left the Maori alone until, as Europeans tend to do, they outgrew their 3000 acres and started southward into Maori lands.
At the time, Maori and the Europeans existed in relative peace, and traded items on a regular basis. The Maori did not have metal, so it was not uncommon for them to trade small parcels of land for hoes, axes or other tools. On the surface, that could appear as the Europeans were taking advantage of the Maori because land was more valuable than a hoe. However, it was equally known for a European to enter into a trade for a parcel of land, making the payment to the Maori, only to discover later the individual Maori had no claim nor ownership of the land he had traded.
Due to trades and deals like this becoming more common and tensions rising, as Europeans do, Governor Hobbson decided he did not like the trend and brought in his forces to ‘keep the peace.’
As those forces moved southward, they were followed by colonizers and small European communities started to appear along the route. Those communities eventually grew together and are considered to be Auckland’s suburbs today. The road they followed as they made their way south is now the Southern motorway of Auckland, which is part of the State Highway 1 network that reaches from the very top of the North Island to the southern most tip of the South Island.
Today in Auckland, the biggest problem according to the locals, is people keep coming here. The diversity gives wonderful cultural experiences and a steady workforce to accommodate the growth, but the infrastructure, especially housing, roads and public transportation are behind the growth curve.
In downtown Auckland today it appears there are several road improvement projects going on, but what is really happening is a new underground tunnel network is being built that will create a loop around the central downtown district. That project should be completed later this year.
There are also several road improvement projects, including widening the roads which are ongoing throughout the country but often limited by the natural terrain of the area.
That means the islands are mountainous and the whole place is surrounded by water. In fact, around 55 extinct volcanoes have been found here, and no, they do not know exactly how many were here originally, which is why I said ‘around.’
Before humans cared about how many or how old volcanos were, they were whittling away, coring, and mining away a lot of the land. They used the remains from their labors to extend shorelines or fill in other areas and thus what could have been obvious volcanos were deconstructed and distributed all around the islands. Much of the flat land around the ports is reclaimed land where the fill was dumped, and as a side note, most of the land was moved around by horse and wagon by the Europeans.
Rangitoto was the last major volcano to erupt in New Zealand 600 years ago, and today all of the volcanos around Auckland are extinct. Or so they say. None went off while I was there, so I believe them.
We know they had the ability to move vast amounts of land, deconstruct volcanos and extend shorelines, yet the roads in New Zealand are rarely straight. Seems like they could have made them straight, and easier to navigate since they had the power to conquer volcanos, but as with everything, there is an underlying reason the roads are crooked.
New Zealand was a very different looking country before humans arrived. There were rolling hills that were covered in huge forests that were between 300 and 800 years old. The flat land was covered extensively in bogs and swamps, which is entirely different than today. And don’t forget the possibility of more volcanos laying around in their original, mother nature made condition.
Since the arrival of humans, things changed.
Shocker.
Not only did vocanos get moved around and shore lines extended, but New Zealand has also lost 95% of their wetlands.
When Maori arrived, they only had 2 means of transportation. Their canoes and their feet. The canoes did not travel well through the wetland bogs and swamps, and they did not like walking through the swamps where they mud squished and trapped their toes and eels nipped at their legs. So, as anyone would do, they walked around at the base of the hills where the ground was solid, eel free, and easier to transverse. Over years of avoiding the bogs and swamps, the repeated trampling footfalls formed pathways all around New Zealand.
When the Europeans arrived, they brought wagons, the wheel (obviously since they had wagons), horses and ox. Horses and ox do not like walking through eel infested bogs and swamps either, and the wheel does not like deep mud, so the Europeans quickly learned to take advantage of the Maori established paths. The Europeans widened and eased the grade of the pathways for their animals and wagons, further establishing routes through the country.
Where the roads were, settlements developed because paths are easier to transverse than wild lands, and eventually the automobile arrived. Humans may rip up volcanos and extend islands, but they are not entirely stupid. There is no reason to create new paths when perfectly good paths already exist and get you where you need to go. So, they threw a little “shingle” (I assume that is gravel) on the paths, then eventually added a little tar seal (guessing asphalt) and voilà! Roads!
With 95% of the wetlands disappearing, and new techniques to bore through mountains and build bridges, it is possible to widen and expand the network of roads. But doing so is a slow, costly process, which is why road development is slightly behind in New Zealand.
So what happened to all the bogs and marshes? If the roads avoided them, they should still be there happily supporting the native eel population, right?
Um. No. I think you know what I am going to say next.
European settlers arrived…
See? You are catching on. You knew exactly where that was going.
Well, they were there, but one of them was mucking around in a creek in the Pokeno area and pulled out a funny yellow pebble.
Gold.
Just like on the south island with the sheep farmer in Queensland, except this pile was found first.
And in Pokeno, which is really close to Waitemata harbor, the word not only went flying around the area, but around the world and everyone showed up to take advantage. In Queensland, they were able to keep their find under their hat for a day or two at least.
The Pokeno gold turned out to be a very small find, but the fever for gold was on, and was turning up in several places.
Long story shortened slightly, there was gold in a lot of places, but it was too hard for individual miners to extract because it was imbedded in the rock.
That is when the large gold mining companies moved in with their big machinery to dig into the rocks that the individuals could not. The individual miners who rushed to the area to claim their fortune were left disillusioned, with no money left to return to their homelands, and ended up working for the gold mining companies, timber companies and so forth. None of them were happy with that because they all came here wanting riches and land.
We all want riches and land. Not a unique situation. Just putting that out there.
But these people were stuck here, grumbly, and although most were working they wanted more. Along comes the crown.
They had claimed, acquired, or otherwise stolen a whole lot of land, and they were just sitting on it because guess what? It was bogs and swamps that not a whole lot of anything could be done with other than support the native eel population.
So they decided they could unload some of this land for a very cheap price to the gold rush bust population if… and there is always a catch… if they bought it, they had to drain it.
The gold rush bust people did buy the land. They had no money, no big machinery, no excavators and such so they used shovels, spades and muscles. They dug ditches, drains and trenches all across the Hauraki planes. They built flood gates and became inventive in other solutions.
They went into the bush and found the Manuka bush, that pushes up the long thin skinny stalks 15-18 feet in length. They harvested those stalks, bundled them and tied them up with flax, then took them out onto the planes and buried them to create drainage underground. Eventually the ground dried up, and they started to sew the land with grass seeds. Then they turned their sites to other areas.
If you remember from the first part of this novel, the rolling hills were originally covered in old timber forests. Well, humans had long since cleared most of that, but there were stumps and rubbish that remained. So while they waited for their dried up swamps to grow grass, they turned toward the hills and burned the rubbish and stumps to level the ground. And they planted more grass seed.
When the grass started to grow, and the land was usable, the people turned to utilizing their new landscape to raise sheep. Now the area has some of the most fertile land in New Zealand, and New Zealand produces some of the best wool in the world.
All because the crown decided to offload some worthless land on a bunch of disadvantaged people.
Power
Power in New Zealand comes from their natural resources. The number one resource an island has is… water. And they have a few rivers, so hydroelectric is their main source. The mighty Waikato river has 8 hydro dams and 9 power stations that feed power to most of the country. The 9th power station is the Huntley power station, and it is the only coal fired, natural gas-powered station in New Zealand.
The irony of the Huntley power station is they do not use Huntley coal. They do use natural gas that is pumped up from an offshore location where there is a very large oil and gas field, so that makes sense.
The Huntley region has always been known for its high quality coal. It is the 2nd largest coal field in New Zealand (2nd only to the one on the west coast of the South Island) and the coal is so special because it is some of the highest yielding and cleanest burning coal in the world.
But, as I mentioned, the Huntley power station, in the Huntley region, does not use this magic clean coal. The Huntley power station in the Huntley region of New Zealand… imports dirty coal from India and Indonesia. I am as dumbfounded as you.
There are other power sources. Around Taipo there are several geothermal power stations. More solar panels are appearing throughout the country and now, like it or not, there are wind turbines popping up.
I like wind even though I break it regularly, but New Zealand is all about their natural beauty. if you ask me. Putting wind turbines on the tops of all their mountains or even in their rolling hills would really kill the effect of the natural beauty. But that is simply my opinion on the matter. One I apparently share with several natives.
Discussions of power lead us to the Mighty Waikato River and the question of why it is called mighty. Hint: the answer is not obvious. It is not a roaring river, nor a large river. It did not defeat another river in a ring of death or river sporting battle. So, taking all of that away, we return to mother nature and the formation of earth things.
27,000 years ago there was no Mighty Waikato River. 27,000 years ago one of those pesky volcanos blew its top in the central north island of New Zealand. That eruption is known as the 5th eruption of Taupo, and it was the largest volcanic eruption in a 70-million-year period. It laid pumice and ash all over New Zealand for a depth of over 100 feet. Or so the dinosaurs recorded in their diaries as they watched the event from somewhere else since they were not on the island.
The ash blocked all the rivers, streams, and essentially any flowing water on the island, which formed a massive inland sea where the current Lake Taupo is. Except when the lake formed it was massively bigger. If you take the current lake and all the water that is there, then go straight up another 100 feet, that is how big and deep the lake was.
For 1000 years that lake sat around doing it’s lake thing without anyone to comment until it suddenly, without recorded reason, burst. In a huge, massive, big… you get the idea… deluge of rock, water and mud, a 425 km path formed from that massive lake all the way to the sea, and thus… from that mighty burst, the Mighty Waikato River was born.
It is also mighty because the Māori used it to get to the central north island, and the Europeans used it to take products like flax, timber and wool out of the central island and to their ships on the coasts. So it is mighty as a major pathway for people and things, but I like the bursting lake explanation better.
Since we are on the topic of how things were named, the southern boundary of Auckland is the Bombay hills. They are a region famous for dairy farming and thoroughbred racehorse stud farms. Neither of which have anything to do with Bombay, the city.
Enter again, the Mighty Waikato, flowing from Lake Taupo to the Tasman sea. People moved themselves and their goods inland so it was all the rage to travel the Mighty Waikato. No new news there. But, the first European settlers who came in from the Tasman sea and sailed up the Mighty Waikato, did so on a ship called the “Bombay.” And they saw the lovely Bombay hills. And as Europeans do, the celebrated their discovery by naming the hills after their boat.
Yes, it is really that simple. Disappointing really, but history is history I suppose.
Government
So in a completely unrelated detour, one bus driver told us about New Zealand government. I do not follow politics or their antics, so I am going on what he said, but I thought it was interesting so am including it for those of you who do.
New Zealand follows a Westminster system of governance, except they only have 1 house of representatives, not 2. They also have a prime minister instead of a president.
Their house of representatives has 121 seats elected every 3 years. Of the 121 seats, 7 are known as Māori seats. Māori can opt themselves to go on the Māori electoral roll and vote for one of the 7 specific Māori seats, or they can put themselves on the general roll and vote for one of the 114 other seats. They cannot do both, but they can choose which they want to do at each election.
The country votes under the MMP, or Mixed Member Proportional system of voting. It apparently is not perfect, but it works.
The last elections happened on October 23rd, the outgoing government which was led by Jacinda Ardern who resigned in January was overturned. That government was a Labor government, and she was the most divisive prime minister our bus driver had seen in his lifetime. According to him. I have no opinion or facts to back up that claim.
The New government is a National Party government led by Christopher Luxon, who is center to right in political views. He has also implemented a lot of changes in a short period of time to get the country back on track. Again, according to my bus driver. I have no knowledge of what track they were on or what track they needed to get back to.
Aside from that, there was note that the media has become so biased and sensationalized that people no longer watch the news at all here. So that is a universal thing, or at least the bus driver and I agree entirely on that point.
Economy
Politics led to discussions of economy because this was a long drive and our driver was very knowledgeable about a lot of things. And enjoyed talking. All good this trip because I could understand the words easily, and I was learning a lot.
Tourism was slugging it out with dairy for several years before covid, but then covid killed more than people, and number 1 tourism fell to the dairy industry. Recently, however, tourism is making a comeback. Still second, but a strong comeback.
So, why dairy? Why not wool or meat? New Zealand and Sheep are synonyms after all.
Great question, long answer.
Europeans when they settle, they like to congregate in communities of their own. Little shanty towns that grow into bigger towns, and out on the planes the little townships popped up all over the place. Kind of talked about how that happened and why already so I will not rehash.
One day someone came along with a few dairy cows and they started to supply fresh milk butter and cheese to the local families of one of these small towns. Then a few other dairy farmers turned up on the outskirts of town and they worked together and built a little factory, and after a bit, every town had their own local dairy cooperative.
All was good because refrigeration did not exist yet and fresh supply was always in demand, and each town had enough to meet their needs.
When refrigeration did come along, it helped all the industries. It started the beef industry because now the meat could be shipped or at least kept fresh longer, increasing the demand for cattle. It helped the sheep industry because it was no longer just about the wool. Now it was about exporting frozen lamb to other countries.
Which brings us up to the 1950’s when the government realized the country was importing more goods than they were exporting, and they needed to grow the balance of trade quickly. In order to do that, they turned to their 3 biggest industries at the time and set up 3 different producer boards. The meat board, the wool board and the dairy board were each charged with finding ways to grow exports of their products.
All the boards were composed of farmers who were elected to the boards by other farmers and those on the boards were probably the best farmers New Zealand had at the time in their respective industry. Well done.
Except only the dairy board realized they were farmers, not marketing agents, and thus entirely unsuited for the task they were given. The Dairy board hired people who knew how to market products, and offered expertise to those marketing people about the product they wanted marketed. The other two boards tried to do it on their own, and as a result, the growth shown in those two industries was more due to world demand than marketing genius.
Which answers the question posed, so I should end the information, but I am me.
In the late 1950’s milk powder came along and by 1965 the NZ dairy board built the first big milk powder factory in NZ at Tauranga. The factory was paid for by the farmers who paid levies to the dairy board, but many said it would never turn a profit and rolled their eyes at the waste.
Eh, wrong. Now there are milk powder factories all over New Zealand and milk powder makes up 50% of dairy exports.
During this time, the guys on the dairy board looked around to all these little co-ops serving all these little towns and noticed that the excess milk was being dumped. So having been charged with growing the dairy industry, they concluded throwing out perfectly good milk because their town didn’t need it was probably a bad idea.
So smart. That took some thinking right there.
The board went to the local co-ops asked them to consider selling them their extra milk instead of dumping it, and that is what started to bring all of the smaller co-ops together under one umbrella. Excess milk was no longer dumped but instead taken to the milk powder factories. The dairy farmer made more money, and the country had more to export. Today that umbrella over the co-op dairy farmers is known as Fonterra and is the
largest dairy company in the world. It is as big as Nestle or Pfizer and exports to over 160 countries.
But they are not the only company in New Zealand. Sunlane and Open Country Dairy (OCD) are two others. So, like America when a farmer goes with a certain seed company, they post a sign to show what they are growing, here there is a metal flag by the dairy farm to show who they sell their milk to. Blue flags with a 6 digit number is Fonterra. A pink flag supplies Sunlane. Green flags that start with OCD supply Open Country Dairy.
And there is one more that has a great story. A brown flag means they supply Tatua. Tatuanui was once a thriving community in the center of the dairy region. Today all that is left of the town is a school, 3 houses and a milk factory. But everyone within an 8 mile radius of that town has a brown flag outside their farm. They are not required to supply that milk factory, they choose to. There is even a Fonterra factory within the 8 mile radius, but these farmers all remain loyal to Tatua because Tatua has always paid their farmers better than the bigger guys.
I love that story. Not only because the little guy is hanging on, but because in this culture, the little guy can exist and not be stomped out of business by corporate greed.
So, speaking of corporate, back to the economy of New Zealand.
Meat (Beef and Lamb) and wool have been in the top 5 for economic powerhouses for decades. Probably because of the meat and wool boards following in dairy’s footsteps after they figured out what dairy was up to. Although wool has declined in last 40 years because of synthetics, they still keep a good portion of the market because Merino wool still commands a premium in the garment industry.
That I know well having purchased light weight Merino clothing for this trip. Ca-ching. Or at least more pricy than my usual $5 cotton t’s.
Other staples of the economy are forestry, fishing, film making, wines and fruit products, and thoroughbred horse breeding and racing. Nobody knows about the horses according to the driver except the breeders and the people who come here and drop millions on a horse, but the point is many people do come here and drop millions on a horse, which makes it a big part of the economy.
You cannot talk about New Zealand economy without talking about trees. Or bushes for that matter. Ever since Europeans arrived, they have been exporting timber and flax.
Flax, or native flax of New Zealand is a clumpy bush. The Māori recognized the high tensile strength of the fibers within the leaf and used it for lashing (like ropes, not to lash people with, or I assume. I do not know) weaving, basket making and so on. They even figured out how to soften it and make it more pliable so they could use it for clothing.
When the Europeans arrived and ‘discovered’ the properties of the plant, they started exporting it to be made into rope.
The Europeans did discover something useful about the flax plant that apparently the natives had not capitalized on. When the long stalk sticks up from the plant it carries the seed pods to the top. When the seed pods ripen and mature, they fill with oils, and oil is useful to the Europeans. They started harvesting flax for the oil, and exporting it, which is why you may have heard of flax seed oil.
Since they were exporting things, and timber was everywhere, you guessed it, they exported that too. Native trees, some perhaps thousands of years old, covered the rolling hills. Europeans needed good wood to build homes, boats, industries… you know there is a lot of uses for good old hard wood.
In fact, after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, a lot of timber from New Zealand was sent to help rebuild the homes, and apparently several of them are still standing today.
Now all of the native trees of New Zealand are protected, but forestry is a huge industry because it is not about the Native trees, it is about exotic forests.
When early Europeans tried to start farming here, it didn’t really work out for them, and in the 1930’s depression, many of the farmers were forced to walk away. The crown took much of the land, as they usually do, but governments did not want people out of work. So, the crown encouraged the farmers by paying them to plant pine forests.
The problem was, the quickest growing native New Zealand tree would take 200 years to reach a millable size. That was not going to make anyone money in their lifetime. Obviously. So they looked around the northern hemisphere and found Pinus ratiata, which would take 80 years to grow to a millable size.
Solution found, they went about planting it in the North island which grew into the largest manmade forest in New Zealand, the Kaingaroa state forest. In the 1970’s the forest reverted to the Māori people as they alleged the crown had taken the land illegally. Ironically, the crown kept all the trees in the deal, and now there is a partnership between the two groups to manage the area.
Anyway, there is massive forestry in the central north island of New Zealand. Now there are also vast pine astraliata forests everywhere in New Zealand. Because farmers see the potential. When they start farming, they plant a field of trees so when they get to retirement age in 25 years, they will be able to sell off the trees and that will be their retirement.
25 years? Yes. It turns out pine astraliata grows faster in New Zealand than other places. Instead of being millable at 80 years, it only takes 25. The drawback is it is a soft wood instead of a hard wood, but it is used in pulp and paper products, so has a good market.
On an interesting note, all of the native trees of New Zealand are evergreen trees, so they are green all year around. Or most of the year around. One type in particular, the Kowhai tree has very distinctive yellow flowers that take over the entire appearance of the tree in the early spring. The tree turns the brightest yellow one can imagine during the blooming season, and even the smallest of the trees appear to explode with millions of flowers. According to the guide. I came in autumn, not spring.
Kowhai in Māori is used to describe the color yellow, and is probably where the tree got its name. In the Māori culture, the tree is a symbol of strength, courage and renewal.
While on the subject of the Māori and this tree in particular, the bark and leaves of the Kowhai tree is used for medicinal purposes ranging from treating skin conditions to respiratory issues, although there is no indication the bees use the pollen from these trees to produce magic honey. The birds, however, flock to the trees when they bloom.
Wait, what magic honey? That brings me to another big seller; Manuka Honey. Manuka is a small delicate white flower with a pinkish, purplish tinge and apparently is only found in New Zealand. The flowering bush (smart people call it leptospermum scoparium) produces a nectar that contains Dihydroxyacetone (DHA). The bees collect and *insert magical bee tech only used by the bees with this particular plant* that turns what could be regular old honey into super Manuka honey.
The DHA in the pollen, when the bees use the magic to convert it to honey, converts into a very high concentration of a specific antimicrobial compound called MGO or Methylglyoxal.
Somehow, not sure exactly, but Leptosperin is also involved, and these 3 key chemical compounds, and the bees – you cannot discount the bees in this story – make Manuka Honey better than any other honey in the world. Which makes it expensive.
Not really. What makes it expensive is supply and demand and the ever tipping teeter totter of economics.
I will give the producers a slight edge because in order to ensure their bees are only getting pollen from the magic leptospermum scoparium, they need to have the hives close to those magic bushes. That and the fact the bushes only flower for 2 to 6 weeks per year, and as with everything, weather is a pesky factor in the process. So, when dealing with nature instead of overriding it, things do become slightly more labor intensive. Especially for the bees, and that makes this honey by production alone, a little more expensive than regular old bee honey.
Anyway, all that means is they brand their honey as a health supplement. It does everything from wound healing to gut health, oral health, sore throat relief and can even fight antibiotic resistant infections. Not to mention the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that will save you from all kinds of diseases.
I have no idea if any of the claims are true. I do know I did not buy any. Personally, I needed a little better explanation about what the magic bees were doing in their magic process that was so different from regular bees in order to believe the claims, but I pretend to understand science enough to claim that I would know what the answer meant if they provided one. They did not.
Another up and coming economic player in New Zealand is outer space. Yep, New Zealand has a space program. In 2009 Peter Beck, with no formal education but thriving interest and passion for rockets launched his first rocket off the east coast of the north island. He formed a company called Rocket Lab, and now he has 2 launch pads that send up one or two rockets a month into space.
So, why have we not heard a lot about this? Mostly because he is not sending humans into space, unless I suppose cremains could go, but I don’t classify that as a human since it is dead and essentially dirt.
But, countries and companies including the United States use Rocket Lab to launch things into orbit and it has become a very big business here.
Native Wildlife
We have talked about economy, government, and even some native plants, so lets take a side step into the wildlife because a lot of people ask why Australia has all the big scary things that will kill you and New Zealand doesn’t.
It seems like a logical question on the surface. These two islands floating around down here so far away from everything else, why wouldn’t they have similar species.
Yes, I am or was one of the ignorant. Or at least I had an answer which involved sin and sainthood mixed in with a God smiting scenario mixed up in my head to answer the question. I won’t go into it now, but if I ever write a book, you may read it.
So, going back to the time before humans… and all their ancient ancestors existed, there was one supercontinent on the planet. Which was awful because when all the weight is hanging off the front, it puts a lot of stress on the back. Posture issues, aches and pains, Hue Heffner inventing undergarments because HE understood the issues. General calamity. I know. I’m a girl. Just like mother earth.
But back in that time frame, about 400 million years ago, the giant land mass had 2 main parts Laurasia and Gondwanaland which were held together by a narrow front clipping land bra, I mean bridge.
In Gondwanaland Australia was lying on its side surrounded by and attached to Antarctica, India, South America, Africa, Madagascar, Arabia and New Zealand. Everything else was in Laurasia and for this discussion is not important.
Well things cooled down, mom earth settled in for the night, took off her confining garments and things started to slide apart.
Well not long after, the mammals and reptiles started to show up. First in Africa, but they quickly, in a geological sense, spread out across the lands.
Yeah, so what? Well, it takes people, animals, reptiles or whatever more than a few days to walk from Africa to New Zealand. Especially when they don’t have planes and need to forage for food and procreate their species. Not to mention avoiding the eels in the swamps by taking long curvy paths around mountains to get places.
Long story short, New Zealand had said see ya later to Australia by the time the mammals and reptiles reached them. No land mass for the mammals to cross. No mammals in New Zealand. That was easy.
So there are only 2 native mammals in New Zealand. First is the New Zealand fur seal. Because it swam over, probably to get away from all the other crazy. It is also not usually listed as ‘native mammal in the lists because it is technically a marine mammal and the lists like the land mammals. The second is a bat, or two species of bat. The long tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus) and the short tailed bat (Mystachina tuberculata) which we all assume flew over, but it could have hitched a ride on one of the seals if you have an imagination.
When humans arrived, that is when all heck broke loose. The Māori showed up, and they brought rats with them. Not as stowaways, but as a food source. They knew how to hunt and catch them, used them as food, and even used pelts to make clothes. So, they wanted to bring something they were familiar with to this new uncharted land. Kind of like a teddy bear.
When they arrived, they discovered a huge ostrich like bird just standing around. These birds were flightless, and having no natural predators, simply stood there and ignored the new invaders when the Māori showed up.
The birds, known as the Moa, could stand up to 3 meters tall, had more meat and feathers on them than any animal the Māori had ever seen, and their eggs were the size of a rugby ball which could make an omelet to feed at least six people.
Yeah, the Māori hunted them into extinction, but they sure ate well as they did it. Much better than the rats they brought with them. And then let loose on the island to roam around and invade the virgin landscape.
But the Moa were not the only bird on the island. In the skies above, there was a giant called the Haast Eagle. Skeletons show this eagle had a wingspan of 18 feet. The largest eagles to ever soar in the world skies or so I am told. I know I would not want one to spot me and think ‘lunch.’
But that is what they did. They spotted a moa bird standing around minding her own business, decided it looked like a good meal, and folded up their wings and divebombed into the unsuspecting moa at 90 mph. If that didn’t kill the moa, the eagles beaks and talons finished them off.
Graphic. Gross. A little unsettling the Haast couldn’t find a more humane way of killing its pray, but I suppose it was not human. And it worked for them. As we say now, you do you.
All was happy for the Haast Eagle until the Māori showed up. The Māori wiped out the Moa, and were either too fast to dive bomb or too unappetizing to even consider for the eagle, so with no primary food source, the Haast was wiped from existence.
But wait! There’s more!
A relative of the Emu, Ostrich, Kessuary and the Moa, the mighty little kiwi bird was also on the island, and it was so uninteresting to any and everything, that it survived.
About the size of a chicken, maybe a little bigger, there are still 5 species of kiwi in New Zealand. 4 are a dark brown color and the 5th is a silvery gray color. Of the 5, 2 are on the verge of extinction, but after the Moa and the Haast, the people of New Zealand are determined to save them. Still wondering why, but here we are.
The Kiwi bird in my opinion is the champion of all nerdy underdogs of the world. Not only a national symbol of an entire country, it is on every t-shirt and keychain in sight. The people are called kiwis by foreigners, and most of the world only knows New Zealand because of the kiwi, even if they believe it is only a fruit and do not realize it is a bird.
I think the Kiwi set up their own producer board and hired the best marketing team available to sell their value to the people because it is now one of the most protected birds on the islands.
The Kiwi bird is nocturnal so is not easily seen wandering around. They have horrible eyesight even though they can see a little. They have wings but cannot fly. Apparently they used to fly, because they are on the island, but since they had no natural predators they did not need the wings to fly away from a threat. Now the wings are about an inch in length and serve no purpose.
The Kiwi has the honor of saying they lay the largest egg in relation to body size of any bird in existence. The egg is equal to 20% of the kiwi body size.
In my case, that would mean my kids would have weighed in the ball park of 40 pounds at birth. Epidural required for certain. Ouch.
They run around in the muck and goo of the forest floor eating bugs, grubs and worms. They hunt by slowly and quietly walking along until they sense something, then they stand motionless. They dip their 4-5 inch long beak to the ground and sense the vibrations of the insects under or on the surface.
Before you say that is normal and not weird, you are correct. It is normal for species to sense vibrations. What is odd about the Kiwi is that unlike any other bird species, their nostrils are not where the skull and the beak meet, but they are in fact at the tip of the beak. So as he his hunting for bugs and grubs, the Kiwi gets a lot of mud and muck up his nose, and that is important to know because where the Kiwi does have a very distinct screeching call, one is more likely to know a Kiwi is nearby because of the snorting sounds he makes as he blows the muck out of his nose so he can breathe.
The one defense the Kiwi does have is very strong and powerful legs and for his size and equally remarkable talons. If you see someone holding a Kiwi, they will have a very good grip on the legs, or if they do not, they will regret it.
All of that information begs the question why would you make this blind, muck snorting, bug eating, bird a national symbol of New Zealand.
The answer is, New Zealand didn’t.
in 1910 an Australian man created a wonderful shoe polish. It could be used on all kinds of leather, from boots to saddles. This man happened to be married to a wonderful woman from New Zealand, who shortly after he invented this miracle polish, died tragically. He was grief stricken, but to honor his wife and her heritage, he called his new shoe polish “Kiwi Nugget.” He wanted to involve something unique to her homeland in the name. He sure did that.
Kiwi nugget was sold in a little round tin with the picture of a Kiwi on top surrounded by the words “Kiwi Nugget” in either black or brown to indicate the color of the polish inside.
By the time the first world war ended, all the soldiers from New Zealand and Australia were using Kiwi Nugget as their polish of preference. It was small, very portable and also great to use as camouflage.
By World War II, the Canadians, Americans and British were all using Kiwi Nugget. The little bird on the tin became the visual link to New Zealand for hundreds of thousands across the world. And that is how the Kiwi became one of the famous emblems of New Zealand. Because of shoe polish and grief, not because of the bird.
Which makes a lot more sense than the people of New Zealand holding up as their ideal a mostly blind, flightless, bug and worm eating, muddy snot blowing, small brown bird as their nations pride… native or not.
So I mentioned the Maori brought rats with them, well the Europeans brought them too. They also brought possum, rabbits, pigs, coats, cattle, horses, sheep, ox… just a lot of stuff to the island with them in the name of trying to establish a fur trade, or have a food source, or simply help them tame the land.
All of those introduced species have done a lot of damage to flora and fauna, so over time, to try and reclaim the natural balance of things, New Zealanders became hunters to control the pest populations.
Another native of New Zealand is the eel. I have mentioned the eel several times, but there are 2 types here. The long fin and the short fin, but the long fin is native.
Eel live throughout all freshwater areas of New Zealand except Lake Taupo, and they do not live there because they cannot swim up the rapids or the falls to get to the lake.
Eels can come out of water and move overland, which is both cool and terrifying. They can survive out of water for 4 or 5 hours as long as they can stay damp, which is why the bogs and swamps were so important to them.
When they get ‘big’, a little bigger than calf muscle on leg, and about 5 feet in length, they are about 80 to 100 years old. At that stage they swim out to sea to just off the coast of Tonga, where there is a deep water trench. It is believed they breed there, the old eels die, and the baby eels swim back to NZ.
I think they should have eel as a national symbol, but that is just me. Perhaps a Kiwi sitting atop a coiled eel would be a good flag.
Speaking of emblems or symbols of the country, I would be remiss if I did not note the Silver Fern, because it is arguably the real and most significant symbol.
The Silver Fern is green on the top and a highly reflective silver color on the bottom. If you break a piece of it off, as it dries, it becomes even more reflective.
When the Māori first arrived, they did not have lights or other means to illuminate things. After discovering the properties of the Silver Fern, they always carried some of the dried leaves with them, so when they went off and knew they would be returning at night, they would sprinkle bits on the ground as they traveled. When it was time to return, the bits would reflect the moonlight and guide them back home.
Fast forward a bit and soldiers, including Maori, were sent off to war in foreign lands (Ball war, WWI, WWII…), the wives and mothers would give the men a piece of the silver fern in the belief it would guide them safely back home.
That legend has caught on over the years and the Silver Fern has been worn on the collars, lapels and burets of all the military uniforms. It is emblazed on sporting equipment and uniforms. It has flown on flags around the world to represent the native plant of New Zealand, and the hope of its people’s safe return home.
Now that is an emblem of a country. Much better than a snorting bird.
So 2 last things. First there is an area known as King Country in New Zealand. Many assume it was named for the crown that kind of took over, and that would be a darn reasonable assumption given the crown did kind of take over.
Not the case, but it did have something to do with the Europeans.
Māori lived in several tribes and did not have a ‘overseeing’ single council or person leading all the tribes. When fights started to erupt between the Europeans and the Maori, one of the issues was all the Europeans came together against the Maori, and assumed the Maori were one group, as the Europeans in this case were.
The Maori were not. They were individual tribes with loose alliances between them, so they had an issue bringing people together to be big enough to win the battles.
Realizing this in 1858, one of the largest ewi (again, that means tribe) declared they had appointed the first Māori King to oversee all the Māori tribes, bringing one individual forward to speak for all the Māori and hopefully level the playing field.
Some recognized this ‘king’ and others did not. Supporters became known as the ‘Kingitonga” and they all moved into what is now known as “king country.” The Europeans were not well equipped to fight in the King Country because it was rocky and rugged, so when the Kingatonga moved into that area, the Europeans just let them have it and called it good.
Since the original ‘king’ of the Māori, there have been 6 kings and 2 queens. Currently they are led by a queen who is in her 20s. She was appointed last year when her father passed on.
And finally… A short lesson on Māori Pronunciation
The Māori did not have a full written language before the Europeans arrived. Their language was oral and any record of their past was based around their weaving and their carving. Any words you see on signs that represent a Māori word were written by Europeans based on the way the European understood the word the Māori were vocalizing.
So the easiest lesson in pronunciation is to break the word up into syllables of 2 letters, but no more than 3 letters.
Waikato – Way ke toe,
as in the Mighty Waikato River. Wai means fresh water or anything to do with fresh water.
Waitomo – Wai to mo,
as in the glow worm caves. Wai – fresh water, Tomo means hole in the ground, so Waitomo means ‘water in a hole in the ground.’
NiKau – pronounced nee cow
Pokeno – pronounced po ke no
Nga – tricky one. Simply pronounced ‘na.’
There are a few tricks. The English alphabet has 26 letters, but for some reason the English did not want to give the Māori all 26 letters, they only gave them 20. One of the letters that is missing is ‘f,’ so in writing, there is no ‘f’ in the Māori language.
Instead, for unexplained reasons, the English put ‘wh’ together, so any Māori words that have ‘wh’ side by side, should be pronounced ‘fah’ or ‘fuh.’
Whata Whata (a town on the bus route), is pronounced Fah-ta-Fah-ta.
You now know the extent of my knowledge on reading Māori words.
You also now know what I can remember from all the bus drivers and tour guides. I will now play a loud snorting sound through your speakers to wake you up so you may go off to bed.
Thank you for your attention.
Leave a Reply