Beyond the Edge Beyond the Bar: 13.12: North & South Islands: Dramas Human & Hidden

Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

A NASA photo of New Zealand appears at the top of this post. It was taken on a day when the main islands were largely free of clouds. The North Island might be seen as some fantastic animal, with multiple arms and mouths and even an ‘eye’ approximately in the center. This eye is Lake Taupo, the largest body of water in New Zealand, a body occupying the collapsed caldera of a so-called 'super volcano'. The next island down the shot is the South Island, lying on a southwesterly-to-northeasterly axis, pretty much bereft of the obvious inlets and outreach that characterize the North Island. If the North Island appears animated, even monstrous, from space the South Island looks more like a tuberous plant thrusting up but sideways through the earth. And south of the South Island, like a pebble, comes Stewart Island (just barely, partly visible). The threesome—animal, vegetable, and mineral—constitute all that could be regarded as New Zealand mainland.

There are an additional 700+ offshore islands, too small to be apparent in the NASA shot, not to mention the Chatham Islands, quite east of the South Island (set in a time zone unique to the Chatham Islands, a quarter hour in advance of New Zealand Time). Come to think of it, as Kiwis conduct their affairs—and understandably so—Stewart Island (with a population of about 400) is effectively not regarded as ‘mainland New Zealand’. It’s more of an adjunct, as it were, to the South.

One of New Zealand’s leading publication is called North & South. While Kiwis are very outward-looking in their economy and in their culture, the bipolar geography of the home islands can’t help but raise the question: Are North Islanders and South Islanders different from one another? Do they see themselves as adversaries?

Based on admittedly limited experience and as an outlander, I surmise there are no obvious differences or grievances. Geography and climate can account for the fact that, say, you’re more likely to find North Islanders going around barefoot or in flipflops (or ‘jandals’ in Kiwiese) as compared to South Islanders. Of the roughly 4.4 million people living in New Zealand, over three-quarters of them live on the North Island, yet the South Island is 33% larger than the North Island. Three of the four largest cities are on the North Island. The nation’s media and financial capital and largest city is Auckland, thereby giving that city a rather large role in shaping Kiwi Culture with a capital 'C' (arts, education, communications, and sports) and in shaping Kiwi culture with a lower case 'c' (agriculture, business, and the economy). Wellington, the capital, is on the North Island, albeit on the Cook Strait, across from the South Island. So Kiwis living on the North Island carry a good deal of weight, by numbers and by positions of power.

But ultimately the tone of a nation’s life is set in the home, for good or bad. In turn the home relies on spiritual or pseudo-spiritual sources for establishing the values and for opening (or closing) the vision and hearing of a people. Exploring the roots and branches of a nation’s aspirations, dreams, achievements, and nightmares would take some doing. At least looking at New Zealand, there don’t appear to be any fundamental spiritual divisions between North and South.

Early in New Zealand’s history (in the 19^th Century) the South Island was the island more populated by Europeans. And some residue and substance remains from the earliest European settlers—and not only in place names. Christchurch, the South Island’s largest city, is said to have a very English feel about it. I've been there, but not long enough to comfortably confirm the 'English feel'. Perhaps the city’s domestic architecture and central botanical garden can be said to contribute to this feel. In any event, Dunedin, further south, has a very Scottish look about it. The fabulous old buildings erected in that city (once New Zealand’s largest) were funded by the mineral wealth extracted from nearby mining districts. New Zealand’s largest gold mine operates about 100 km (or 60+ miles) from Dunedin and can be toured.

The most important Cultural differences among localities and regions appear to be in the allegiances to sporting clubs, especially rugby clubs but also other sporting clubs. The succession of such differences is transcended at the national level by a common allegiance, especially to the All Blacks rugby team but also to the national teams in cricket, basketball, and so forth. These sporting endeavors can often be satisfying; in any event they are widely engaging.

Beneath all the sporting and political hullabaloo, here in New Zealand (as elsewhere in the world) there are three enduring dramas that have an abiding effect on human life. The three are the human-versus-human drama, the human-versus-nature drama, and nature-versus-nature drama, with God having a mysterious (and, I would argue, a redeeming) role in each.

The human drama in New Zealand isn’t, say, North vs South, nor my team vs your team (although such rivalries may have a diverting role). Rather, as I’ve previously suggested (in Post 13.04), the key social drama in New Zealand is how Kiwis will harmoniously integrate two civilizations—Māori and European.

The very notion of a human-versus-nature drama might offend some. But anyone having to make a living off the land knows that sustenance only comes from effort, from the ‘sweat of the brow’. And as temperate as the Kiwi climate may be, even city folk in places like Napier and Christchurch know that the land in New Zealand can never be taken for granted (There will be more about Christchurch in the next post). Certain regions of New Zealand, like the Waikato, may seem to have a ‘land of milk and honey’ aspect. But in truth, by and large agricultural production exacts a good deal of effort everywhere in New Zealand. Droughts are frequent if unpredictable. Disease can strike a herd. A blight may kill a crop. And so forth. The biosphere is wonderful but it isn't paradise.

Perhaps the least obvious struggle in New Zealand is the natural struggle beneath Kiwi feet. Were the struggle not taking place, New Zealand might not be above the waters. For those interested in New Zealand’s geologic history, I highly commend a reading of In Search of Ancient New Zealand, by Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching. Here’s my abbreviated and crude synopsis. New Zealand was once attached to the super continent of Gondwanaland (which also included Australia, Antarctica, India, Africa, and South America). When Gondwanaland broke up, New Zealand calved off from what became Australia.

New Zealand moved southeasterly after this calving off. It eventually submerged entirely or submerged with only a few small remnants above the waters. Subsequent plate collisions between the Indo-Australian plate and the Pacific plate led to the lifting up of the South Island land mass. On the North Island (because of the relative position of the plate boundary) plate activity has led to volcanism. Of the active, dormant, or extinct New Zealand volcanoes (or volcanic fields) listed in Wikipedia, 43 are on the North Island and four on the South Island. No volcanic eruptions have occurred on the South Island in two million years. The North Island (animal indeed!) has numerous live volcanoes.

The Southern Alps are the direct result of a northward riding Indo-Australian plate forcing upward the westward riding Pacific Plate. The plate boundary is generally regarded as lying just off the western shores of much of the South Island. Because of prevailing wind patterns, the West Coast of the South Island sustains a southern beech rain forest. Moving eastward from the Southern Alps, which form the ‘spine’ of the South Island, one encounters a basin and range zone, which lives in the rain shadow of the Alps. And east of the basin and range topography, one finds the Canterbury Plains (at least for an economically significant midsection of the South Island’s East Coast). These plains are a highly developed agricultural region of New Zealand.

Kiwis must live with the reality that their home islands are geological hotspots, the North Island hosting volcanoes, the South Island hosting a rising crust produced by plate collision. But enough of the geological under-drama. Included with this post are five photos leftover from recent travel on the North Island's Coromandel Peninsula. They provide a contrast to photos taken last Wednesday and Thursday in the basin and range zone of the South. Despite the arid conditions prevalent in the South Island's basin and range zone, there are lakes there fed by snow and glacial melt from the Southern Alps. In a subsequent post I intend to provide some shots from the Southern Alps and from the rain-forested fiords west of the Alps.

I apologize for this belated post. Wi-Fi capabilities vary widely on the road. Photo uploading at a motel or in a public terminal can be extremely costly, impractical, or simply impossible. Life goes on but not like clockwork.

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

FROM THE COROMANDEL PENINSULA