The Wide Brown Land For Me

That line from the Dorothea Mackellar poem reminds us that the current parched conditions we are facing are nothing new even if they are now pushed further by global climate change. Within two days of having returned from the insane greeness of New Zealand I was sitting in a car with friends traversing the yellow-browness on the way from Melbourne to Echuca on the Murray River. It was a strangely refreshing contrast. All my life the land northward of home has been kind of dusty and dry and the experience was reassuringly familiar.

Friends Steve & Nieves were visiting from the UK and as is customary friends got together to do as much with them as we could. Hence the visit to Echuca. While there we stayed at a caravan park and dined at a local pub. The next day we decided to give the steam boat rides a miss (the others surprisingly took on my rule of thumb that if a ride costs more than a movie then it is too much). However Steve got talking to some strangers who it transpired were working on restoring another such steam boat and so we got a private tour round what looks like it will be an exquisite craft once completed (we later gave them a six pack of beer in thanks).

We also went to Glenrowan with its giant Ned Kelly, the Milawa Cheese Factory, and historic gold mining town Bendigo. Sometimes one can experience ones own home in a new way in the company of visitors and this was definitely a case of that. Back in Melbourne the following week we did other cool things that I tend to neglect in my hometown. We had pizza on Lygon Street. We played pool at the Red Triangle off Brunswick Street. We swam and played beach cricket in Sandringham. We played games like Pictonary. It was all fun and a good repatriation for me into local life.

Now I am back into the swing of things possibly I will also return to my practice of weekly blog posts. We shall see.

Land of the Long White Cloud

It has been over a month since my last post. Of that time I only spent twelve days in New Zealand but somehow I feel my blogging tardiness can be attributed to that time (once travel preparation and its inverse are taken into account). Anyway here now is a short report on that holiday.

My travelling companion is a superb planner of holidays. We stayed some of the time with friends of hers who have recently moved to NZ. She somehow managed to convince other friends to holiday there at the same time so we had plenty of familiar faces for much of the time.

We experienced different forms of accommodation. We started crashing on the sofa-bed of friends in Auckland. Then we stayed at a youth hostel in Wellington. Then in an absolutely lovely relaxing historic bed-and-breakfast in the township of Picton. Then a traditional hotel (complete with the common dining room of hotels seen in many old films) in Christchurch. And finally scout camp bunkrooms at a medieval festival in the Canterbury area. This was interesting to me as much of my past travel accommodation has been limited to just a few forms.

We also used different modes of transport which is always a part of the travelling experience. There was plane to and from NZ. The three to four hour flight is the right duration to truly get a sense of moving a massive distance while still keeping relatively fresh. The two-hour time difference from home barely affected us sleep-wise. We had a fantastic overland train ride from Auckland to Wellington. Then there was a ferry ride from Wellington on the North Island to Picton on the South Island. Then a hire car drive along the spectacular east coast to Christchurch. In between times there were also daylong tours by mini-bus. Every mode of transport is a different way of experiencing the scenery.

So far this entry is rather catalogue-like in its listing of things. I apologize for that but I lost a more flowing and personalized post in an incident of internet-freeze yesterday. This will just have to be one of those cases in which the written description of something cannot hope to convey the fullness of the experience.

New Zealand has a population size similar to that of metropolitan Melbourne. Is that all? Somehow it seems like much more in that they manage to support a number of population centres that look and feel like they deserve the title of city. Auckland is big and bustling. Christchurch is serene and stately in comparison but still very much a city. Wellington I described as "Canberra by the Sea" but in truth it is nicer than that and has a history longer than its elevation to the status of national capital. Visiting a new city – any new city – I always find exciting so this holiday was the trifecta for me.

In between (and even from within) these locales one discovers impressive landscape very different from that of continental Australia (I say continental Australia as there is a lot of similarity to the scenery in Tasmania and New Zealand). The coastline is excitingly complex in its sum of islands and inlets. The contours of the landscape challenge Australian-born notions of the distinction between hill and mountain. Sometimes one can imagine one is seeing volcanic or tectonic action frozen in a moment. The presence of green grass and forest is commonplace from the semi-tropical lushness of the Bay of Islands on the North Island to the temperate conditions in Canterbury on the South Island. The daytime sky is characterized by massive white fluffy north-south stretching clouds while the night is filled with stars (and we got an excellent view of the Great Comet of 2007 on one nightly drive).

The human aspects of New Zealand however are much more similar to that of Australia. In this sense I think that there is nothing more like Australia than New Zealand. And because of that similarity one becomes all-the-more aware of the small differences (much in the same way one does in travelling interstate). I noticed all sorts of trivial things like the fact that all pedestrian crossings there are zebra crossings (which I love) or the practice of calling milkbars superettes (another way of saying mini-mart I suppose).

There are much more significant differences that that however. In particular the presence of a big Maori and Polynesian population is noteworthy. My quick examination of the history of Maori-Pakeha relations is far too basic for me to say anything here other than that it is more complex than any notion of oppressed-and-oppressor will allow.

It is difficult to say what I enjoyed most in NZ. A wine-tasting tour of the renowned Malborough region was an excellent experience that expanded my paltry understanding of the lore of wine. However I fondly remember simply taking a walk at random in the backstreets of Ranui (a very ordinary suburb of Auckland) in the futile hope of finding my way onto a tree-covered hilltop I had seen from a distance (the hill was covered in private hobby farms and so my quest was thwarted). I have definitely taken care of any wanderlust for now. If I ever get back to NZ I will try to throw in more nerdy or nature-oriented attractions such as the Weta Workshop museum and the Lake Rotorua hot springs.

Addendum

I am writing this addendum at the start of April. This is a subject oriented blog rather than a personal journal. And yet at times personal matters cannot help but creep into things. My NZ travel companion was also a romantic one. Now however our relationship has ended. This we have done amicably as is customary among our friends. It was an exciting sixish months of my life.