Greetings from New Plymouth

From New Zealand S...

I have been in Taranaki (New Zealand) for just on three months and what a wonderful summer it has been. The weather has been glorious without the fire of Australian heat but with much sun and fine clear days to enjoy the things Taranaki province has to offer from the Mountain to the Coast, from festivals and frivolity to quiet time reading and listening to the bush chorus of bell birds, tui's, moreporks and the hum of bumblebees.

Mountain Walking

Most notably (for me) I have spent some wonderful days walking in Egmont National Park. The thing about Taranaki is the path is either up or down and very little in the way of flat terrain. This of course adds to its charm but my feet are rather sore with both blisters on my heels from going up and blackened toes from coming down! My first walk was in the Pouakai Ranges. Taranaki district is situated over a volcanic vent that has over time produced four mountains. The current mountain is relatively young, only 80,000 years old. The Pouakai, Kaitake and Motoroa ranges are remnants of older volcanoes that having lost the rejuvenation of constant volcanic eruptions to replenish their height and bredth in the face of constant weathering have been slowly wearing down into nubby ranges. I did a two day walk over the Pouakais about a month ago now. The walk took in the Ahukawakawa swamp which was absolutely beautiful. The day I was walking over the swamp from Holly Hut was rather turbulent weather – foggy with sheets of rain pounding my back but walking through the swamp I felt like I was on a movie set – visibility was down to about two metres and the whole experience was rather surreal and disembodied. I stayed in the Pouakai hut for the night, going to sleep with the hut shuddering in the wind and the drumming of rain on the roof. The hut had a coal fire to dry everything out, including myself, for which I was very grateful. I woke up the following morning to bird song and calm. Getting to the Pouakai range (5 min walk up from the hut) I had 180 degree views of the mountain and coast from Mocau to Oakura, taking in New Plymouth. All in all it was a lovely walk.

From New Zealand S...

Last weekend I accompanied a group from the New Plymouth District Council to the Summit of Taranaki itself. I hadn't attempted it before as firstly I was aware that the Maori belief system views Taranaki anthropomorphically as a rather hot-headed young man and walking to the summit is like walking on his head (and therefore disrespectful), and more simply because it looked bloody hard!!! Anyway, I decided to do the walk and was glad of the company. We left at 2am with the hope of reaching the summit for the sunrise at 7am. I naturally fell in with the older and slower of the group but we had a lot of fun and chats (when we had breath for it) and their camaraderie was very welcome and kept me going. The walk was indeed very difficult and we took until 9am to get to the summit itself. I had just finished the scoria slope when the sunrise came up behind Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. It came at a time when I seriously doubted I could keep going. My heart was pounding and I had blisters like you wouldn't believe. One of the girls in the group was rather overwrought and the rest of us were rather done in as well when the sun started its soft glow from behind Ruapehu and we all stood transfixed for 20 minutes just taking in the glorious, heartbreakingly beautiful sunrise. It gave all of us strength to go on. We were so close to our goal. I finally understood all those clichés about setting the goal but getting to it one step at a time so as not to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the objective. My heart was full to overflowing when I finally stood at the pinnacle surveying the view which took in from Patea all around the mountain to Mocau, Opunake, New Plymouth over to Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe.

From New Zealand S...

From New Zealand S...

Beaches

New Plymouth seems like a bustling, happening little town these days. When I used to visit in the early 90s everything, like in the Waikato (where I grew up) seemed depressed and dreary but with the oil and gas boom in recent years and the general good health of the New Zealand economy there has been money to spruce up the public places and make them inviting and attractive. One of these innovations has been the coastal walkway. A 7km walkway spanning the town. Believe it or not, New Plymouth is a town that in its early days turned its back on the sea. The coast was primarily an industrial area, with the port, fishing boats, factories, refineries, attendant train tracks etc. All this, as well as the sharp winds that come from the sea, separated people from the delights of the coast. This is all in the past now. It is wonderful to see so many people out and about riding, sailing, swimming, walking and generally using the public space well. Since I have been here (from January onwards) there have been a surprising amount of festivals and events hosted by New Plymouth. First up with the Parihaka Peace Festival with music and hui (debates and discussions) on peace and sustainability. Tarsh would have enjoyed 'Americana' which was an American muscle car spectacular. I won't go on about the types of cars but they were very colourful and loud and I loved seeing all the old ducks riding around with big smiles on their faces. Take a look at this link for photos… http://www.dimension-d.co.nz/americana/gallery.html . Waitangi Day also was celebrated at dawn on the beach. We had WOMAD a couple of weeks ago, which I didn't attend but which apparently was fantastic. I could hear it from my place and could hear all the frivolity. Last weekend they had Jack Johnson (and judging from what I could hear it was pretty uninteresting to say the least!) but the highlight of the concert was a whole group stripped off all their clothes and jumped in the duck pond (ewww!) and swapped underwear until the police arrived and coaxed them out. Wild Nake Nakians!

From New Zealand 2008

New Plymouth is full of little reserves and path ways. In my first month or so here I had my map and sought out all the off road routes on my way. I walk to work along the Huatoki Stream Walkway which feeds in at the end of my road and spits me out directly opposite the New Plymouth District Council. I love that I can leave for work at 7:30 and arrive after greeting the morning birdlife and sparkling stream at work at 8:00. No more of this leaving for work an hour and a half before I start work frazzled and full of angst. Unfortunately, New Plymouth is not immune from the creep of urban crime and it isn't perhaps wise to walk these tracks after dark or it seems even in broad daylight sometimes but I have not yet experienced any threatening behaviour and I walk as if I can look after myself (which of course I can!).

From New Zealand S...

From New Zealand 2008

Historical Taranaki

When I first arrived in Taranaki one of the first books I got out of the library was entitled 'Maori Life in Old Taranaki' by John Houston. I enjoyed the book which provided a written account of oral history of the Ngati Ruanui Iwi (tribe) located between Patea and Opunake. This included their emigration story lead by Turi and their arrival in Aotearoa, pushing their waka (canoe) over the isthmus of Manakau and continuing their journey by waka to Kawhia and the final leg of their journey over land to Patea in 1350ad. Houston also gave an account of more recent history of the effects of Pakeha (European) settlement, including the Waikato/Taranaki wars and then of course the Taranaki/European wars of the 1860-1880s. Scott's 'Ask that Mountain' and Michael King's 'Penguin History of New Zealand' also provided some interesting insight into past occurences. My cousin Fran, my Aunt Ann and I took a drive one day to visit some sites of interest including the Te Namu Pa located on the outskirts of Opunake, Orangi-Tuapeka Pa located outside Maniaia and the wonderful South Taranaki coastline. On one of these expeditions we found a fossil stone which has been much enjoyed. Actually, the whole process of reading about what happened in certain places and then visiting those sites was very good at giving me a sense of place, rooted in the present but with a sense of history and my own part in that history. Whether I like it or not, I am a part of the history of Taranaki and it has surprised me just how much of a sense of belonging and place I feel here. New Plymouth itself doesn't appeal to me as a potential place to live but rural Taranaki certainly does. I don't yet know what I will do upon my return from overseas but I think rural Taranaki will feature in the choices I have before me.

Preparing to go overseas

Amazingly I am only four weeks away from going to China. Natasha and I have had to bow to circumstances and change our itinerary somewhat in acknowledgement of the trials in Tibet. I hope that their protest at the very least doesn't result in great hardship and oppression and at the best in getting their voice heard. It is hard to imagine that China will relent in any way but sometimes I wonder at the effectiveness of the passive submission policy adopted. As with Burma, it is hard to be optimistic for a positive outcome. However, history has shown us that sometimes the unbelievable does happen – just look at the Soviet Union of 1989/91. I will then travel to Moscow and St Petersburg (finally – all these years of dreaming) and will probably meet up with Nat Kellerman there. I am meeting Tamara in Spain on the 1^st of June for a few weeks of fun in the Andalusia sun before heading home from Paris in early July.

Wanderlust

From New Zealand S...

The act of walking has a rhythm of its own and creates a rhythm of thinking and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it. A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along, as though thinking were traveling rather than making. And so one aspect of the history of walking is the history of thinking made concrete - for the motions of the mind cannot be traced, but those of the feet can... Perhaps walking should be called movement, not travel, for one can walk in circles or travel around the world immobilised in a seat, and a certain kind of wanderlust can only be assuaged by the acts of the body itself in motion. It is the movement as well as the sights that seems to make things happen in the mind, and this is what makes walking ambiguous and endlessly fertile; it is both means and end, travel and destination. Rebecca Solnit. Wanderlust: a history of Walking.

My immanent departure for New Zealand is made even more real by the fact that my replacement at Tech-Dry starts tomorrow, that I have packed up those belongings I wish to retain and discarded those that I wish to offload, and I have begun the process of farewelling many of my friends and family. Suddenly all this planning and dreaming has become something tangible and if I am a little honest, just that little bit overwhelming. Kundera writes about the unbearable lightness of being that people experience as monstrous, though of course he was talking more philosophically about disentangling oneself from having to attach meanings to things in order to weigh us to this world. I haven't quite been that radical but still, in less than a month I shall be itinerant without a house or hearth to call mine and almost nothing to fix me either here or there. It is quite an exhilarating feeling. I have been reading Solnit's Wanderlust, which as been reminding me of the freedom and rhythm of walking and how the very act of walking seems to enable thought in a meandering sense, when the mind has the time and the leisure to stroll through various forests and side paths and when without warning a beautiful scene or revelation becomes visible, as if simply walking around a bend or passing by an obstacle, a feature that has always been there becomes clear and gloriously displayed. I admit that it is primarily for this reason that I have chosen this particular journey, for the pleasure of time: to think, to allow a decision to simply present itself to me. For the past couple of years it has all seemed hopelessly clouded and unpleasant and I hope, I intend, for this journey to be as much an inner journey as an outer one.

An Eskimo custom offers an angry person release by walking the emotion out of his or her system in a straight line across the landscape, the point at which the anger is conquered is marked with a stick, bearing witness to the strength or length of the rage - Lucy Lippard, Overlay

From New Zealand S...