Volume 22, No. 3

May 2009

A WALK THROUGH NEW ZEALAND’S WATERY WILD - NY Times Travel

By Robert D. Hershey, Jr.

In 1908, The Spectator magazine called the 33.5 mile Milford Track through Fiordland National Park in New Zealand “the finest walk in the world,” an honorific still credible to knowledgeable hikers— one fan was Sir Edmund Hillary a full century later.

The park, part of the Te Wahipounamu Unesco World Heritage Site, is of jaw-dropping beauty, a rare combination of rain forest, rushing rivers and glacially carved alpine heights that yields vistas that make you think you’ve stepped into a picture postcard. What’s more, novices as well as hardened trekkers can fully enjoy the delights of the Milford, which offers as much solitude as you could want and ambient water so pure you’re actually encouraged to drink whatever you can reach.

When I was there last February (the New Zealand summer) as part of a guided group of 50 travelers on a five-day trip that included three days of serious walking, the two words I heard uttered most often as we trekked through the wilderness were “awesome” and “incredible.”

The Milford Track, what Americans call a trail, is promoted as physically neither easy nor difficult, with only children under 10 excluded by guide-company policy and hikers over 70 asked just to check their fitness with their doctor. Perhaps it is best put this way: City folks unaccustomed to walking more than a few minutes at a time will likely find the going hard while experienced hikers will consider the Milford, at least in favorable weather, not particularly challenging.

But so much depends on the utter unpredictability of the weather - frequent rain and perhaps even snow during summer in the southwest corner of New Zealand's South Island.

The number of hikers who can walk the full Milford Track in peak season is limited to 90 a day — 50 with the private guide company Ultimate Hikes New Zealand, which holds an exclusive franchise, and 40 who register as independent walkers with the New Zealand Department of Conservation.

Each sponsor has its own overnight accommodations, and everyone walks in the same direction, north from the head of Lake Te Anau to Sandfly Point on Milford Sound, the route dating from 1888 when two Scots, Quintin Mackinnon and Ernest Mitchell, first struggled up a half dozen steep switchbacks and through the mountain pass now bearing Mackinnon’s name and his memorial topped with a cross.

Partly because boat transportation is required at both ends, by far the most practical way for travelers to walk the Milford is to sign up with Ultimate Hikes, which sends groups out every day of the six-month season from its headquarters in Queenstown.

It supplies four guides, the considerable bus and boat transportation needed, all meals and modern overnight accommodations in lodges with flush toilets, hair dryers and rooms for fast-drying of clothes for an inclusive fee. Prices are highest in December through March, a bit less in November and April.

For independents, who carry all their own food and bedding as well as clothing, the peak season is from late October to late April, but they may walk without bookings — and in either direction — in the particularly hazardous off-peak and winter months.

Although being part of a group overseen by a company that operates with regimented efficiency may appear confining, there is no pressure to walk at

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anything other than your own comfortable pace, stopping whenever you want to gawk at the landscape, to take pictures or simply to rest.

"This is not a race; there is no prize for getting there first," said Anneke, the woman who conducted the required briefing on the afternoon before my friend Anne and I started. "There can be up to two or three hours between the first person and the last person on the trail," she added, implying that four dozen hikers had almost complete freedom to absorb things on their own terms, with companionship or without.

Indeed, one of my very few uneasy moments came after I stopped to chat with an American diplomat accompanying her fisherman husband on a day's outing and no fellow hikers passed me in 15 minutes. When I resumed walking, it was in an open area where the trail was a bit ill-defined, and I thought I might have lost it. I had turned back about 100 yards when, to my relief, a couple of my party came along.

One of the guides always remains behind the slowest walker, so help will eventually arrive as long as you stay on the main trail. If you take one of the brief side excursions, you leave your pack on the trail so 'the "sweeper" guide won't overtake you.

One thing a skittish tenderfoot need never worry about is dangerous wildlife; the Milford Track has no mammals or snakes, the chief threat being merely that the kea, a large and brazen New Zealand parrot, will make off with your lunch.

WHO ATE ALL THE PIES? - Lifestyle News

It is a national treasure - the stuff of legend - the humble Kiwi pie.

It seems every town has a pub or a bakery laying claim to having New Zealand's best.

So why are these heart-stopping snacks still so popular?

"Same as Italians have pizza, we have pies. It's a bit of a poor cousin but never mind," says Max Gallivan of Westport.

Traversing the long, lonely roads of the South Island a pie is a comfort a traveller can always rely on.

And travellers are why the Sheffield pie shop may be in a town with a population of less than two hundred but unbelievably makes about three and a half thousand pies a week.

"We hand-make them all, individually handmade. We use real ingredients and we don't take a lot of shortcuts," says store owner Shane Paterson.

The pie shop in Dunsandel also relies on passing trade - the ingredients for its famous venison pies are never far away.

"(Venison) is not fatty in any way. It's good for you, easy to work with and easily obtainable," says shop owner Bruce Reilly.

Nestled at the foot of the Southern Alps, pie sellers don't come much more isolated than Jackson's Tavern. Their gourmet lamb and mint or venison and red wine pies have proved a hit with locals and tourists alike.

"They just rave about them. I get people coming in for a pea pie pud and they'll rave about them," says owner Neil Fitzsimmons.

On the scenic drive through inland Canterbury, the Hororata Country Hotel is a popular stop, especially in winter for starving skiers returning to Christchurch.

That is put down to one thing.

"Reputation. Because the pies don't advertise themselves apart from word of mouth. We get people coming in that we've never seen before saying they've heard about the pies," says owner Ron Edwards.

Many outlets rely on word-of-mouth.

The pies from Freckles Café are a Westport institution - their recipe dates back almost 50 years.

"If you've got your devout pie-eater, the word spreads and they definitely come in looking for them and they're usually not disappointed," says Mr. Gallivan.

Despite these health conscious times, it seems the pie will prevail.

"I can't change the fact it's full of meat and fat and pastry, but I think that's what a lot of Kiwis still love," says Mr. Paterson.

And around these parts - the next pie is never far away.

BRAINS, BRAWN AND BALLS AT THE WEST COAST'S WILD FOOD FESTIVAL

-3 News

For twenty years the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival has delighted the adventurous and the squeamish in equal measure.

And it seems the attraction of some gag-worthy dishes has not dimmed with the years.

This year almost 15,000 people crammed into the West Coast's favourite food festival many of them in costume and eager to torture their tastebuds.

And despite the huge variety of foods on offer, there seemed to be a common theme.

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"Kind of repulsion but kind of curiosity," says Sue Asplin of the Startled Worm Café.

Live crickets were a popular item this year and also on the menu - cows' udder.

Barbecued lambs tails tempted a few.

And of course Mountain Oysters.

But the dish with the most enduring spectacle - good old testicle - popular and apparently palatable.

One new product on offer this year is colostrum - the first milk from a cow or human after giving birth.

Of course, West Coast whitebait and wild boar was on offer but worm sushi and pigs brain seemed just as popular.

With the beer flowing at a keg a minute - perhaps this is not so surprising.

SAY 'Ahhhh'

L.A. Times

The Far North, including the Bay of Islands, is home to some of the most important historical sites in New Zealand.

Europeans began arriving here in the late 18th century, not long after Captain Cook's first visit in 1769.

Just down the road from Kerikeri, make sure you take a trip to nearby Waitangi and see the stunning Maori Meeting House at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where in 1840 the British signed a treaty with the Maori, linking the destinies of the two people.

The Maori Meeting House is an intricately carved work of art, filled with red, white and black Maori masks with abalone shell eyes and fierce wooden faces. Don't miss the museum and the world's largest war canoe.

For an all-day excursion, don't miss one of the world's oldest and largest trees, Tane Mahuta, which rises out of a subtropical rain forest like a column of hammered silver. The tree is a rock star in the species called kauri, which grows nowhere else on the planet. it's just a short walk from one of New Zealand's highways in the Waipoua Forest, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Kerikeri.

BABY TUATARA, A RARE REPTILE, FOUND ON NEW ZEALAND MAINLAND - by Jordan Lite in 60-Second Extinction Countdown

Oh, Baby.

The discovery of a one-month-old tuatara, a rare reptile descended from lizard-like dinosaurs, has

conservationists in New Zealand celebrating. The critter is the first baby tuatara to be spotted on the mainland there in two centuries, since zoologists released 200 adults inside the Kaori Wildlife Sanctuary beginning four years ago in the hope they'd reproduce.

"We are all absolutely thrilled with this discovery," the sanctuary's conservation manager, Raewyn Empson, said in a statement. "It means we have successfully re-established a breeding population back on the mainland, which is a massive breakthrough for New Zealand conservation."

The reptiles were taken to Kaori to protect them from predators and give them a wider habitat and protection from global warming (tuatara gender is detmined by soil temperature). Finding the baby isn't entirely unexpected, the sanctuary reported in October that it had spotted a tuatara nest with four eggs.

Tuatara are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (UCN). They're native to New Zealand and the only living members of the order Sphenodontia. Because other species in the order became extinct 60 million years ago, tuatara are often called "living fossils," the sanctuary notes. WhiIe it's unknown how long they have been absent from the country's mainland (they do live on surrounding islands), they had virtually disappeared by the late 1700s after the kiore, or Pacific rat, ate their eggs.

Some fun tuatara facts, per the sanctuary: They grow up to 24 inches (60 centimeters) long and 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram), and are known for their "third eye," a patch 'of white scales at the top center of their skull. The reptile can't actually see out of it, but the "eye" may act as a light sensor, telling the animal how much time to spend in the sun. It tends to be visible only in the first six months of a tuatara's life.

Tuatara can hold their breath for up to an hour, and also have unusual teeth - a single row on their bottom jaw, and a double row on the top. And their longevity is better than most of ours: tuatara are thought to live for about 100 years.

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US FORCES IN NEW ZEALAND -The American Invasion (Part 1)

different accents. Though they shared a fondness for owning cars, they drove on different sides of the road. The meeting of these two cultures - similar, yet so different - is the theme of this story.

The invasion began in Auckland on 12 June 1941 when five transport ships carrying soldiers of the US army (or 'doughboys' as they were called) sailed into the harbour. Two days later marines (or 'leathernecks') landed in Wellington. They had arrived as a result of the outbreak of war in the Pacific six months before. From the New Zealand perspective the Americans strengthened New Zealand's defences against possible Japanese attack, while the Americans saw New Zealand as a valuable source of supply and a staging post for operations against the Japanese in the Pacific.

For Aucklanders, the invasion began on a wintry Friday afternoon. The skies were grey, the water the colour of steel, as five transport ships with a cruiser in front and a destroyer in the rear, sailed into Auckland harbour virtually unannounced. The next morning the Mayor of Auckland, J.A.C.Allum, and four military bands stood on Price's Wharf waiting to greet the new arrivals. They played appropriate pieces - 'The Stars and Stripes Forever', 'Colonel Bogey' - and were quickly answered by wide-mouthed sousaphones on board ship playing 'Roll Out the Barrel'. Local ferries blared their horns, passengers waved, the Americans, nurses in blue, solders in olive-green cheered and crammed the cityside of one transport so tightly that the ship listed heavily.

As they berthed, another interesting exchange occurred. The Americans threw down oranges, cigarettes and money. The waiting Kiwis picked up the gifts and threw back New Zealand coins. Some of the visitors wondered where they were, but an American on the wharf; one of the advance guard, gave them all the information they needed to know: 'No Scotch, two per cent beer, but nice folks." Some evidently did know what country they had reached, for the first of the newcomers to land on New Zealand soil was Sergeant Nathan E. Cook, chosen in commemoration of the explorer Captain James Cook. It was some hours before all his comrades of 145 Regiment of the 37th US Army Division were marched off to the railway station and to camp.

Wellington's invasion began two days later on 14 June 1942, when a battered USS Wakefield entered the harbour. Since it was a Sunday morning there were few about, but again there was a band waiting on King's Wharf. This time they struck up with the Marine Corps hymm,'From the Halls of Montezuma

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to the Shores of Tripoli...' for these arrivals were the famous marines of the 1st Corps Division. The distinction - army units or, in contemporary slang, 'doughboys' to Auckland, marines or 'leathernecks' to Wellington - was to remain largely (although not exclusively) the pattern as Americans, women as well as men, arrived over the next two years

On 7 December 1941 Japanese bombers had crippled the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. If New Zealanders felt vaguely thankful that the Americans were now involved in the war, their confidence was quickly shaken. Within days British naval strength, for so long New Zealand's surest bastion, was shown to be vulnerable. The warships Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese torpedoes. By Christmas Day Hong Kong had fallen, and then on 15 February Singapore surrendered. Four days later Darwin was bombed. Some New Zealanders became alarmed that Auckland might be next.

The Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, appealed to British Prime Minster Winston Churchill for assistance in strengthening New Zealand's defence, making the point that with war in the Pacific New Zealand could become a main base area. Churchill was in no position to help, but he was sympathetic to Fraser's plea. There was the obvious option of withdrawing the New Zealand Division from the Middle East to defend the homeland as the Australians had done. But the war in the Middle East was delicately balanced, and the New Zealand troops had been trained to fight there. To withdraw them would be time-consuming and costly in terms of shipping. So on 5 March Churchill asked Roosevelt to send a division to New Zealand on the condition that the New Zealanders remained in Egypt. Roosevelt agreed, and on 24 March cabled that 'we are straining every effort' to send forces at the earliest moment.

From the American perspective the dispatch of troops to New Zealand was not primarily to defend the two distant islands in the South Pacific. New Zealand had a strategic importance. In Mid-March the Allies had decided to divide responsibility for their forces into three zones. The British would control the Middle East-Indian Ocean area, the European-Atlantic zone would be a shared responsibility, and the Pacific would come under the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Within the Pacific itself there was a further division into two main theatres: the South-west Pacific,including Australia, the Philipines, New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, and the Pacific Ocean in which New Zealand was a main base. New Zealand would thus serve as a source of

supply and a staging post for operations against the Japanese within the Pacific. There American forces might train for offensives ahead or recuperate from battles just past. There vegetables and stores could be found for sending to the bloodied jungles further north.

(Will be continued)

CLARK RELISHES THE MOMENT AS RUMOUR BECOMES REALITY - NZ HERALD

The rumour has finally become reality: Helen Clark's critics and friends alike have often said she hankered after a big job at the United Nations.

And after her first job interview, at 59, she becomes head of the UN Development Programme and No. 3 in the UN hierarchy this month.

A torrent of tributes flowed in Parliament yesterday as former enmities were put aside for shared pride, not least from an MP who left her party, Maori Party co-leader Tariana Tutia. A bouquet of flowers from Mrs. Tuna took pride of place on a table in Helen Clark's office yesterday.

April the 8th was to be the former Prime Minister's last day in the House, with plans to start her New York job on April 20.

Asked if she could see herself going for the UN No. 1 job, she said: "This is the job that I bid for. This is the, one I want to do well."

Her term is for four years.

81-YEAR-OLD DOES SHOTOVER CANYON SWING - NZ Travel News

One Friday morning in November while most of us were probably enjoying our first coffee of the day, eighty-one-year old thrill seeker Duncan O'Brien was preparing to launch himself into a canyon with Shotover Canyon Swing in Queenstown.

Proving that age is no barrier, Mr. O'Brien from Denver in Colorado made sure he wasn't going to miss out on the best experience in New Zealand during his two week tour of the country.

The brave American's jumpstyle of choice was the 'Forwards Jump' which entails standing on the edge of a very high platform and jumping or diving into the Shotover Canyon at speed.

"They're not kidding about needing a change of under-clothing - great stuff said Mr. O'Brien shortly after his canyon rush.

Shotover Canyon Swing General Manager Mail Hollyer said it was a privilege hosting Mr. O'Brien.

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"He would have to be one of the oldest customers we've had and one of the tallest too - he was well over six foot three! The crew loved looking after him and were inspired by his zest for life and courage."

WYSIWYG NEWS - by Brian Harmer

(Copyright by Brian Harmer, reprinted by permission)

Were it not for the presence of family members there, I would probably view Wanganui as a place through which to pass, rather than a destination. Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge that it has some attractive features, not least of which is Virginia Lake in the pleasantly affluent suburb of St John's Hill on the Northern side of the city. Mary and I chose to have lunch there on Friday, sitting at one of the thoughtfully designed picnic tables placed at selected sites at the Western end of the lake. In one of those picture perfect but cool autumnal days, with colours of green and blue, bright gold and fluffy white, the lake's brown water gleamed.

As is often the case on urban lakes, the waterfowl are thoroughly domesticated and as soon as we sat at the table by the edge, there were ducks, coots, swans, gulls and sparrows, all hoping for crumbs from the table. Some ducks even heaved themselves out of the water to stride importantly around the table, quacking demandingly for the food. Alas for them my lunch box contained celery, radish, tomato, dates and a boiled egg. Nothing that they would recognise as food. Eventually they lost interest and drifted hopefully in the direction of the people who arrived at the table a little further around.

Out on the water, the coots performed their submarine imitations, disappearing under the surface leaving a stream of bubbles behind in the centre of a perfect ring of ripples. After a moment or two, they would reappear with no visible evidence of any reward for their effort. Ducks and swans performed their usual antics, pointing their posteriors at the sky as they searched the depths for food. Or at least I presume that's what they're doing. For all I know, they might be holding secret underwater meetings to discuss existentialism, or the impact of the current financial crisis on the expected level of food brought to the lake by the tourists.

On the grassy slopes on the Northern edge, near the road, families were picnicking in the sun. Something about ducks is their magnetic attraction for young children. Of course they always elude the

little kids who totter towards them, though it must be a minor irritant for them.

Something was happening in Wanganui, and none of our usual motels had room for us even though we first attempted to book a month ago. Not even any of the second tier establishments. We had to settle for a much older place. Having all the architectural charm of a 1950s Ministry of Works hostel, the motel we got was nevertheless sufficient for our purposes. It was dry, clean, free of draughts, and had most of the necessary equipment.

While not entirely full, the motel had a large number of its units occupied by young families. Consequently, when I looked for a quiet rest later in the afternoon, the peace was disturbed by the sounds of children enjoying the play facilities nearby. Only a true curmudgeon could complain about the sound of innocent play in these days when there are so many kids who have no such opportunity. Some brave souls were camping in the grounds, despite the low overnight forecast temperatures. Canvas is no substitute for real shelter in this cool season, but I suspect that even those in the various motorhomes on the grounds felt the chill.

On Easter Sunday morning Mary decided it was time for a decent walk and she had mapped out a riverside route that later analysis revealed to be approximately 9km in length. Starting near the Gonville supermarket, we crossed Heads Road, and walked down a narrow access path to emerge on a well maintained walkway beside the river. The Whanganui river seems to be a great mover of earth. Silt and driftwood combine to make the water seem murky and impenetrable. The local waterfowl seemed untroubled by this. Many varieties of duck, and some pied stilts waded in the shallows, poking around in the murk at their feet, seemingly satisfied with their catch. In places great beds of reeds proved a resting place for some, while others relied on the plentiful driftwood which has arrived from far upstream.

We walked upstream towards the Motorway bridge, behind a series of obsolete warehouses, and into an area of open grassy land through which the walkway curved its artful way. At strategic intervals, seats shaped like small canoes were placed for weary pedestrians. Despite last week's marking of my advanced years, I was not permitted to count myself in this category, and on reaching the bridge, we went up the ramp and crossed the river to the South. At the far end of the bridge we crossed the road and walked up SH2 still beside the river, until we reached the City Bridge. Crossing this too, we regained the walkway

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from which we had parted earlier. In this older part of the city, there are the remains of the old wharves, once lined with warehouses, from which much of the trade from Wanganui's thriving port passed. Many of these wharves are now rotting skeletal remnants, no doubt climbed upon by the young, the daring, and the plain stupid. On some of the better maintained or restored ones, people were fishing, though we saw no visible signs of success.

As we retraced the earlier part of the walkway to the West of the Motorway Bridge, a solitary power boat came purring up the river, leaving an arrow straight wake spreading across the unusually calm surface of the water. We completed about 9km in almost exactly 90 minutes, not exactly a competitive speed, but sufficient to get me moving, and to offset some of the dietary excess which follows dining with my most hospitable in-laws.

SHEEP GO ON RAMPAGE THROUGH
TE KUITI -

3news.co.nz

Te Kuiti's annual 'Sheep Run' is often compared to the famous 'Running of the Bulls' in Spain.

This year the comparison was more appropriate than ever as the sheep got free and ran through the town, causing chaos in the crowd and leaving one woman dazed after she was knocked over.

The day started well enough with shearing in the town's cultural centre and a visit by the country's most unlikely sheep musterer, Prime Minister John Key.

"Don't stand in front of it, anything can happen," says Mr Key.

And shortly after, anything did happen.

The first woolly breach came just a few hundred metres from the starting line. That was quickly contained, but the mob's next probe was not.

What started as a trickle rapidly became a flood and with the barrier down Te Kuiti's Sheep Run began to look very much like its Spanish counterpart.

A woman was bowled over by the marauding mob, her injuries no laughing matter. She was knocked over, losing consciousness.

A short distance away things were going from bad to worse. Musterers and the odd 3 News reporter tried to stem the flow, but the sheep were not for the turning.

All semblance of order completely broke down, the sheep crossing the main road and the train tracks heading into the hills.

Then it was all over, but the earlier chaos did have organizers concerned.

"Every now and then people will get hurt," says John Fagan. "We're sorry if someone has got hurt, but obviously we do our best to see they don't."

Mr. Fagan says the sheep run will be back next year, but lessons have been learnt.

"We plan to have the street wider at that end so the gap down the middle of the street is more inviting for the sheep to run down."

It had better be pretty wide. The wild sheep of the King Country seem to have no intention of becoming townies.

(You can still see TV coverage of the exciting sea of sheep at:

www.3news.co.nz/Sheep-go-on-rampage)

TASMAN GLACIER RETREATING RAPIDLY

- 3news

Deep in the heart of the Southern Alps Aoraki Mount Cook towers high into the sky above a landscape of rock and ice.

It is quite simply breath taking.

And below the great mountain lies one of our best known glaciers - the Tasman Glacier, a slow moving river of ice, the longest and largest of them all, that is shrinking.

The glacier has 13,000 tourists from all over the world clammering for a look.

There is so much ice off the glacier around that getting the boats out is a delicate task.

Once on the water we get to see the icebergs up close.

Bede Ward manages the tourist operation here and as we head down the lake he knows the bigger bergs by name.

Ice over 300 years old that was once part of the Tasman Glacier is now melting away.

"Basically what's happened here is that the iceberg used to look like that lovely white one over there and it has just rolled over and rebalanced itself there and it exposes its lovely blue ice from underneath," said Ward.

And if you want to know what the ice inside the Glacier looks like, well it looks clear and pure, the result of snow that has been compacted down 50 metres a year over three centuries into beautiful ice crystal.

The lake first formed back in 1973 - the Tasman Glacier has retreated seven kilometer and is moving back fast.

On the lake most of the icebergs here are a year old, what we see on top of the water is just 10 percent of the iceberg, the other 90% is under water.

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So why are so many icebergs caving off the terminal face and falling into the water?

"The water of the lake is warmer than the ice so it is detrimental, eating away at the ice 30cm a day so it's not really helping the cause. Some say it is global warming, some say it is not, but I think humans have had an impact on the ice and the glaciers around the world, but time will tell, a lot can happen in 20 years," said Ward.

Scientists say that the Tasman Glacier could shrink another 11 kilometres up the valley but it won't disappear altogether.

GOVERNMENT TO LOOK AT MORTGAGE HOLIDAYS - Newstalk ZB News

The New Zealand government's looking at whether or not an Australian plan to offer 12 months mortgage relief for those who lose their jobs would work in New Zealand. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced the plan as a way of offering a reprieve during the recession. The plan was agreed to by the country's four biggest banks, with the banks working with borrowers to negotiate a postponement of payments, with interest payments being capitalized back into the loan. Prime Minister John Key's office says our Government will be seeking further information on whether the scheme would work in New Zealand.

A DEVELOPING INDUSTRY From 100% Pure Progress

In 1840 immigrants travelled to New Zealand by sail, later tourists arrived by steam ship in the 1860s, followed by the faster diesel engine in the 1930s.

Rail was establishing itself as highly effective and desirable by 1900 with a 'grand tourist route' combining steamer, coach and rail to take the tourist in comfort from Southland to Auckland. Off this main route, however, travel was often long, tiresome and uncomfortable.

By 1908 the North Island main trunk line was completed and in 1953 railway line peaked at 5,656 km nationwide.

The arrival of the motorcar in early 1900 was greeted with mixed reactions, horror, one of them: "Regarded as a beast the monster is horrible. Regarded as a machine it is one of the noisiest and most objectionable that has ever been invented.

A horse does not run a man down if he can help it but a machine of steel and brass will delight in killing people..."

It was soon put to use by the Mt Cook Motor Car Service in 1906 and soon after on the 'grand tour' passenger service from Fairlie to Queenstown by motorcar.

The Newman brothers purchased their first gas-buggy, the Cadillac, in 1911. However this was certainly not the end of the horse. On finding the Mitchell Cadillac hard to start in cold weather, Tom Newman would harness a horse to the car and gallop around the paddock to start the engines!

The horse and coach still reigned strong in 1915, however the tide was turning by 1920 and the private motorcar grew hugely in popularity in the inter-war years.

Air travel began in the l940s, the ski-plane in 1955, and the arrival of the jets in the 1960-70s impacted on tourism growth to New Zealand, creating cheaper and faster travel from growing lists of destinations. New Zealand was suddenly opened up to the tourist.

This is a rugged land where mountains rise to 13,000 feet, active volcanoes spew ash and vast tracts of bush still remain impenetrable. New Zealand is just like its national sport Rugby. Sports don't come more rugged than that. Great value has always been set on manliness here, and on a refusal to complain. For this is a pioneering land.

KIWIphile FILE

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