Reports from Sara

AUSTRALIA UPDATE NO. 7Share
Yesterday at 11:32pm
Hello World!
I realize that it has been positively ages since my last general post. Actually, since our first day in New Zealand. Over a week and a half has passed since then, so I will do my best to inform you of all our activities. I will lump them together, though, instead of breaking them all down into individual days. This, I believe, is the best strategy to use in approaching New Zealand, as we have been doing a lot of lazing, bonding, and strolling here, break some location visits down into two or three days’ worth of visits, like the National Museum, which we have been to visit twice now, Cornwall Park, and the harbor area.
The first few days we were here, we focused on settling into our hotel, adjusting to yet another time zone (we are now 17 hours ahead of U.S. CST, in the first nation to see the sunrise every morning), and exploring the neighborhood. An interesting fact that my mother shared with us just yesterday is that this whole neighborhood is actually owned by a farmers’ trust. A hundred years or so ago, a crew of Irish bachelor farmers came and tilled this land. Having never married, they had no one to leave their beautiful acreage to, and so formed a trust fund for a school for orphaned boys. That school, Dilworth, was constructed of fine bricks and laid out with open playing fields for the boys to romp in. Family members of orphaned boys can petition to have their boys’ sent on scholarship to the school. The money for the school is collected by rent from all of the surrounding hotels up and down our street.
That gives you some starting geography of our area. We are in the Dilworth Newmarket neighborhood (a suburb of Auckland), staying at a Best Western hotel that is one of thirty plus hotels all built lot to lot next to each other up and down Great South Road. Further down the road, the hotels stop and the car lots start. There are an additional ten used and new car lots door to door with one another up and down the road, until one reaches the shopping neighborhood. From there on out to downtown are wall to wall restaurants, shops, and malls, with two movie theatres and an Olympic swimming pool tossed in for taste and variety. Going the other way down Great South Road, the neighborhood fans out into side streets full of antique shops, family owned restaurants, and residential housing. It seems everyone has a flowering garden and front gate, with at least one tree growing straight up out of the front yard. On that same end of town is an enormous park – Cornwall Park – complete with an extinct volcano, monument, working farm, and Eucalyptus grove that was planted in the early 1900s. I have gone on many walks through that park, as it stretches out for miles in all directions. Closer to town are the thick tree groves and winding walking paths, with great, ancient volcanic stonewalls that have been worn smooth and black from decades of rainstorms, and having thousands of people climb over them. The center of the park fans out into rolling hills and pasture. Flocks of sheep and herds of cattle graze together by the old stone fences, resting in the sun. The grass here is so thick and plush that it is almost marshy with dampness. It is a brilliant green color, too, as if it has absorbed so much sunlight over the years, that the grass itself has started shining. The trees are thick and towering, with trunks so wide that four people could wrap their arms around them at once, and still not touch fingers. The branches and roots alike rise and drop, gnarled and twisted with such waves that it seems they have been aesthetically influenced by the nearby sea.
Parts of the park are well groomed and planted. On our walk, my father, brother, and I experienced the surreal sight of passing through a trail that had both autumnal, falling leaves and brilliant spring daffodils growing from the ground. Anything is possible, on the underbelly of the equator, it seems.
At the very heart of the park is One Tree Hill. It is an ancient Maori holy ground, and an extinct volcano. Years of overgrowth and erosion have worn it down into a sloping, grassy hill, but the great volcanic craters are still apparent in open-mouthed hollows at its sides. I had made the climb before, on my own time, accidentally scaling the back of the mountain. I didn’t want to take the time to find a road or trail, so I literally pawed and clawed my way up the back of an almost vertical slope, before swinging myself Mission-Impossible-style over a fence and onto the road.
Dad and I took a different route the next time we went up. We followed the visitors’ guide trail and stopped to read the signs about the volcanic history and Maori legends. It was a much different walk, on the paved road, but both of them were equally good experiences, and the arrival at the top and the monument were just as satisfying, both ways.
At the top of One Tree Hill is a monument similar to the Washington Monument, but smaller, and made of black volcanic stone. It is wildly windy up there, but you can see for miles. All of the surrounding islands, ocean, and Auckland are laid out before you.
Back at the bottom of the hill is a visitors’ center and restaurant. Nick, Dad, and I stopped there before and after our climb – enjoying some hot chocolate and coffee while waiting for the rain to die down (it seems every afternoon here demands its ten-minute shower). Then we explored an early settlers’ cabin – the oldest wooden one left in Auckland – and hiked back to our hotel.
Other major events and sites here have included the National Museum, the maritime museum, and Rangitoto Island. (As a side note, Nick and I also went to one of the downtown theatres on our own one night to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Good old J.K.)
The National Museum, which we finished visiting today, is a classic, large building on top of yet another hill (noticing a certain geographic theme? All of New Zealand is built on extinct and dormant volcanoes, so hills and mountains are about as common as birds and flowers). The first floor is a broken into rooms each with their own motley theme – full of ancient chest drawers, clothing, wet suits, pickled sea creatures, taxidermied zoo animals, old children’s games, European instruments, and casts of Greek statuary. The second and third floors make up for the oddities of the first, however. The second has a fantastic display of Maori weaponry, clothing, pottery, ships, and architecture; not to mention a display surrounding Sir Edumund Hillary’s climbing axe, and details on his infamous first climb up Mount Everest. So, too, does it have a room about volcanoes, on Earth and other planets, and a film about Auckland’s own relationship to its nearby dormant volcanoes… the floor shook. It was fantastic. As the largest city in New Zealand, and home to over 1/3 of the nation’s population, Auckland MUST have a viable evacuation system in case any of these volcanoes decide to wake up…
We visited the third floor today. It was a singular memorial floor to all of New Zealand’s veterans, and history of the wars New Zealand has been involved with. I had never realized until today just how expansive the World Wars were. I didn’t realize that small nations like New Zealand and South Africa had been involved, nor that these wars had stretched far into the middle East. The whole world really was at war. And for nations like New Zealand, it was ruinous. New Zealand lost 1/8 of its entire population in men during World War I, and nearly that many again just two decades later for World War II. So, too, there were displays on the Anglo-Boer War, and the Maori-Anglo civil war. I thought it was especially interesting that it was known as a civil war, when in so many other nations – like Australia and the United States – we STILL don’t recognize the original rights and sovereignty of our native people. To call that time a time of civil war acknowledges the equal rights that all New Zealanders had to their land, and the current peace and equanimity under which both cultures now live. I think we all have a lesson to learn from New Zealand.

The Maritime museum was also enriching. Built right on the harbor, one of the exhibits involved several of the old sailing boats, tug boats, and steamers that were sitting in the very bay outside. They had extensive exhibits on the whaling industry, Maori life and exploration, and the first settlers’ trips to the island. I especially enjoyed learning about the creation myth behind the New Zealand islands. I won’t retype the myth here, but I really encourage you, readers, to go out and read some of the Maori myths and legends that can be found online. It is a deep, complex, and interesting culture that is very much alive today. I still can’t believe some of the things the original Polynesian settlers did to get to this land! Crossing thousands of miles of open water by canoe to settle uncharted islands? Incredible.

Two days ago, we took a harbor ferry cruise around Auckland and got a little history of the place. We saw several of the Americas Cup racing sail ships out and about, learned a little about some of the local islands, watched bungy jumpers leap off of the Auckland bridge, and just happened across a large pod of black dolphins on our way back into the shore. Our ferry operator and tour guide was a kindly, gruff old fellow with a dry sense of humor and a warm heart. He stopped to let us see the dolphins, giving us an extra free fifteen minutes of photographic opportunities of the leaping porpoises.

Yesterday we took a ferry out to Rangitoto island, which is Auckland’s nearest and newest volcano. It started erupting just 600 years ago, and stopped a mere 250 years ago. The island is still covered in heaping piles of black rocks from the volcanic explosions. Through the rocks have grown several rare types of trees – one variety has grown in such excess, that Rangitoto Island is home to the one forest of this tree variety. The only forest like it in the world. On the ferry across, I met a lot of interesting travelers, including two boys from California that are here with their university; one woman who moved here from Texas; a young German fellow; and a British boy named Luke. Luke was traveling alone, having just graduating from college, and enjoying a summer adventure before heading into graduate school. He was blond, boyish, and about my height, with a thick farming English accent that he attributed to his Salisbury upbringing. I invited him to hike with my brother and I, and he spent the whole afternoon with us, wandering into dripping caves, hiking the rim of the main volcanic crater, and picnicking back on the shore. We talked about the differences in our nation’s sports, colleges, politics, and histories. He is studying Computer Science, helping to make programs for the iphone and working to improve hospital x-ray technologies surrounding osteoporosis detection. Someday, we both hope to be college professors. It was fun making a friend, and the three of us enjoyed one another’s company on the jungle-like, ferny mountainside. Someday, I would like to take a trip like he is – spending the whole summer hopping trains and staying in backpacking hostels, just exploring another country and meeting all sorts of people, by keeping an open mind.

Last Thursday or so, Nick, Dad, and I also went up the Sky Tower, which is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. We took an elevator to the top, and enjoyed the incredible helicopter-height view out over Auckland and the islands. On our elevator ride up, we met a girl who was going to bungy jump off the top of the building – something which is apparently very popular to do. We watched her jump AND land, admiring her gumption. I, meanwhile, was struggling to make myself stand on the glass floor looking down, even though I had already been skydiving just a few weeks before. Funny how the human mind works like that.

That covers many of our greatest adventures – although I’m sure I’ll remember another great place that I forgot to mention, and I’ll remember it as soon as I climb into bed to go to sleep. Aside from those great adventures, we have enjoyed visiting a number of international food courts, tourist shops, and smaller, local parks. The country is beautiful, the people are friendly, and the sun is warm. We’ve enjoyed the continued attention to environmental issues and food quality --- nearly everything is organic, the eggs are labeled both “Cage eggs” and “Cage-free” so there can be no confusion; food courts use real plates and silverware for all eat-in meals; public buses run on natural gas; and 70% of the nation’s electricity is derived from sustainable energy. We are the very first Americans to stay at this Best Western motel, so the staff here is friendly, curious, and accommodating, always keeping us updated on good places to visit and how to find good bus passes. The manager, Laurence, is masterfully helpful in this, and makes a point to talk to us every morning.

As a side note, we have also discovered a fantastic little restaurant called “Hell’s Pizza” with great themes and character. You can check it out for yourselves: https://hellpizza.co.nz/

Mom has been enjoying her school visits, too. She has met some of the most powerful leaders in Reading Recovery both from New Zealand and from the Philippines. She loves the people she has met and is working with, and comes back every night enthusiastic and refreshed. She says she is learning more here than she could have learned in a year back home.

Needless to say, we have enjoyed lots of family bonding time, too. This has been a great trip, and is going by very quickly. As it is now 11:30 p.m., and we have to wake up early tomorrow for another ferry trip over to a different part of the North island, I am going to say goodnight, but I promise to do a better job of posting updates. Much love to all! Best wishes!

- Sara