The first weekend of June—and more specifically, Monday, June 6—in New Zealand celebrates the Queen’s birthday. Not that she was born near June 6, or even in June. I’m told that her actual birthday is in April. At any rate, the Queen’s birthday is celebrated this weekend, and accordingly, Monday is a holiday. When the June schedule for the hospital was posted, Glenn spotted that he had not only a three-day weekend, but by taking only one day of vacation, he had six days in a row off work. So we planned a short trip to Auckland and the Northland area of New Zealand.
On our first full day in the area, Thursday, we drove north of Auckland to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, site of the signing of the treaty between Maori chiefs and representatives of the English Crown. We had seen the actual document in the Archive Building in Wellington, but seeing the historic site where the document was signed made it come alive for us. Several Maori guides explained the importance of the treaty to us, and how it still affects relationships between the Maori people and Kiwis of European descent.
All four of us were wowed by the cultural presentation as our Maori guides taught us about a bit of their culture through song, the haka, a poi dance, and a game of pukana. The songs spoke of their love of nature and their ancestors, and were accompanied by a guitar. The haka is always energetic and involves slapping of the knees and strong facial expressions. Although I had thought that the haka was always a war dance, I learned that it also could be danced by both men and woman as a welcome to distinguished guests. As they sang and chanted, they invoked the spirits or memories of all our ancestors, honoring the interconnectedness of us all. Poi dancing, once used exclusively by men to train for warfare, is now done primarily by women. The poi is a small sack on a bit of rope; dancers have one in each hand. The poi are swung to and fro, requiring agility and timing to manipulate them throughout the dance. Then the audience was invited to participate in a game of pukana, which means “very expressive face.” As the game begins, one player is “it” and gestures to any other player by pointing both arms, widening the eyes, either sticking out the tongue (men) or dropping the jaw (women), all while yelling “pukana!” As soon as the next person is tagged, he or she must pass the gesture to another player. The object is to be as expressive as possible with one’s face—and by doing so, to break the other players’ concentration.
Near the water’s edge is a war canoe used for ceremonial purposes that takes over a hundred people to launch—and that’s even with the aid of a rail track! Some eighty men row it, with up to 55 more sitting inside the oars as passengers. Intricately carved and decorated, it is a tremendous vessel in more ways than one—it took three kauri trees to build it. After seeing the canoe, we were invited inside the marae, a Maori meeting house. Because the marae is sacred, all must remove their shoes before entering. Inside the marae are carvings representing the many iwi, or tribes, of Maori people from all over New Zealand, and chain designs representing the ancestors. One carved figure represents the heart of the marae, while the ancestral chains are like its ribs arching up and over the ceiling. Inside the marae, our guide sang a beautiful song about her ancestors before bidding us all farewell.
As we toured the treaty grounds it drizzled a bit, but we didn’t think much about it until the wind picked up while we drove still farther north. By the time we reached the Karikari Peninsula, the wind was incredible. All night the wind howled around our resort, unburdening some of the trees of their bark and weaker limbs. Power was out for several hours as well. It rained and drizzled still on Friday, so we decided to take a short drive to Awanui and see what we could find. North of Awanui we briefly visited Ninety Mile Beach (which is really only 64 miles long). It’s an unparalleled beach in summer months as the fine sand slopes gently into the water, inviting wave enthusiasts of all sorts. Late fall, though, found it deserted but for a single fisherman and a lone SUV taking full advantage of the 100-kilometer-per-hour speed limit set on the water’s edge.
The town of Awanui boasted a showroom of products made from ancient kauri trees. These trees lived 45,000 to 50,000 years ago and were incredibly huge. Over the millennia, they fell into swamps and many were preserved in the swampland. Live trees cannot be harvested, but the ancient ones (long dead) can be winched up from the swamps and used. The showroom had a spiral staircase made from part of a trunk—the staircase goes up inside the tree and has room enough for two or three people to walk abreast! There is a $55,000 sofa made from a single chunk of kauri—large enough for four people. When I expressed interest in the woodworking and described the kind of work my Uncle Guy does with wood, the clerk offered to show me the workshop in back. They had a dining table turned entirely from one single piece of wood, several large sculptures, and a single plank of kauri that was at least 13 meters long! This piece, he said, would become a boardroom table. I have no idea what that will cost, but if the sofa is any indication, I wouldn’t be surprised if it sells for close to $300,000.
Only about 5% of the original kauri forests still survive, as humans used them for ships, homes, and other needs, then cleared the forests for agriculture. The remaining trees are now—thankfully—protected and preserved, and national forest land surrounds them. After seeing the products made from kauri, we were eager to drive through the last vestiges of kauri forests, so we took the long way back to Auckland and meandered through lush forests and verdant mountainsides. Tane Mahuta, the “Lord of the Forest,” is the most massive of all the kauri trees and reminded me of the Redwood Forest in California. Similar to the redwoods, these trees are conifers with surprisingly shallow roots, so boardwalks are constructed to protect the trees’ fragile footing.
Back in Auckland, it was the girls’ turn to decide where we went, and they chose the zoo. Although the Auckland Zoo is a fine zoo, I found it difficult to avoid comparing it with Steve Irwin’s zoo in Australia, which raised the bar for any zoological park I will ever visit again. In Auckland we enjoyed viewing giraffes from their eye level, and seeing them interact with zebras and emus within the same enclosure. The Hippo River was also quite well done, as hippos floated invisibly beneath the surface of the water and surfaced only for a quick breath. The aviary, too, was wonderful and offered many opportunities for photographing colorful tropical birds. An apparent local favorite was Janie, the gorilla, who lived in an enclosure that looked a bit like a toddler’s bedroom. She had books, boxes, and toys, and it was all a disheveled mess. I watched her pick up and look through several books just as a child might pretend to read. Visitors walking by called out, “Hello, Janie.”
Sunday morning Katy and I walked to the Auckland Unitarian Church and attended the service. Although it is a small congregation, it felt like home. I loved being able to sing the hymns without looking at the hymnal (same one we use at All Souls), and Katy made friends with several of the young people. I was impressed to learn that the congregation owns the church building free and clear, and that the entire church is led by laity. I had thought that they must at least have salaried office staff, but even those functions are filled by volunteers. And here it stands, over a hundred years old, near the heart of the Central Business District.
In the very heart of the CBD is the iconic Skytower, the tallest man-made structure in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s visible day or night from most places in and around Auckland, and no trip to New Zealand’s largest city would be complete without going up to the observation deck. We enjoyed watching from below as other people bungee-jumped from its topmost deck, but we could only appreciate the terror of that sport once we were up in the tower ourselves. The designers of the Skytower created an elevator that can whisk visitors up to the top in less than a minute, but they fiendishly installed a glass panel in the floor of the elevator car so that one can see the elevator shaft dropping below one’s feet at an alarming rate of speed. In the main observation deck, one can walk 360 degrees around the tower, but must cross over several similar glass panels in the floor. Even though there are signs proclaiming that the glass panels are as strong as the concrete floors, I found it nearly impossible to walk across them, and my stomach lurched when Beth and Katy did it. Never mind reason and logic—it’s a long way down! But the tower had a beautiful view of the city, and we enjoyed eating dinner at Orbit Restaurant at the top of the tower, revolving as we dined on New Zealand cuisine.
At nearly 200 meters, Mount Eden gives additional sweeping views of Auckland. A long-extinct volcano—one of about 50 in the greater Auckland area—Mount Eden has a crater that plunges back toward Earth some 50 meters—one fourth the height of the volcano! It is thought that most of the volcanoes around Auckland have only erupted once, but they and other suspicious areas are carefully observed and monitored for any future activity. We noted the trigonometrical station on the peak; throughout New Zealand small survey towers are built on promontories so that each tower can “see” at least two others. By measuring the movements of the triangulating towers, surveyors can tell just how much the country is shifting. We had seen models of these towers at Te Papa in Wellington, but it was especially meaningful to see them in actual use.
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