13.03 Napier: Napier & Art Deco

This past weekend a northern portion of the North Island observed Auckland Day or, more properly, ‘Auckland Anniversary Day’, marking the arrival of William Hobson in the Bay of Islands on 29 January 1840. Hobson went on to become New Zealand’s first governor, appointed by Queen Victoria. Auckland Province, abolished in 1876 along with New Zealand’s other provinces, originally included territory embracing the Waikato Region. New Zealand is now divided into 16 ‘regions’, as they’re called, the regions generally being subdivided into cities and districts. Given that the Waikato Region was once part of Auckland Province, Auckland Day was observed as a legal holiday (on Monday) at least at Jean’s place of work. So we had a long weekend for visiting a place, say, a half-day’s journey away. Based on the recommendations of friends, we decided to undertake a journey to Napier, a small city (population about 59,000) on the North Island’s east coast, on Hawke's Bay.

Not wanting to drive, we chose to travel on InterCity Coachlines, a business whose roots go back to 1879. InterCity’s slogan is ‘low fares, nationwide, every day’. InterCity’s system map appears here. People traveling for business, government, or other organizations are likely to fly in New Zealand if there’s any distance involved. All other Kiwi travelers not availing themselves of an automobile are likely to be found traveling on InterCity or its competitors. InterCity’s services are on a reservation basis. Luggage within limits is handled for free from origin to final destination. Buses are clean. The buses run on time or close to time. And they serve the towns, hamlets, and nowheresvilles that airlines cannot serve. The bus stations or shelters, especially in smaller towns, are centrally located, clean, and even pleasant.



One thing to keep in mind about New Zealand: it’s a bigger and more rugged country than might be imagined. Even without the benefit of (the South Island’s) Southern Alps, the North Island is rugged. Take a look at the shape of New Zealand’s two big islands, especially the North Island. There are enumerable bays, bights, indentations, and projections of the coastline. This seemingly gratuitous complexity is matched by the complexity of the land, especially on the North Island, where volcanism has been the primary agent of land formation. Even the comparatively plain-like Waikato is rumpled with thousands of hills and mini-mounts scattered about as if by caprice. Kiwi highway routes are laid with the limitations imposed by this geography.

The air distance between Hamilton and Napier is 237 km (147.3 miles); the road distance is 289 km (179.6 miles).  In this comparison, as in other instances, I rely on web resources. Allowing for errors in these distances, you can still rightly imagine that the roads connecting these two cities can’t be arrow straight. Hamilton/Napier land travelers must ascend to and then descend from what is called the ‘Central Plateau’ (or ‘Waimarino Plateau’). Except for some areas south of Taupo (a resort town on the plateau), straight stretches are few. The Central Plateau is largely bereft of what Kiwis would call ‘agricultural’ activity, that is crop raising. Instead ‘pastoral’ activity predominates, mostly cattle and sheep ranching. Traveling southward from Taupo to Napier on NZ Route 5, the pastoral intermingles and then is entirely supplanted by forestry. Before leaving the Central Plateau, Route 5 enters mountain territory and eventually exploits a gorge in corkscrew fashion to attain the flatlands girdling Hawke Bay.

Napier is a seaport town. Its harbor accommodates about 60 cruise ships a season, so we were told, the cruise season being from October to early April. Cargo ships make Napier a port of call year around. Among the items of export are fruits and, not least, timber. On Route 5 semi after semi can be seen hauling logs to Napier, presumably much of it for export. Export timber is sent primarily to China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The commercial forests are clear-cut when they are logged. Besides the commercial forests, New Zealand has 20 ‘forest parks’, which equate in status and function to state and national forests in the USA. In any event the forests were left behind when the bus reached the valley floor that Route 5 follows into the coastal flatlands.

Napier appeals to the international discretionary traveler for either of two reasons: winemaking or architecture. The region’s viniculture supports reportedly about 70 wineries.  I can’t say anything about the wineries; I had but one glass of wine in a restaurant, a superb Dutch Indonesian restaurant. The restaurant left more of an impression than the wine.

As for Napier’s architecture, the city bills itself as the ‘Art Deco Capital of the World’. How can that be? The initial cause of that status was a devastating 1931 earthquake that was accompanied by a fire. The central business district (or ‘CBD’) was largely wiped out. While the residential areas of a then much smaller city escaped largely unscathed, Napier’s people were bereft of places to conduct business, worship, and so forth. Sheds were erected to sustain community activity while new buildings were erected to replace what had been destroyed. Throughout the 1930s the new buildings erected in the CBD incorporated the practices and motifs of the then-popular Art Deco, Stripped Classical, and Art Deco-ized ‘Spanish Mission’ styles. Even such things as manhole covers incorporated Art Deco motifs. One such cover and a few other Napier sightings show up in the photos below (Marine Parade is the street along Napier's beach-front park or 'domain', as it's termed).



It’s been said that the past is a foreign country. Foreign or not, the familiar can begin to appear stale, strange, and at some point disposable (if a tradition goes dead). Napier’s Art Deco architectural treasury by the 1970s and 1980s began to seem, at least to some, undesirable or at least unworthy of preservation. Demolitions or the prospect of demolitions prompted some of the locals to undertake to orchestrate a community effort to preserve the Art Deco treasury of Napier. To do that, of course, the community had to be convinced the effort would be justified. A history of this effort may have already been written. In any event the effort’s success is readily apparent. An 'Art Deco Trust' acts as the formal entity for sustaining the Art Deco tradition in Napier. An annual Art Deco festival (the twenty-fifth this year, I believe) is held every February. And to cap things off, UNESCO has considered designating Napier a World Heritage site. If you care to learn more about Art Deco in Napier you can tap the trust’s website. Jean and I took an Art Deco Trust guided tour while we were in Napier. We can commend it to architecture or history buffs.



Allow, if you would, two closing comments, one about CBDs in New Zealand and the other about ‘nowheresvilles’ anywhere.

As for New Zealand CBDs, a distinguishing mark of New Zealand is that the CBD lives. Kiwi CBDs don’t have the flavor of abandonment, denial, or decrepitude that too often describes American downtowns (in cities and towns). To be sure, as in the States, retail development occurs on the roads leading in or out of downtowns. But, if recent travels are indicative, Kiwi CBDs still contain the heavy majority of retail outlets in towns, in villages, and at least in smaller cities. And they look prosperous. Even the inevitable fast food stores and national chain stores are indigenized—set where people walk around—rather than being set apart, accessible for people in cars. Why the Kiwi CBD remains vital in Kiwi culture is an open question. But seemingly Napier’s Art Deco preservation effort was able to tap into that vitality, rather than fighting predominating centrifugal tendencies.



As for nowheresvilles, there’s always more that could be said. The buses operating between Taupo and Napier are apparently regularly scheduled to meet at a nowheresville that I'll call 'McVicar Road'.  It's a wide spot where a McVicar Road touches Route 5 about 30 minutes north of Napier. Here the northbound and southbound buses arrive within minutes of one another and exchange drivers, then go on their ways. At McVicar Road you’ll also find the entry to the Mountain Valley Adventure Lodge. If you want a glimmer of the somewhere of this nowheresville, check out the lodge’s website. Even a nowheresville is a somewhere for someone. And with that in mind...



Warm regards,

Tim & Jean

NB On 6 November 2014 Jean and I arrived back in Napier with the expectation that we'd be living in Napier until 14 February 2015, while Jean would be working for the Hawke's Bay District Health Board. Napier-focused blogposts published to date following the 2014 arrival may be found at 14.02 (Ahuriri & Napier), 14.03 (Napier Rhythms), 14.07 (Napier Art Deco), 15.01 (Napier Port), and 15.06 (Napier Deco Renaissance).



Art Deco Facade Ornamentation

Criterion Hotel in Art Deco Spanish Mission Style




Manhole Cover With Art Deco Sun Bursts

Flower Bed Between Marine Parade & Beach Domain

Bench Amidst Flowers Along Marine Parade



Royal Palms, Napier







13.02 Hamilton: Seeing the Hamilton Gardens

Aside from all the practical challenges of living as a pilgrim or sojourner—traveling safely, getting fed, finding safe shelter, etc.—for a discretionary traveler there are at least two deep challenges that go to the heart of travel and (arguably) of life. These are the challenges of seeing the ‘right things’ and of seeing at all.

As for seeing the right things, we rely on other travelers who have visited our prospective destinations or we rely on natives. All other things being equal, the natives are generally and rightly regarded as the more reliable (a point that must be kept in mind in reading this Kiwi travel blog by a non-Kiwi).

As an illustration of the challenge of seeing the right things, consider Exhibit A, the Hamilton Gardens in Hamilton, New Zealand. The gardens are run by the Hamilton municipal government and are open year round to the public (for free, no less). Jean and I had decided in our first week in Hamilton that we’d want to visit the Hamilton Gardens. The gardens are touted by Hamiltonians as the premier tourist attraction in the city. They may be the city’s only tourist attraction.

I’ve looked at a number of New Zealand travel guides before arriving in Hamilton and subsequent to our arrival. I have yet to come across a guide that shows Hamilton as anything other than a black dot on a map. It never seems to be starred for a ‘must see’. To be sure, the city (population 209,000) is a visitor magnet and a magnet for temporary residents. The universities and other tertiary educational institutions (including the University of Waikato) draw in 40,000 students, many who are but temporary residents. And the rugby and cricket stadiums and the like draw in outsiders who are sports fans. Not least, Hamilton is a medical center with several hospitals, among them the Waikato Hospital, the largest in New Zealand. So there are all kind of folk drawn into Hamilton, Jean and me included. But all things considered, Hamilton and perhaps at least this part of the Waikato Region is the nearest thing in New Zealand to ‘flyover country’. Seemingly Hamilton is not or cannot be a star in any constellation worthy of a traveler’s attention. Seemingly, but not quite.

For one, the Waikato Region (where Hamilton is situated) is the ‘green heart of New Zealand’ or so it’s occasionally billed. And while all of New Zealand, except for the snow-capped peaks, is green and while the coasts, mountains, and at least Auckland are spectacular, there is a heart-warming attraction about the Waikato. If you’ve seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, you’ve (at some level) seen the Waikato. The scenes in Middle Earth were filmed on a set built in farmland between Cambridge and Matamata, in the Waikato. ‘Hobbiton’, as it’s called, has become a tourist attraction. But Hamilton itself remains a black dot, without benefit of a star, or so the travel guides I’ve seen would have you believe.

Several days before visiting the Hamilton Gardens I decided to learn what I could learn about the gardens, the better to see what could be seen there. In a bookstore I favor for postcards and postage stamps I came across a book entitled Garden Tours: A Visitor’s Guide to 50 Top New Zealand Gardens. The Hamilton Gardens didn’t make the Top 50. Yet some publicity I’d seen suggested the Hamilton Gardens were among the best in New Zealand. Either this publicity was overblown and deluded or the author of the aforementioned guide was—shall we say—‘cartographically challenged’.

Now that Jean and I have seen them, I’d say the Hamilton Gardens fully merit a measure of pride and not only among locals. The grounds of the gardens along the Waikato River present many things, but the central ‘garden features’, as they’re termed, are the garden collections. The garden collections with one notable exception—the American Modernist Garden—are very good to superb. The general level of maintenance is high. Imagination and knowledge have been beautifully harnessed. Again and again the gardens are a delight. With this post I’ve included overviews or partial views of four of the six gardens in the so-called ‘Paradise Garden Collection’. Besides the Paradise Garden Collection there are the Productive Garden Collection (four gardens), the Fantasy Garden Collection (one garden open, one under construction, and a third planned), the Cultivar Garden Collection (four gardens), and the Landscape Garden Collection (four gardens). Based on my admittedly limited experience I’d say anyone interested in visiting but one New Zealand public garden is unlikely to do much better than visiting the Hamilton Gardens. Experience or Kiwis may prove me wrong but Hamilton deserves a star at least in a map of the universe of public gardens—and not just New Zealand gardens.

After visiting the Hamilton Gardens I subsequently learned on the web that the author of that aforementioned guide was British and that (reportedly) she hadn’t even visited a number of her ‘top’ gardens. Her not being a Kiwi at least partially explains, but it cannot excuse, her omission of the Hamilton Gardens and perhaps other gardens from her book. Alas, as travelers we must rely on other people and (often enough) publications in print or on the web. We want our travel time to be well spent on seeing the right things. But seeing and doing the right things—going to the best gardens, rafting the best rivers, getting the best deals, doing the best things, etc.—is only half the deep problem in travel (or life). The other half is seeing at all—with all that that implies.

I’ll attempt to address the traveler’s problem of seeing, really seeing, in a subsequent post. But I don’t want to tax readers with posts of undue length. Pardon me if I’ve taxed your patience in this one. I hope you’ll enjoy the four pictures I’ve included. And of course you can learn more about the Hamilton Gardens, if you choose, by simply clicking right here.

Warm regards,

Tim & Jean

English Flower Garden

Chinese Scholar's Garden

Indian Char Bagh Garden

Italian Renaissance Garden

A

13.01 Hamilton: Beyond the Edge

A week ago today Jean and I arrived in New Zealand. The New Zealand Airline flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Auckland (AKL) lasted just about 13 hours. The flight arrived in Auckland about 5:30, as a sliver of saffron appeared on the eastern horizon. The great circle distance between SFO and AKL is just over 10,500 km (6528 miles). By way of comparison, the flight time between London and Singapore (transiting the breadth of Eurasia) covers about 200 more miles but reportedly takes less time. Except perhaps for the last few minutes coming into Auckland, the transit from San Francisco is entirely over water. New Zealand, you might say, is at the edge of the world. In some ways — in three ways, perhaps — it’s beyond the edge.

Firstly, all too often New Zealand seems to be beyond the cartographic remembrance of the rest of the world. As a case in point, I recently received a world map from a very reputable Christian organization that keeps tabs on the levels of persecution of Christians throughout the world. Almost needless to say, New Zealand is bereft of persecution. But it isn’t bereft of land. Yet New Zealand failed to show up on the otherwise complete map of the world. I could cite other instances, but I’ll restrict myself to but one more, an excellent introduction to Kiwidom: Sue Butler’s  Culture Smart! New Zealand. A nice map of New Zealand appears facing the table of contents but in the innards of the book a map depicting the Pacific hemisphere of the world omits New Zealand. Despite these bleak omissions, New Zealand Airlines Flight No. 7 safely found the ground at AKL a week ago.

Secondly, the cartographic omissions might be somewhat more forgivable were New Zealand some sort of cultural black hole, which never has and never will have anything to contribute to the rest of the world. New Zealand isn’t a black hole and on the whole I suppose the rest of the world would acknowledge that. But given the country’s geographic remoteness, perhaps at least some Kiwis have felt a need to go beyond the edge. When they do they happen then to receive the world’s attention. Perhaps the most famous Kiwi of this kind has been Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to ascend Mt Everest. But there have been plenty of other Kiwi pioneers, and I don’t mean just people like Katherine Mansfield or Kiri Te Kanawa or Russell Crowe, known cultural icons. 

When I think of cultural edginess (or beyond) I like to think not only of music, film, sports, and whatever constitutes Culture with a capital ‘C’. I like to think of the even more basic cultures of agriculture and commerce and the like. And in that lower-case-‘c’ culture, I can’t help but remember the New Zealand farmers who a generation ago developed and baptized the Chinese gooseberry, giving it the name ‘kiwifruit’, thereby opening doors and pocket books to purchasing a fruit from faraway New Zealand. Kiwifruit is now grown in the USA but the NZ/USA fruit flow continues (and there’s a countervailing USA/NZ fruit flow, perhaps a topic for another blog). At Oshkosh’s Festival Supermarket the fresh fruit and vegetables displays always note the country of origin. Even though I can understand the present sustainability of the economics, it still astounds me that in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I could purchase reasonably priced and tasty apples that came all the way from New Zealand. Let me just say Kiwis have cultural gumption that’s beyond the edge, as it were. And that’s why we have the likes of mountain-climbing Kiwis and mile-stretching kiwifruit.

Thirdly, New Zealand is beyond the edge biologically. It was beyond the edge before humans ever set foot on the land. New Zealand is the last territory on earth settled by humans. The Maori reportedly arrived in New Zealand between 1250 and 1300 AD. Before their arrival there were no mammals in New Zealand except for three species of bats and except for seals along the coast. The absence of mammals accounts for the presence of ground-foraging birds indigenous to New Zealand. The extant five species of kiwi are all that remain of the ground-foragers kingdom of another era. As for New Zealand flora… reportedly 80 percent of the plant species of the country are endemic. An endemic species is a species unique to a territory, in this case New Zealand. They are found nowhere else in the world. I’m no botanist but I can tell you a great many trees are unlike any I’ve seen elsewhere. Many of them look primeval, but perhaps most primeval are the tree ferns (Tree ferns can be as tall as 65 feet) that look as if they’d be good food for a browsing brontosaurus. Just as a charming but flightless bird — the kiwi — has become the demonym for anyone from New Zealand, a fern leaf is a constant symbol of the New Zealand nation. Hence, the biological edginess of this beautiful land has become well established in the culture of New Zealand. The biosphere is always the ground of culture. That might not always be apparent but it’s readily apparent in New Zealand. That’s part of the Kiwikiwi charm.

New Zealand is a fascinating place but I’ll have more to say from Beyond the Edge in my next post (a week hence), when I consider the possibilities of going, as I would like to think, Beyond the Bar. And with a little bit of luck I’ll go beyond mere words to graphics, too. Until then and in any event…

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

P.S. 24 December 2016. For a vivid example of New Zealand 'falling off the edge' see this Daily Mail Australia report of a Government of New Zealand web page that depicts a world map bereft of New Zealand. Beyond-the-edge omissions committed by others are also shown in the Daily Mail Australia report.