13.11 The Coromandel: White Cliffs Here & There

A Promontory on Mercury Bay

This past weekend Jean and I went on a mini-exploratory visit of New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula, in the North Island. To the west of the peninsula is the Hauraki Gulf, flanking Auckland (some 55 kilometers west of the Coromandel), and to the east lie the open waters of the Pacific.

Almost 250 years ago Captain James Cook arrived in New Zealand, on the first of his three voyages of exploration and mapping of the Pacific. He had been commissioned by the Royal Society to observe a transit of Venus (across the sun’s face) in Tahiti. After visiting Tahiti he sailed his ship, HMS Endeavour, southward to New Zealand to observe a transit of Mercury. That observation was accomplished at a Coromandel beach near Whitianga* on what is now named Mercury Bay. Capt. Cook subsequently circumnavigated New Zealand and had a number of mutually beneficial dealings with the Māori.

New Zealand was so named by the Dutchman Abel Tasman, who was the first European to arrive in these far islands (13 December 1642). He didn’t hang around. But the British did, or rather waves of Brits—English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish—followed in the path of Capt. Cook. Many came to the Coromandel Peninsula (which acquired its present name from an 1820 visit by the Royal Navy’s HMS Coromandel to a harbor adjacent to what became Coromandel Town).

New Zealand has a profusion of names. Always and everywhere there are Māori names, most of which are still in common use by Māori and Pākehā (Europeans or non-Māori). Hence in traveling from Te Awamutu (= ‘the river’s end’) to Tairua (=’two tides’ or ‘second tide’), where we stayed, Jean and I traveled through towns and villages bearing names like Waitoa (= 'brave water'?), Te Aroha (= 'the love'), Paeroa (= 'long ridge or range'), and past geographic features, like the Waihou (= 'fresh water'?) River and the Kaimai Range. While I often resort to Wikipedia or to the online Māori Dictionary to discover underlying place name meanings, it’s not always possible, not least because more than one translation is possible, especially with a novice like me. With many Māori names there is a story and, that being so, this is a multistoried land.

The Māori for New Zealand is ‘Aotearoa’, often translated ‘land of the long white cloud’. There’s a story there and that’s a relatively short name. Thanks to the Māori, New Zealand bears the longest (non-hyphenated, single-word) place name in the world, with 85 letters in all. The locals shorten their reference to the hill on the North Island that bears the name, but here’s the name in full:

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. It would probably be easier to climb the hill than to say its full name, at least for us non-locals. Anyway, there's a story in the hill's name (no surprise).

It’s impossible to conceive of New Zealand bereft of its Māori heritage, not least because of the abundance of Māori names across the land. But likewise it’s impossible to conceive of New Zealand bereft of its European heritage, especially its British heritage. Here are names resonating from an island halfway round the world: Dunedin, Christchurch, Marlborough, Nelson (all on the South Island) and Wellington, Hamilton, Cambridge, and Thames (all on the North Island). Given Cook’s contribution to humanity’s knowledge of the Pacific, the Cook name festoons New Zealand, as well as other Pacific places. New Zealand’s highest mountain (3764 meters or 12,316 ft) is Mt Cook, also known as Aoraki (='cloud piercer'?). The water separating the North and South Island is Cook Strait. And back on the Coromandel we encounter Cooks Beach (no apostrophe), where Capt. Cook observed the transit of Mercury.

If Cooks Beach marks, as it does, the onset of the British (and European) footprint on New Zealand / Aotearoa, where might the first Māori landfall be marked? So far as I’ve learned, the site of the first landfall (now believed to be around 1280 AD) is either unknown or open for debate. Māori oral history, however, points to the Māori as having come from 'Hawaiki', which sounds suspiciously like 'Hawaii'. Linguists have identified the Māori language and the Hawaiian language as being related, more like cousins than sisters, if I may so describe them. They are both members of the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages. But linguistic evidence and DNA studies strongly suggest that the Māori came from the Cook Islands. By way of the Marquesas the Hawaiians also came from the Cook Islands (which are about 3000 km [or 1870 miles] northeast of New Zealand). More generally, the Polynesian peoples (based on DNA evidence) are thought to have descended from aboriginal groups who lived on Taiwan before 3000 BC.

There's a community today at Cooks Beach. That this community lives with that name rather than, say, 'Cookton', suggests, as it should, that the beach has long been a comparatively out-of-the-way place that never grew into anything other than the resort community that it now is. Almost no place on the peninsula is easily reached by land. But places are easily accessed by water. In the 1800s there was a veritable bonanza of mining, including gold mining. The mining activity drew numerous individualists and speculators, as might be expected in a gold rush. And while mining may return in a big way to the Coromandel, a return is adamantly opposed by at least a number of locals and presumably by many of the ‘seasonals’ who maintain summer homes on the peninsula. One sees anti-mining signs throughout the Coromandel. 

The Coromandel along its coasts has become an immense leisure and recreation magnet, not only for Kiwis, but also for foreigners. Tairua, where we stayed, has apparently become a resort especially popular among Germans, some of whom have stayed and opened businesses (including 'The Pepe', one of the superb Tairua restaurants we patronized). No doubt some of the anti-mining sentiment is motivated by the stake that so many locals have in the shops, restaurants, guide services, outfitters, and so forth that are geared to the tourists and seasonals. But some of that sentiment may stem from fears about what mining might do to this place of great beauty. If mining returns to the Coromandel, it will presumably be done with great care, not least because of public sentiment. 

The Coromandel is its own place. Of course it's comparable to other places. What place isn't? But all too often comparisons either diminish or exaggerate. By resorting to comparisons we fail to get at the essential nature of a place or person. A novelist—I've done so myself—will write a whole book just endeavoring to open eyes (and ears) to the essential mystery of a person or place. Neither you nor I have the luxury of such verbiage in this blog. And so I'll return to Capt. Cook, to find a place to end this post.

Capt. Cook found Mercury Bay to be a special place and I don’t mean because of the transit of Mercury. He reportedly said the white cliffs he saw there were like the White Cliffs of Dover. That's kind of a stretch, I'd say. The Dover cliffs are made of chalk. In the Coromandel the 'Cook Cliffs' (if I may call them that) are made of pumice, a product of volcanism. But that would draw me into next week’s post, which I’ll be sending (God willing) from the South Island, which Jean and I expect to tour the week of Easter.

Suffice it to say now that Capt. Cook may have been a tad homesick when he pulled into Mercury Bay. Should he be blamed for seeing the White Cliffs of Dover in the beauty of the cliffs along Mercury Bay? His was an implicit comparison, but one tempered by joy, by a joyful remembrance from the past. Emotion ties us to the unseen, the remote, and the past, yes, but emotion can also tie us to what is before our eyes. And I like to think that Capt. Cook wasn’t diminishing the cliffs before his eyes. He saw the beauty that was before him and fell back on a beauty of his past to describe it. God bless us everyone when we do that, even if we can't quite hit the mark.

I’m not on the Coromandel as I prepare this post, but Jean and I will never forget the place, thanks be to God.

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

* Māori has its variations but as it's become embedded in everyday Kiwiese, the 'wh' found in Māori words is pronounced like an 'f'. 'Whitianga' would, thus, be pronounced something like 'Fiteeyánga'.

White Cliffs on the Coromandel Peninsula

Paku Hill (Ancient Volcano) & Tairua Harbor at Low Tide, Tairua

Tidal Pool, Tairua

Tairua with Tairua Forest in the Distance

Cathedral Cove

White Cliffs Near Cooks Beach

Cathedral Cove (Again)

Arch on Small Island in Mercury Bay

White Cliffs Facing Mercury Bay

13.10 Te Awamutu & Hobbiton: A Great Drought & Great Expectations

Rains came to New Zealand this past Sunday (St Patrick’s Day), starting in the morning, at least where we were, in a small church in Pirongia. We’ve had rain again in the Waikato on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. In New Zealand many have been talking about the weather because the North Island, the South Island, and (comparatively small) Stewart Island have been in a drought that began in the north in mid-January. It hung around and went further south, encompassing essentially all of mainland New Zealand. Whether the recent rains signal an end to the drought remains to be seen.

Rain or no rain, we have our expectations for the environment and for ourselves. Droughts, floods, windstorms, earthquakes, and other extreme sports of our home planet highlight the fact that while Earth is home, even a marvelous home, it isn’t paradise. We build nests against adversity; we clothe ourselves for the sake of protection; we build stores against ‘rainy days’ or dry years, and so forth.

Kiwis are no different than souls elsewhere on the home planet; they do the best they can with what they have, given what they expect. All homes and human ventures are framed by expectations, natural and moral, and constrained (as always) by the limited means of addressing those expectations.

New Zealand is bathed in what is often termed a ‘temperate maritime climate’. ‘Temperate’ in New Zealand’s context means the absence of temperature and precipitation extremes. The durability of pine and palms trees side by side and the gigantic size and rapid growth of trees, ferns, and other plants are telling indicators of New Zealand’s benign and beneficent climate. Hamilton, where we lived for our first month in New Zealand, had one reportable snowfall in 2011. The last preceding snowfall was apparently in 1939. Snow in New Zealand is generally constrained to the tops of the highest mountains in the North Island or in and around the Southern Alps (on the South Island). More generally throughout New Zealand ‘frosty conditions’ can tickle the plants and blight highways in winter.

Dry spells are a frequent, if spotty, occurrence in New Zealand, at least by most reports. Widespread droughts are a virtual certainty, occurring reportedly on average once every seven to ten years. Depending on your source, the current (or recent?) drought is the most severe in fifty years or seventy years. Drought or anything else a climate presents constrains what a national economy can achieve and shapes what a household economy must endure.

The most drought-affected sector of New Zealand’s economy is the agricultural sector, which is big business, accounting for 2/3rds of Kiwi export income. With New Zealand’s hard-earned wealth and technical sophistication, the agricultural sector has made long-term investments to better face the inevitable dry spells. One investment is irrigation. According to Irrigation New Zealand, in the 2002/03 crop year, 4% of Kiwi farmland was irrigated (producing 12% of agricultural GDP). In the 2011/12 year, 6% was under irrigation. No doubt, the recent drought will motivate more investment in irrigation across New Zealand.

Despite the predominance of agriculture in the economy, most Kiwis live in cities and towns. In fact 2/3rds of the population lives in New Zealand’s ten largest cities. Ipso facto, most Kiwis are not even in households involved in agriculture. A relatively small portion of the population, as in the US, supports the rather substantial Kiwi agricultural production, come rain or shine. Kiwi farms and stations (or 'ranches' in US lingo) must be efficient to compete in the world marketplace. They do so absolutely bereft of the subsidies, price supports, and other props so dear in other advanced economies. Kiwi agriculture will be hurt, but not devastated, by this year’s drought.

On the home front the Kiwis have some ground to make up. When Jean and I moved to Te Awamutu (TA), we were startled to learn that residential water meters were non-existent. I don’t know whether that is customary across New Zealand. I do know that the Waipa District (in which TA is located) has announced that it will be moving to universal water metering (at a cost of NZ$6.5 million). This week’s Tuesday edition of the Te Awamutu Courier reports a Waipa District manager as saying that a ‘number of other districts’ have used metering and have found it reduces peak demand. By 2016 universal water metering will be in effect in the Waipa District, if all goes according to plan. Perhaps with the drought, more New Zealand regions and districts will embrace metering.

The absence of home water metering may cause some readers to wonder about other features of Kiwi homes, obvious or not so obvious. The following remarks stem from what I’ve seen so far.

Kiwis prefer single-family dwellings. Outside the three largest cities—Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch—my guess is that very few Kiwis live in apartments. In Hamilton, New Zealand’s fourth largest city, apartment buildings are quite rare.

Most Kiwis live in single-story homes. Basements seem to be non-existent, albeit one sees ‘walk-out’ lower stories in homes set on hillsides.

Urban (including small town) home plots vary considerably in size. In urban areas it isn’t unusual to have ‘horizontal stacking’, as I’ll call it, with one home that’s streetside, then another behind it, and a third behind the second (often served by a common driveway).

Kiwi homes typically have wooden fences or metal or masonry walls enclosing much of their yards. Ever-thrifty Kiwis often engage in kitchen farming behind their yard enclosures. Shrubbery is profuse and flowers not uncommon around homes.

Kiwi homes tend not to be insulated, although the newly built homes incorporate and tout insulation (perhaps with government encouragement). Exterior doors don’t necessarily have weather-stripping, at least on the North Island. Thermopane or double windows, I would guess, are a rarity in homes.

Home heating systems on the North Island are comparable to the US South, if our Te Awamutu home is a fair measure. Our two bathrooms and one bedroom have electric space heaters. The living room has a gas-fired space heater. Air conditioning (unlike the US South) is via the open window (and New Zealand, no surprise, is graced with virtually constant breezes).

Kiwi homes have, if you will, ‘uncluttered’ fenestration. Insect screens are almost never found. Casement windows are the rule. I have yet to encounter a double-hung window. ‘Picture windows’, as they were called in the 1950s (when they were popular in the States), are still very much in fashion in New Zealand.

Kiwi homes have very sturdy roofs. Don’t come to New Zealand if your life’s most compelling desire is to see an asphalt-shingled roof. I’ve yet to see one here. Corrugated or ribbed metal roofs or tile roofs are the universal rule, even in the most modest of dwellings.

Kiwi homes have masonry, lumber, or stucco sidings. At least homes currently under construction employ the balloon framing customary in the USA (as opposed to building techniques at least once common in the UK).

Kiwi residential neighborhoods are almost invariably attractive. Often, but not always, electric and communication lines are buried. Homes are generally well kept and often festooned with trim shrubbery and flowers. The uncluttered fenestration makes for clean-looking façades. And the presence of sturdy roofs makes for the cap to an overall robust appearance. In sum the homes and neighborhoods, when they’ve put their best foot forward, reflect the best qualities one so often encounters in Kiwis—unpretentiousness, openness, robustness.

Home portraits like the portraits of people require permission, so I’ve not included photo shots of Kiwi homes with this post. But I have included (among others) photos of Hobbit ‘homes’ in Hobbiton, which is about an hour’s drive from Te Awamutu, near the town of Matamata. Hobbiton is the movie set for the Middle Earth scenes in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.

Jean and I visited Hobbiton two weekends ago. I wasn’t eager to go, thinking that the drought would have made for brown grounds. As it turned out, the Hobbiton grounds were (mostly) irrigated. Middle Earth looked good enough, as perhaps the accompanying pictures suggest. For greener views, check out the Hobbiton website. In any event, rain or shine…

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

P.S. On Saturday, we saw the recently released Great Expectations at the Regent in Te Awamutu and can recommend the movie.



Hobbiton Pears

Hobbit House

Hobbit House With Yellow Door

Hobbiton Flower With Bee

Hobbiton Hillside

Hobbit House With Red Door

Another Hobbiton Hillside

The Green Dragon Inn, Hobbiton

The Green Dragon Inn, Hobbiton

Hobbiton Scarecrow

13.09 Taumarunui: Town Too Tough to Die?

What is a Taumarunui?

Well, it’s now and still a place.

What kind of a place?

A place battered by the winds of change.

Why ‘battered’ and how do you know that?

I don’t know that it’s battered. I was only in the place—a town—about five hours, just last week. Every human place, like every human being, is always somewhat of a mystery. Without hazarding a final judgment (not a human business, anyway), I can say that the town appeared to be battered but not down. That’s what I saw.

‘Battered but not down.’ How could you say that or see that?

I’m not sure myself, but I’m sure that in travel as in life we want to see things for what they are–or we look away.

If Taumarunui’s battered, why devote a post to it?

Well, for one, there are still people living and working in Taumarunui. Reports of its death would be exaggerated. And for another, Taumarunui’s a place where Jean generally sees patients once each week. Because of that and because of my curiosity, I traveled with Jean to Taumarunui last week. While she would ‘see patients’ (as we say), I would hope to ‘see the town’, for better or worse.

I had never even heard of Taumarunui or so many other Kiwi places until about nine months ago, when it became more apparent that Jean and I might be living in New Zealand for her locum tenens service. I pored over New Zealand maps and surfed through Kiwi websites. In looking at a KiwiRail website I came across Taumarunui as a stop on KiwiRail’s passenger service between Auckland and Wellington. Between these two cities KiwiRail’s Scenic Journey division operates what might be called a ‘cruise train’—the Northern Explorer —thrice weekly southbound and thrice weekly northbound. It’s a train geared largely to tourists, rather than to mere travelers. And as it turns out the train no longer stops in Taumarunui, though it still did when I first encountered the town’s name on the web.

In travel we almost always bring an agenda or a set of interests that we expect a place to fulfill: kayaking, bird watching, extreme sporting, delicious food, deals in the market place—you name it. The travel industry caters to that consumer mentality. Some places veritably thrive in being in the ‘catering business’. These are the tourist destinations of the world, of a country, of a region. The removal of Taumarunui from the Northern Explorer schedule is but another step in the town’s degradation from the status it once had. Of that, more in a moment.

As in life, I think we can travel with blinders on or even, as it were, to sleepwalk through our travels (or through life). The Beyond the Bar portion of this blog’s title is meant to allude to that endemic human problem. ‘Beyond the Bar’ is a phrase stemming from experiences in the US Navy, where I served much of my time on a carrier, the USS Intrepid.

Once while I was aboard, the Intrepid pulled into Hamburg, Germany, sited on the Elbe River. At Hamburg, as at our other ports of call, the Navy encouraged all aboard to put their best foot forward as visitors, for their own sake and for the Navy’s. Briefings and educational videos shown over the ship’s TV network would alert the crew to social customs, bits of language, and sites to see. Often the Navy organized outings, even overnight trips, to destinations worthy of a visit. The vast majority of those aboard were truly interested in making the most of any port of call, to see what could be seen.

But there were those who were happy enough, it seemed, to be sleepwalkers. In the Navy we encountered those who saw nothing but bottles of booze in bars, whatever the port of call. Be it Hamburg or Plymouth, Copenhagen or Barcelona, we could predict with high probability that these folks would never get beyond the bar, the ‘first one on the right', as we would say. Little did we acknowledge that we’re all to some degree sleepwalkers. The unacknowledged fear of sleepwalking may have provided added energy to our efforts to really ‘see things’ when ashore, to get beyond the bar.

Really seeing a place is hard to do, especially in a few hours. Everything human is essentially mysterious, but not all that is human need be shrouded in complete mystery. And it’s quite human to want to unwrap the mystery of a place. There can be discovery or payoff, after all, probably more by the grace of God than by human design.

Consider a story from my Hamburg Navy visit. My 'yeoman' (Navy lingo for clerk) went ashore with one of his buddies, the two having decided they simply wanted to walk about a residential neighborhood as civilians. They happened to encounter an older lady who’d stumbled and dropped the bags of groceries she was carrying. They helped gather up her groceries and offered to carry them home for her. She accepted. She introduced them to her family, had them stay for dinner, and the family eventually even took them out to a country place along the Elbe estuary, where they were introduced to more relatives and friends.

Before the Intrepid left Hamburg my yeoman told me that he and his buddy would be accorded a special farewell from the friends they’d made in Hamburg. The Elbe estuary becomes quite wide rather soon beyond the city, so wide that one can’t possibly make out people on the shore, not without benefit of binoculars. So for hundreds of years (apparently) the custom of waving ‘auf Wiedersehen’ to beloved friends and family heading seaward has been done by waving bed sheets. My yeoman told me to keep an eye out on the north bank of the Elbe. And his friends were there or, rather, the sight of a dozen waving bed sheets. Of course, few who were topside saw the event for what it was or even noticed it. They weren’t ‘in the know’, as we say. They hadn’t known to look for what those in the know saw and understood.

Knowledge aside, the billowing sheets had the most meaning for my yeoman and his buddy. They’d been not only engaged in Hamburg, they’d been embraced by townies. A measure of engagement is critical to seeing, I believe. Somewhere behind every measure of knowledge or meaning is a measure of love. For at least minimally engaging a place, to see at least something of its truth, we must have sufficient love to take a measure of its stories. The stories of a place—historical or literary or lyrical—are the porch step to seeing a place.

For Taumarunui I have a little history, but it's telling. The town has lost population in recent decades, even as New Zealand's population has increased. Reportedly, 25 percent of the town’s high school population attends boarding schools elsewhere. Truancy is high among those who remain. I know this because a local task force is addressing the cultural fraying most evident in the school-age sets. While I wasn’t able to obtain conclusive answers about Taumarunui’s sawmills, apparently most, if not all, are now shuttered. Except on the main drag, vacant storefronts predominate (albeit the town is kept tidy).

There was a time when every train stopped in Taumarunui. It was a railway town and there was a refreshment service in the station. Indeed a generation of Kiwis knew of the town, not least from a folk song set in Taumarunui’s station refreshment room, where two generations of Kiwi travelers descended to partake of food and beverages. The station and refreshment room were but small components of the town’s railway infrastructure.

The North Island Main Trunk Railway (‘NIMT’) maintained locomotive shops here. Heavy-duty mountain locomotives were required south of town on the heavy grades ascending the Central Plateau. Lighter engines were used north of town. Diesel locomotives partially mitigated these operations. Then in the late 1980s the NIMT was electrified from Hamilton (Te Rapa) to North Palmerston (a distance of 411 kilometers [255 miles]). In freight service 4000 hp electric locomotives replaced their diesel predecessors. The new locomotives were twice as powerful as those replaced. Locomotive changes were no longer required at Taumarunui. The railway locomotive shops disappeared. And about six months ago the sole remaining passenger train ceased to stop at Taumarunui. Sic transit gloria.

What will become of Taumarunui?

Who can predict? The future is never certain, though we may comfort ourselves in probabilities.

But sometimes the probabilities are discomforting.

Indeed.

And then we are left with prophecy and hope. As for prophecy, we can be certain of this: without God’s blessing nothing comes of any human venture. It’s only a matter of time (perhaps a long time), but all human venture comes to nothing if bereft of God. And therefore we can hope in God for better days for Taumarunui (and its likes). There are hopeful signs in the town, not least in the community effort to re-engage the town’s youth with a sense of purpose and accountability. Commitment, imagination, a spirit of venture, and human kindness—all have a role day-by-day in giving new life to a community. And truth be told, those virtues are needed not only in Taumarunui but everywhere and always.

I suspect if they were asked, the townfolk might want to say ‘Taumarunui is a town too tough to die.’ I would hope so. And may God bless this town nestled in the hills of New Zealand’s King Country. His blessings are always needed.

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

PS [25 Dec 2014] Jean and I paid a brief and enjoyable return visit to Taumarunui in December 2014, riding in a Forgotten World Adventures expedition, as recounted here. It was good to partake of this successful Taumarunui venture, which brings adventures, indeed, to its customers as they traverse the beautiful King Country.

Taumarunui Hills

Hakiaha Street with Bus (& Once Train) Station in Background

Taumarunui Side Street (Bereft of Pedestrians)

Taumarunui Fire Station (With Art Deco Touches)

Old Taranaki Times Building, Taumarunui

Taumarunui Station Platform

13.08 Maungatautari Eco-Island: Alien Invasions

One of Winston Churchill’s more famous speeches — the ‘Never Give Up Speech', if I may call it that — was never delivered, at least not in the fashion (three words repeated three times) and at the place (Oxford) that has entered modern myth. In the midst of Britain’s fight for survival against the Nazis, Churchill did, indeed, deliver a brief speech at Harrow School on 29 October 1941. In that speech the phrase ‘never give in’ was thrice repeated or enlarged upon. The gist of the speech was this: don’t ever give in unless honor or good sense dictates otherwise. Churchill’s mythic speech came to mind this past weekend when I along with others had occasion to watch Atu, a spotted brown kiwi, being fed by a keeper at the Otorohanga Kiwi House & Native Bird Park. Otorohanga is a small town south of Te Awamutu.

The keeper, employed in that task for three years, was still unaccepted by Atu. Atu put up an unforgettably relentless resistance to the keeper’s ‘invasion’ of her cage. She thrust her pointy beak at the keeper’s boots and at her calves. She kicked the keeper in front and from behind. She did all these things again and again. As hungry as Atu must have been, she but twice or thrice darted to the tin plate of morsels, then quickly returned to the attack. She didn’t stop attacking until the keeper left the enclosure. The only thing lacking was the good sense by which Churchill had qualified his admonition to the Harrow boys. In every other way Atu’s behavior was Churchillian to the max and all the more astonishing because of the size disparity between keeper and kiwi.

When the keeper joined the spectators, who’d watched from the other side of the glass, she told us that kiwis are intensely territorial. Indeed. And that Atu, while warm and cuddly with other keepers long known to her, had yet to strike up a familial warmth with this particular keeper. Kiwis aren’t known for ferocious, unprovoked, and unwarranted attacks. They are nocturnal creatures, rarely encountered in any event, pretty much minding their own business. But as we saw, their own version of ‘never give in’ can come out in the right circumstances.

All of which raises the question, why are kiwis (among other New Zealand endemic birds) threatened with extinction? Part of the answer lies in the clearance of their native forests to make way for agriculture and human habitation. But a more insidious cause of kiwi decline (and of the disappearance of whole species of New Zealand birds) has been the predatory behavior of the numerous mammals introduced to New Zealand, whose only mammals before human arrival were bats and seals, along the coasts. First came the dogs, pigs, and (inadvertently) rats brought by the Māori. Eventually, rabbits were introduced. And then to control the rabbits, ‘possums’ were introduced. These ferret-like creatures aren’t to be confused with North American possums. The story of alien creatures introduced to the country is far more complex than space or my ignorance allows. But you get the idea.

Not only were New Zealand’s animals affected, so were plants. After all, many plants depend on specific animals for propagation and sustenance. Native forests (as distinct from plantation forests) have been reduced to 1% of the land, much of it mountainous or on small, offshore islands. Kiwi eggs and kiwi hatchlings provide easy targets for the likes of the possum. And so, absent even more human interventions, the kiwis (and other endemic species) are threatened with extinction.

Should they and other endangered animal and plant species be saved? The easy answer seems to be ‘yes’ but ‘yes’ is costly. Even costlier perhaps might be a ‘no’. I’ll leave the arguments for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and for 'how' and 'why' for perhaps another time. In any event one can’t help but note that at least in the central North Island the preservation efforts seem to have come from the bottom up, from local initiatives. The Otorohanga Kiwi House germinated from an idea tossed around by a bricklayer, pharmacist, and physician in the late 1960s. Eventually various local organizations, groups, and funders were drawn in to bring the idea to fruition in 1971.

An even grander scheme with even broader support across the North Island and New Zealand has been the creation and development of something called the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust (‘MEIT’). The MEIT is a community-based effort drawing in support from volunteer groups and organizations (green groups, the Lions Club, etc.), corporations, private parties, and governments. Much of the trust land incorporates land on Mount Maungatautari (or ‘the Maunga’) previously set aside by the Waipa District (in the Waikato Region) as a scenic preserve. 

In the MEIT, 34 square kilometers (13.1 square miles) are protected by 47 kilometers (29.2 miles) of so-called 'Xcluder Pest Proof Fence', a special, impenetrable fence developed reportedly in response to the MEIT project. Following the removal or extermination of alien species on the Maunga, numerous endemic New Zealand species have been re-introduced, including kiwi. Kiwi hatchlings have now survived on the Maunga, thanks to the eradication efforts protected by the special fence. Additional developmental history of the Maunga 'eco-island' (if you will) is provided in Wikipedia.

Following, below are some pictures taken this past weekend on or near the Maunga, when Jean and I and friends visited the eco-island. None of our pictures are intended to capture the beauty and magnificence of the place. Only a visit can do that, I suppose. As it happens, the MEIT is conducting a photo competition to gather striking photos for its 2014 calendar. Capturing the beauty of the Maunga forest is no easy task, despite the beauty that abounds there.

Smaller eco-islands exist in New Zealand. Presently the MEIT is the largest eco-island on New Zealand’s mainland. One can’t help but wonder whether some day the Maunga will be but one of a number of similarly sized islands that constitute an eco-archipelago crowning New Zealand. Whether something like that ever happens will be for Kiwis to decide, of course. Siting and funding eco-islands surely is no easy task. The commitment, toil, and treasure required to develop the Maunga eco-island may at times have made for a seeming Mission Impossible.

In looking forward to comparable efforts elsewhere it may be best to remember Churchill’s Harrow speech, not as it was spoken but as it is (apparently) remembered in contemporary culture. ‘Never give in’ almost surely alludes (as Churchill meant it to allude) to an Enemy. But ‘Never give up’ — as Churchill’s speech is remembered —  also allows for the possibility that our undoing may not be from without but from within, from apathy or indifference or ignorance or despair. 

I suspect these ‘spiritual vices’ (if I may call them that) were the most significant hurdles to be overcome in realizing the Maunga eco-island. But thanks (in part) to some Churchillian Kiwis, the Maunga eco-island came alive and is sustained. New Zealand is the better for it, thanks be to God. And visitors are welcome; just no alien animal species, please.

Warm regards,

Tim & Jean

Fern Koru in the Maunga Eco-Island

Xcluder Fence at the Maunga Eco-Island

Xcluder Fence into the Distance

Interlocking Entryway for Visitors at the Maunga Eco-Island