Ari's Planet

After several hours picking out the latest photos and writing short descriptions, followed by much wrangling with OpenOffice Calc (a spreadsheet program with some missing features), Exiftool (which chokes on single quotes and parentheses), Bash shell, and too much (re)uploading of files, I have severly wounded the Beast of No Description or Titles, at least for the new photos. My last major batch of photos from New Zealand is now online, including:

Auckland
Awanui
Cape Reinga
Kerikeri
Northland
Piha
Tongariro

There is a small remnant of the forest that once covered the north of NZ. There are some 300 plant species, the most massive being the giant New Zealand kauri trees that were mined nearly out of existence in the 18th and first half of the 20th centuries. Tane Mahuta, the largest known surviving NZ kauri, is enormous. Its girth is astonishing, its height impressive. It is estimated at 2000 years old, but I have heard people say it may be 4000 years old. Kauri grow very slowly, a tree planted 12 years ago looks like a seedling of any other tree, a tree is not worth harvesting until it is 200 or more years old. Kauri shed their lower branches, so only the crown is filled with branches and leaves. There, maybe 50 meters up, another more than 30 species of plants make their homes, mosses, epiphytes, flowers, roots streaming in the air. On a rainy day water drips through the forest. Kauri and other trees climb up, ferns and all sorts of things cover the wet ground. The Kauri Museum is misnamed: it should be called the Kauri Logging Museum. Only a living kauri forest can convey what the forest is like. In the museum are impressive logs, ancient wood tens of thousands, even tens of millions, of years old. There is translucent gold kauri gum. There are manequins and displays, machines and gadgets, a wall of love for chainsaws, a light that breaks in the sky (ceiling) above the revolutionary Caterpillar tractor. People fish in NZ. The waters here are not yet depleted, men are so happy to gather food from the seas. Where is the yonder light that breaks over the sonar equipped fishing fleet that so changed the oceans? The fish do not jump into the nets in American waters. Lambs skip across the rolling waves of land that were forested. The museum does not convey the living kauri, it conveys the denuded ocean, by hook and by barb of sharpened steel, the rotating blade of a saw. Tane split his parents and let light into the world, Tane Mahuta lets the light of understanding into the dim heart.

At dawn, lambs followed their mums on close cropped grass. My movements startled, a camera lens raised, a lamb's ears turn, its mother grazes on. A goose walked under my tripod, as I was intent on a bird walking through a rivulet running to the sea lit by the rising sun. A tui (starling sized) chased a kereru (a large pigeon), for it had settled in its tree. Men walked out to fish on a rock, a shad lay dead under glowing pohutukawa, holding the sea and the land at bay, lest oysters carve into their curving bark, blister tidal stone. Out of peat are hauled trees, which fell yesterday, 50,000, 100,000 years ago, from seams of coal comes wood that is 30,000,000 years older. On Tane Mahuta live 30 species of plants high in the air, their roots swriling in the sky, the great time-faring canoe that caries them beyond men, past moa. Rain drips, drips, drips.

After getting bogged down in Mt. Eden for a couple of months, it is time to move on to new places. I've rented a van from Wicked Campers ($19/day) for 10 days, starting Monday, to take me up to North Land. Up at Cape Reinga is a tree whose roots surround the entrance to the Maori underworld. I hope to see this place, which reminds me of Muroto Misaki in Japan, a place at the edge of a vast sea believed to be a gateway for the souls of the departed.

I posted some photos from New Zealand that hadn't made it up yet:

Auckland
Coromandel
Okarito
Rangitoto
Rotorua
Thames

One rainy Sunday morning, England, America and Italy were sitting there watching possibly the worst episode of Star Trek Voyager, in which Commander Chakotay is stranded on a planet at war and is apparently aided by men who completely, but not unintelligibly, mangle the English language, with phrases such as "trunks" for forest. It was the unnecessary use of the word "crave" on this imaginary planet at war, however, which led to the War of Italy and France vs. English of 2008. As every schoolchild knows by now, this war started in New Zealand over what initially seemed like a trifling misunderstanding. Italy, not knowing what "crave" meant, asked America what it meant, which America dutifully answered "want" (later historians have claimed that this meddling by America led to the subsequent fighting, though others counter that this is a highly revisionist version of events). Italy, seeking to explore this new word, attempted to use it in a sentence.

Not having schistosomiasis parasites running around has made the day much fuller of time and energy. So what goes on? Well, not too much really. There's life in a quiet suburban hostel. People come and go. Some stay for months, giving a chance to get to know them. Every evening the kitchen fills up. We take turns, or not, commandeering the one gas stove. This is the preferred cooking area, as the electric stove has two settings on all its burners: off and burn-your-food. One of the most fun things is watching people from different cultures concoct their dinners. Everyone has their own way of eating, Asians use rice flower, Europeans cook heavier dishes in pots, I cook my own measley cuisine (I call it "Ari Cuisine", which isn't saying much). Unfortunately for the continent, Europeans don't know how to make pancakes. They make these thin things without any fluffiness and are sorely deprived of maple syrup and blueberries. Hmmph, I think it is quite obvious why they all want to come to America! Now we're trying to watch the Olympics, but after the opening ceremonies I wonder if anything they show is based on true events.

There's a shop outside the Auckland Fish Market where there are all sorts of interesting fish, some for as little as $8/kg. Many fisheries are badly managed and are unsustainable. I do not want to eat fish that are harvested in an unsustainable way or using methods that harm other marine life. The Marine Stewardship Council recently recertified Hoki as sustainably managed. Reading the page on the Hoki at the MSC, it says that Hoki are caught by bottom trawling, which tends to be a very destructive method. The Royal Forest and Bird Society says to avoid Hoki and that the Hoki fishery is not sustainable, "The main concerns with this fishery are: the bycatch of hundreds of NZ fur seals, albatrosses and petrels each year, plus bycatch of the globally threatened basking sharks and impacts on benthic communities." Is the MSC right or wrong? Why would the MSC be wrong?

Let's play a game: guess the weather. Yes, can you guess the weather in Auckland today?

(keep on scrolling down)

(drum roll)

Yes! Amazing, how did you know it's been rainy and windy today! Oh, so dark and wet, like the underside of a rock mired in a swamp. Hey, look at those little things scurrying around down there, the poor buggers.

Live Wires has some nice original drawing greeting cards. There's a tourist shop with a small selection near the bottom of Queen Street in Auckland.

What a storm. It rains, it suns, it rains, it winds, its suns. A typical day. This weekend we have a proper storm, 130 km/h winds, rain.

I've uploaded a bunch more photos from Abel Tasman NP, Cape Foulwind, Marlborough Sound, Nelson Lakes, Punakaiki, Tongariro, Wellington,

My knee is hurting, so I decided to hang out in NZ until it is back in decent shape. This meant canceling my flight on Qantas, leaving me with a NZ$100 credit to get me out of the country. This whole buy the return ticket before coming to the country shtick that NZ forces the airlines to comply with is really annoying, as I would not have purchased a return ticket if it was not required, and would not have had to deal with this cancelation fee.

Once, these hills were covered in giants. They moved through the air, lifted by air currents, until the ground sucked at their flesh. Warmth gave them their new life, slow with the rising and setting of the sun, they watched the constellations circle, burst into fire and die out, they grew their muscles and came to hold in crooks of outstretched arms flowers offered to the light, reaching beyond the dark land below, swallowed in mist. Sharp stone and steel passed through these hills, cracking against wood, leaving few as this kauri tree which stands wrapped in its bark amongst tree ferns, tough vines.

A bird sings, unhinged, or so I impute to it meanings it does not posses. Brown fern leaves drape tree trunks. All is covered in green moss. Fern trees rise in midstory, beach filter cloudy light of late fall. Chip, chip, chip--fast and slow, birds and rain, unhinged. Into a painting of Gondwana that hung on childhood walls. At any moment a shaggy moa will emerge into the world from which it vanished, into the lost world, a dinosaur will crash through the ferns.

Clouds move, dissipate, I do not recognize the return walk. These plants were here, but this burnt piece of wood, charred in a volcanic eruption, that peak covered in snow?

NZ is great, definitely recommended. If you're from an English-speaking country it doesn't give you as big a cultural difference from the Pakeha (European) descent, but the Maori give a different perspective, and even the Pakeha have their own differences. Mainly it's the landscape that is amazing. My knee started acting up so I wasn't able to hike Tongariro, just did some shorter day hikes (where short means 17 km going "god damn knee... ooh, look at that mountain... ow, stupid hurting kn... holy cow that's totally amaz ouch" you get the picture).

A few tips I've picked up along the way for getting around NZ. Traveling here is about as easy as it gets. They put clean toilets everywhere, there's even a space-age closet with an automatic door in Taupo. There are basic services--food, gas, lodging--practically in the smallest little spot. I did learn a tiny bit.

Guidebooks

The land melts. Polar ice caps shrink, icebergs calve off of great sheets of ice. In the mountains of New Zealand, I drive up access roads to glaciers. These are no ordinary glaciers, they are at a convenient lattitude, easily accessed. They can be seen from the sea nearby, though they sit in mountains. Along the road are signs "the glacier was here in 1750", "here in 1932", the road keeps going. Eventually you reach the glacier. There is a delay. It takes some 5 years for a change in snowfall at the head of these glaciers to be reflected in a change in their terminal faces.

Here's a story, without names or references and probably mangled, since I don't have the book with me, but it's sweet and doesn't involve burning giant lizards, beating up the sun, or combusting all your enemies.