New Zealand: the Beautiful and Bizarre.

July, 2022

I walk to work on one of the last days of fall (the seasons are reversed down here). On my right, dawn paints the eastern sky with gentle brushstrokes of warm crimson and magenta. While on my left, ocean waves crash against the beach. It’s a beautiful sight and sound experience, but not smell. My revelry is broken by an acrid stench that makes my breath catch. I look up to the stovepipe of a nearby home and see the sooty smoke from burning coal.

New Zealand has a schizophrenic relationship with the environment. It’s a country that prides itself on its pristine mountain landscapes, unspoiled glaciers, beautiful beaches, and thousands of miles of “tramps” (wilderness hiking trails). We got a chance to experience all that on our visit to the Abel Tasman National Park, but we are also learning that New Zealand could be doing better in some areas.  

Take power for an example: New Zealand has harnessed its natural bounty of geothermal heat and glacier-fed alpine lakes to turn out most of its electrical power. Moreover, New Zealand has generated renewable energy without changing the landscape by tunneling the water underground rather than building big concrete dams. On our visits to lakes used in this way, the only hint that they generate power are signs that warn people away from potential whirlpools where the water enters the underground tunnels.

That is great for about 80% of New Zealand’s power needs, but the remainder of the nation’s power is produced by buying coal. Coal is readily available in New Zealand, which has made it cheap and in the past kept people employed mining it. Two recently built large structures in Greymouth (the hospital and recreation center) are both heated by burning coal. But the country has tried to cut back recently on coal use. Policies now discourage mining, and the result has been that NZ imports coal from Indonesia, which locals tell me is of lower quality and is making the situation even worse.

This brings up the inadequately-solved problem of home heating. Kiwis operate under the delusion that they live in a tropical climate. It is an easy mistake to make when you look around at the lush vegetation, year-round wildflowers, and all the tropical-looking ferns. Still, the fact remains that New Zealand shares the same general latitude as Wyoming (just on the opposite side of the equator). Although the ocean moderates the climate, and we don’t see the extremes of hot and cold you would get in the central US, it’s not tropical here. We won’t see the temperature reach freezing, but it does like to start the day in the low forties this time of year. Yet New Zealand homes are not built like that is true.

Until recently, the building codes in NZ did not require that houses be insulated or have double-glazed windows. These oversights make houses chilly in the winter. Add to this the fact that the innovation of central heating hasn’t made it to the islands, so I’m glad I brought some wool sweaters.  

Natural gas, which is ubiquitous in the US, is not piped to houses in NZ. This means there is no good fuel to power central heat. You could do it with propane, but that would be prohibitively expensive here. So traditionally, NZ homes have been heated by a fireplace burning wood, coal, or both. Fireplaces are not a particularly efficient or effective strategy, and most homes have exchanged their fireplaces for wood-burning stoves. This works well enough for the rooms close to the furnace, but the rest of the place can get chilly and stay that way. Plus, the cost of wood and coal is rising with the move to more environmental consciousness.  

The most popular solution in NZ is to use a heat pump. This two-part device, one inside and one outside, works like an air-conditioner and can be used as one. An air conditioner pumps heat from inside the house to the outside. Well, this device can do that, but it can also work in reverse to pump heat into the house. Powered by electricity, these heat pumps are the most economical way to heat and cool a home and have become the solution for most New Zealand homes. We have one at each end of our house, and they do well at keeping the main house comfortable but struggle to warm the smaller rooms like the bedrooms and bath. So we are glad we brought extra blankets for our beds.

New Zealanders also have a bipolar way of dealing with the animals with whom they share the island. Before the first humans arrived, New Zealand was an island of birds. There are few reptiles, no snakes, and only two mammal species, both bats. But humans brought with them animals from their native lands. Domesticated and wild mammals soon became a problem, especially for birds who had lost the ability to fly after years of living in a land with no native predators. The solution has been to try and save the islands’ native species by poisoning the imported ones. Dropping poisoned meat from helicopters into the wild to kill off the mammals that hunt the native birds and eat their eggs is an ongoing process, as is trapping them. Yet, both practices have some very vocal opponents on the island.

As for water conservation, forget about it. Admittedly, we live in a rainforest where plenty of clean, fresh water is falling from the sky, so people don’t need to be conservation-minded. I have not seen any water-saving plumbing fixtures so far. Instead, water blasts out of our shower at a pressure that would make the average fire hose limp with envy. That water won’t just take the dirt off; it will take the skin off if you turn it up to full blast. 

On the other hand, New Zealand has opted for water-saving toilets. Unlike toilets in the US which feature a large bowl filled with water, New Zealand toilets have little more than a cup of water in the bowl. Moreover, they have not one flush button but two. You press one for pee and two for, well, you get the idea.

Despite these environmental quirks, we had a great visit to the natural beauty of the Abel Tasman National Park. Located at the top of the South Island, this is one of New Zealand’s premier destinations. Renowned for its golden sand beaches, sculptured granite cliffs, pristine water, world-famous coastal track, and abundant marine life, Abel Tasman is treasured by Kiwis and now by my family.

We visited the park during our students’ break between semesters. School here is year-round, but they get two weeks off between semesters and a month off at Christmas (which occurs in the summer here, kinda fun and rather weird), and we didn’t want to waste that time. There are many ways to experience Abel Tasman; two of the best are on foot and by sea kayak. Our first foray was on foot. I chartered one of the many ferries to drop us off in the park, and then we walked back over one day’s worth of the multi-day coast track.  

 

Our first surprise was how much the tide varies in Tasman Bay. Low tide produces long tidal flats from the beach to where it is deep enough to float a boat. On one occasion, we walked over temporary walkways that the crews rolled out to help us ford the wet beach on our way to the gangplank. On another occasion, we rode in the boat towed on a trailer behind an old Ford tractor. Despite being out of date, these little beauties looked like they had just come from the factory. When I asked about them, the driver told me they must use old tractors because the new models with all their electronics can’t tolerate the marine environment. As for how good they look, constant exposure to salt water means they are washed daily and repainted annually to prevent rust. The business depends on keeping these antiques in working order, and they invest a lot of money and love in keeping them up.

 

The boat rides were an adventure in themselves. We motored past quiet islands where seals sunned themselves after a busy morning of whatever it is seals do. We watched abundant birds flying past or nesting on rocks and trees and even made a side trip to see the iconic Split Apple Rock. Then the boat landed on a golden sandy beach. Once the water taxi departed, the beach felt so inviting, we just wanted to stay, but we needed to get our hike on if we wanted to catch the return ferry rather than spend a night sleeping in the park.  

Our trek took us past tropical vegetation, various birds, and isolated sandy beaches that beckoned us to frolic in the ocean or relax in the sand. But we needed to keep moving. The extreme tidal variability of the Abel Tasman Sound means that you will need to swim or take a long detour around if you don’t hit certain beaches at the right time. Yet, we found time to make a side trip to Cleopatra’s Bath. This feature, named for the Egyptian Queen, is a natural rock formation in one of the rivers flowing out of the park. The river has carved one large rock in the center of the channel into a natural water slide. It looked fun in the video we watched, but it had been raining, and the river was running at full force, which made the slide suicidal as it emptied into more rocks. We did get in the icy water to play, but soon our teeth were chattering, and we were back to hiking in the sun to warm up.

On every vacation, a little rain must fall, and if you are vacationing in a rain forest, a lot of rain will fall. On one rainy day, we crossed the bay to visit Nelson, the second oldest town in New Zealand. We had seen its lights across the bay and felt its call. It turned out to be a charming town with a beautiful open mall in the city center. We shopped, something that is a little sparse in Greymouth, dined out, and even found time for a few frames of bowling. By bowling, I mean the ten-pin kind you do in alleys in the state. We need to be precise because, as we discovered on arriving in New Zealand, the bowling clubs here are for an outdoor game favored by “pensioners” that resembles bocce ball. The indoor sport of bowling, best accompanied by beer and bar snacks, is much harder to find on this side of the world. 

On the second rainy day, we traveled a little further afield to the Malborough wine region and the town of Blenheim. Even in the rain, the wineries with their long rows of vines, white barns, and opulent tasting rooms looked inviting, but we were here for the other big attraction. Everyone knows that the famous movie director Sir Peter Jackson filmed his epic Lord of the Rings movies in New Zealand, but fewer people know that he also sponsors an air museum. Before you envision a dull display of dusty antique flying machines, you need to know that Peter Jackson put the same art into the museum he put into his films. The aircraft are displayed in dynamic dioramas that tell stories of both the air war in World War I and the evolution of airplanes into tools of conflict. It is more than just a museum; it is a work of art.

We spent our final day on a sea kayaking trip with a local guide at the Abel Tasman. Just the five of us and Tom, our guide, in three sea kayaks. During the day, Tom told us how he grew up in England thinking he was “daft.”  It was an assessment we certainly didn’t share. Tom later discovered he had dyslexia, but by then, he opted out of school and found his solace in nature. Eventually, he found his way to NZ, where he lives in a “caravan” (camper van for the Americans) and works guiding kayak trips in the summer and skiing in the winter. His tale was as enchanting as anything else in the park. 

Tom is not “daft” as his comprehensive knowledge of the Abel Tasman showed. With his intimate grasp of the area, he took advantage of changes in the tide and current to lead us to spots we would have never found or dared venture into on our own. The highlight was a small, protected pool where seal pups were learning to swim. Watching those little guys splash around and play with total abandon in the water that is their natural environment, but which they are discovering for the first time was magical. We kept our distance to avoid disturbing the pups or, perhaps more pointedly, not to anger their mommies. Then it was off to lunch.

We pulled our kayaks up onto an empty sand beach. The place was named Mosquito Bay, and I suspect that some foresighted person gave it that name to scare away the uninitiated because it was deserted. We relaxed on a beach with gorgeous golden sand beach and no mosquitos. Tom unpacked a wonderful lunch with sandwiches, fruit, coffee, and juice. The best part was when he pulled out the baked goods. Tom had baked these the night before. They were just as good as his guiding, but the fact he made them, especially for us, gave the experience the feeling of being a family with one new member. 

 

We continued our paddle back and passed sailboats sitting serenely at anchor in the high tide. What’s interesting is that at low tide, those boats won’t have any water under them. Although this is generally a severe problem for sailing yachts owing to the prominent keel underneath them and the decided tendency this produces for keelboats to tip over when the tide goes out. However, these yachts are designed with a three-part keel that allows them to rest on the bottom when the tide goes out without tipping. Although I had read about boats like this, the bays of Abel Tasman were the first time I saw one sitting there with nothing but sand underneath it.

Our kayak expedition proved to be the highlight of the trip. It had been so impressive that everything else we planned looked anticlimactic. So when there was a problem with our accommodations for the remainder of the trip, we decided to take the hint and end our vacation early. You would assume that a more extended vacation is better, but the research on happiness doesn’t agree with our intuition. The human brain tends to remember only two things about an experience; the peak and the end. When we reflect on a past vacation, or any experience, we tend to remember the most dramatic moment and the last, not how long the whole experience was. If you can ensure that the most dramatic part is good and the trip ends well, you will remember it fondly. With our sea kayak excursion, we had guaranteed both of those things. We could have stayed longer, but then our vacation would not have ended on such a high note, and likely we would less fondly remember the whole experience in the future. So we took a positive psychologist’s advice, listened to fate’s whispers, and headed home with two days left on our itinerary.

We have found plenty to entertain us in our own backyard. From walks by the ocean, to hikes on scenic trails, exploring new restaurants and trying new foods, to making our own jade jewelry. In New Zealand, they call it greenstone instead of jade, and carving it into jewelry is a tradition passed down from the ancient Māori. We wanted to try it, so we made an appointment with two local Māori artists to show us how to do i. We learned the art in a brightly lit workshop decorated in the artist chic of unfinished projects, scattered tools, and the absence of a broom. We started by designing our individual pieces, then selected the stone, cut, shaped, ground, and polished it until we each had our unique souvenir. We can now sport our greenstone talismans around town like the locals.

Lately, we haven’t been getting out of town as much because we have been busy with local projects. Heidi and Delaney both took roles in a local dinner theater production. Heidi started the show with a shriek as the unwitting participant in a hypnotism demonstration gone horribly wrong. And with their “authoritative” American accents, both Delaney and Heidi were the unseen voices in a second short piece as well. Behind the scenes, Will worked on sound and lighting, Delaney worked as a stagehand, and I performed all the still photography. It was a great experience and allowed us to meet and bond with new people. Afraid we are now in the circle and will be involved again soon.

 

The kids are more ambitious than their parents, as Will and Delaney also worked on the high school musical titled “High School Musical.”  That led to a lot of fun conversation a la Abbot and Costello that sounded like this, “Are you going to the high school musical?”

“What’s it called?”

“High School Musical.”

“I know its the high school musical, but if I wanted to buy a ticket, what show would I ask for?”

“High School Musical.”

You get the idea.

This time Allen got involved by directing most of the second half of the production. Delaney was again on stage while Will ran the sound and light board. It was your usual high school production, uneven and featuring a couple of blunders, but overall a fun night, with better than expected singing and dancing. All these projects have been fun, but we are looking forward to a little more free time as back-to-back shows have kept us very busy.

The winter break is coming up for school, and the kids will have two weeks off. We plan to spend the first of those weeks exploring the ski fields in the Queenstown area of New Zealand. It will be a new skiing experience in July, and we are anxious to try the Southern Alps. The only problem is that it doesn’t feel much like ski season with everything green and flowering here on the west coast. However, we can see the snow-covered mountains from Greymouth. In fact, we can see them while we stand with our feet in the ocean surf. I don’t know of many places where you can do all that. But that is part of the magical appeal of New Zealand; it offers everything from ocean beaches and surfing to alpine mountains and skiing, with glaciers, vineyards, and fjords thrown in to add variety. And all of it is within one day’s drive of where we live, making our biggest challenge deciding where to go next.

If you want to take a look for yourself, New Zealand is reopening to tourism after its quarantine. The country had closed its borders because of COVID, but now it is reopened and anxious for visitors to return. In fact, now is the ideal time to visit as the crowds have yet to materialize. Hope to see you here soon, and if not, I’ll be along with another newsletter in a month or two.  

Until then, Cheers.