Days of ducks and roses

It's been kind of quiet the last ten days, so here's one more pic of Patti and the ducklings at Taupo.  After Patti left, we had to get ourselves together--cleaning house and doing a little cooking.  Most Kiwis wouldn't know it was Thanksgiving, but we would.

  Last weekend we helped a new friend from meeting with a gardening project and renewed connections with meeting folk and a few other friends.  This week's highlights included meeting with my writer friends and visiting Roxy Theatre in Miramar, home of Sir Peter Jackson's studio and the Weta workshop,  Sir Peter's been kind of busy this week.  In addition to working on filming the Hobbit,  he has bought the Bats Theatre downtown, saving those playmakers from financial ruin.  The Roxy is an old movie theatre he had also bought in Miramar.  He kept the original facade but re-did the inside art deco, with a beautiful wooden bar and lovely lighting.  The large rocking chair seats are leather; it smells good in there as a result.  The only slightly odd touch is a statue of Gollum in the lobby, just like the one at Weta.  Here's a picture of John with that one.

We were missing family and friends a lot this week, so it was helpful to make our gratitude list, which included many of you.  We invited our neighbor, Vanaja, a pathologist who ethnically Malaysian and who is getting ready to move back to Australia, and our friend Mary, who is a Kiwi but has spent the last 45 years in the States, over for our approximation of the Thanksgiving feast:  no turkey, but chicken, John's curried sweet potatoes, some sort-of-similar-to-the-usual stuffing, broccoli, cranberry apple stuff (frozen cranberries located at Wellington's parallel to Whole Foods, Moore-Wilson), and pumpkin pie, which required buying and roasting a whole pumpkin from the market.

Mary had lent me a book about the painter, Rita Angus, which I had read as a part of my quest to know more about Kiwi artists and writers.  If any of you are interested, I also recommend stories by Maori author Whiti Ihimaera, especially, "A Game of Cards," as well as the work of Katherine Mansfield.  Don't think she would have been an easy person to be friends with, but she certainly had a gift for description.  I would also recommend the movies "Boy," about a boy living on a Maori marae and "The Orator," NZ's foreign language entry (in Samoan) about a dwarf descendant of a Samoan chief.

Today is election day in NZ, and the newspapers and TV have been abuzz with the contest.  Their system is a bit different from ours, which they call "first past the post."  They currently have something called MMP, which seems a lot more complex, by which they try to represent a spectrum of interests.  Whether or not to keep it is one of the matters being decided too.  As I understand it (imperfectly), people can vote for the system, for a candidate in each race, and for a party.  There are seven parties I know of:  National (currently in power--rather mainstream conservative), Labour, NZ First, the Maori party, the Mana party, the Greens, and ACT.  If a party gets over 5% of the vote, they will have seats in Parliament, and coalitions will be formed.  Elections are held every three years (which people complain is a short cycle), but their campaign season is limited to five weeks before the election (enviable).

Since we are not voting, we've just been enjoying the sun.  So today we visited the rose garden, which was all in bloom.   Tonight we plan to see a British movie, and tomorrow we will have one more Thanksgiving celebration with the other American docs out in Paraparaumu.  Then it will be time to get ready for our next set of company.  Tom and Janine are coming December 4.  We are really looking forward to it!

Honey and Hangi: Waitomo and Rotorua

Wow.  It's been a busy two weeks.  Our friend, Patti Hughes, has been visiting from the U.S., and we have had a grand time showing her all of our haunts and introducing her to our friends here in NZ.  Since her arrival, she has eaten whitebait fritters, has learned how to order a flat white (coffee) and has ordered Malaysian food at the right degree of heat from Monsoon Poon.  We have walked through the Botanic Gardens and past the Beehive (Parliament) in nearly gale force winds and spent days in which, as the weather forecast had predicted, "rain, sun, and wind have all thrown their hats into the ring."  We've visited the Weta Cave, the Quaker meeting and markets, nature preserves, and museums and have shopped in all kinds of weather.  One of the highlights was a seal coast safari where we visited the wind turbines atop the ridge, then rode in a four-wheel drive down a winding path through a game farm where two ostriches protected an egg,  then finally down to a wild part of the coast, complete with a leaning lighthouse and a few seals hanging out, while most of their compadres were on the South Island for breeding season.  But probably the most exciting part of our time with Patti was our trip to Rotorua and the Waitomo Glow-worm Caves.

It was a long drive, but the scenery was spectacular.  Patti said the green hills reminded her of wrinkly Shar-peis, with a snow-capped volcano in the background.   We saw a prawn farm and watched blue-green water cascading down Huka Falls, and bought various honey-related products at the Honey Hive. We stopped on the way to take pictures of Lake Taupo, and were greeted by a peeping flock of seven black-striped ducklings, who followed us everywhere, finally distracting them to keep them from stowing away in our car.  Maybe they wanted to visit Rotorua.

Rotorua is home to a couple of Maori tribes and is a hotbed (literally) of geothermal activity.  It is famous for hot springs and geysers.  Steam rises from the lake, and hot pools bubble.  There is a pervasive scent of sulfur.  After dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Abracadabra and a walk through the bubbling landscape, we went to bed, then headed out the next morning for the Waitomo Glow-worm Caves (wai=water, tomo=hole), arriving in time for our 10 o'clock tour of the Ruakuri Cave, named after a Maori chief's encounter with two dogs there.  We spiraled down and marveled at the beautiful rock formations, listening to the drip of water.  Others were tubing in the freezing black water below, and we occasionally got a chance to wave down at them or at least at their head lamps shining in the dark.  No doubt about it though, the glow-worms on the walls and ceiling of the innermost dark passages were the most spectacular part. Our guide explained that they are really larvae who suspend themselves by something like spider web and glow to attract food.  But, even so, the sight of them as we walked through Ruakuri, then glided silently through Waitomo in a boat, was like a starry sky.  Amazing.  Unfortunately, my picture-taking skills do not extend to recording glow-worms, so those of you who want to see them will have to check with Patti.

The next day we decided to check out the Thermal Village Tour, where representatives of two tribes of Maori still live and work.  Our guide, one in a long tradition of women who are charged with passing on the history of the people, walked us past bubbling pools,  answered questions about the community's meetinghouse and history, then waited patiently as we took pictures of erupting geysers before ushering us to a cultural performance with singing, dancing, and the teaching of a few Maori words.  Only after we returned to the Visitor Center did we begin to appreciate the honor and tradition of these women, who have guided such illustrious visitors as Eleanor Roosevelt and Queen Elizabeth.  Two tribes merged to live in Waka Village after a disastrous volcanic eruption in 1886 destroyed one of the communities, along with the legendary Pink and White Terraces which once adorned the mountainside near Rotorua, now submerged in  water below.  The terraces were made of silica and shone pink and white in the light.  They held pools of blue mountain water, where people, both Maori and pakeha, came to bathe in healing waters.

In keeping with that theme, we decided to visit the Rotorua Museum and Government Gardens, where many pakeha came in earlier times to "take the cure" offered by hot springs.  Some of the museum exhibits featured the baths and rugby (of course), but the most interesting were those about how the Maori came to NZ, traveling by canoes with sails woven of reeds, from somewhere called Hawai'ki.  All Pacific Islanders trace their roots to this story.  No one knows the literal location of Hawai'ki.  Sometimes it sounds as if it's a mythical place, since it is also where souls return after death.

In addition to this exhibit, there were beautiful paintings by a painter named Charles Blomfield, who was the most famous painter of the pink and white terraces on the mountainsides.  There was a film, with surprising special effects-- loud noise, seats shaking as if one might actually be experiencing the destruction wreaked by the volcanic eruption which sent the terraces tumbling into the sea and caused many deaths, destroying the home of the Maori who lived there.

That evening we had another cultural experience, called People of the Land, Beauty of the Night.  We stood on the banks of a stream, while Maori warriors came paddling down in their waka.  Then we enjoyed the hangi, a feast of foods cooked by the geothermal pits in the ground--delicious roasted meats, potatoes and sweet potatoes, with NZ wine and a few other dishes added in (like pavlova).  We were seated in language groups, so we chatted with other Americans and a lone Frenchman at our table and were later led
 in song by a Dane.  After dinner, we went on a night walk through the Rainbow Springs nature preserve, where they incubate and protect hatching kiwi.  In addition to the kiwi, there were a number of other birds, along with tuatara and a few fish.

The next morning, it was back to Wellington.  But first, we made one more stop to see the redwoods near Rotorua.  We returned, tired but happy.

Computers, Quakers, and Rhododendrons

Apologies to all of you blog-followers wondering about the whereabouts of your NZ blogpost of the week.  We had a computer meltdown and lost all of our files and are just now back up and running.

That did not stop us from pursuing our travels last weekend though, and an amazing weekend it was.  We traveled first to Whanganui, where we stayed at the Quaker settlement and then to the Taranaki Garden Festival in New Plymouth, a couple more hours away.

Whanganui (the "wh" sound pronounced as an "f" by the Maori) or Wanganui (just like it looks) is a lovely river town on the west coast,  and is also the name of the river which runs through it.  It was a site of violent clashes between the Maori and pakeha in earlier times. Now it has a charming downtown bordering the river, with art deco touches and an art-y feel.  There are riverboat cruises, an extremely interesting and evocative small museum and the Sarjeant Art Gallery.  We visited the museum and admired its collection of Maori wakas (large elaborately carved canoes), beautiful greenstone and bone ornaments, musical instruments and artifacts of Maori life from earlier times.  Also, an impressive array of taxidermy birds, animals and mounted insects (including many colorful butterflies) and lovingly displayed items from life in earlier times.  Downtown, we sampled Thai and Indian food, watched glassblowers at work, and considered (but resisted) buying beautiful glass items we might break in transit.

We experienced warm and wonderful hospitality at the Quaker  settlement.  Originally the site of a Quaker boarding school, the 20-acre settlement is now a community owned by NZ Yearly Meeting.  Settlers lease their homes and participate in the community in various ways. The settlers have a weekly business meeting where they deal with the logistics of living together Quaker-style and have a weekly shared meal, which they re-scheduled so that we could join in.  They raise gardens, sheep, chickens, bunnies and ducks.  There is a beautiful free-standing quiet room in the round with a central skylight where the light pours in where there is meeting for worship every morning.  They also host groups and seminars, most related to Quaker social concerns.  We felt very fortunate to spend time with Michael and Merilyn Payne.  Michael is the architect who designed the settlement in its current incarnation.  They showed us around, gave us tea, lent us books, encouraged us to harvest lemons and grapefruit from their trees, and offered stimulating conversation.  They are dedicated to eco-sound living and have been lifelong activists in the Quaker world.  Current projects include encouraging purchase of solar cells Michael has made as carbon offsets for travel and the harvesting of a grove of mature pine trees he is making into extremely beautiful simple coffins which can double as standing bookshelves till they are needed :-).

On Saturday after meeting for worship, we headed to the Taranaki region around New Plymouth for the rhododendron festival and garden tour.  There were 60 or so gardens, and we only had time to visit a few.  This is a picture of Tupare, an English style garden with an arts and crafts style house, where I could have easily spent the day exploring.  Next we went to Pukehara Park, which had many lovely spaces, including waterfalls, numerous ferns and other native plants, and red bridges spanning waterways.  Our next garden was a tiny Japanese one at a little house in the suburbs, where an older Japanese man explained the tea ceremony and showed us a picture of Mt. Fuji, comparing it to the view out the window of the majestic NZ volcano, Mt. Taranaki (or Mt. Egmont among the pakeha).  Next we had tea and cake under the trees at the simple and lovely Hirst Cottage, home of one of NZ's prime ministers in the early 1800's.  The guide there encouraged us to visit Putekei, partway up the mountain in the rainforest.  There the rhododendrons were on full display, gigantic, colorful, and fragrant. I finally had to take the camera away from John.  Rushing back to make it in time for the shared meal at the settlement, we stopped for just a few moments at Chriesi Wald, a very quirky home garden in Patea.  Created by its tiny, elderly resident, Rudi Milesi, it was a series of 12 garden rooms filled with sculpture, strange artifacts, and live birds.

Computer traumas aside, it was a great weekend.