Tripping with Judy

Bastion point, Tapaparawhau, is a beautiful series of terraced and landscaped gardens overlooking the harbor with a large obelisk as a focus point.  It is the burial place of New Zealand’s first Labor Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage, who worked with the Māori people during his time in office in the 1930’s. The area has a more recent history as the setting of a large protest of Māori for 505 days.  In  1977, the government decided to take these rolling hills and build a private, upscale community and hotels under The Treaty of Waitangi for the “betterment of New Zealand”. The Māori rebelled with a slogan of “Not One More Acre”!  A local Māori, Joe Hawke, built a shack and others joined him refusing to leave. The police finally evicted them in 1978, arresting 222 individuals, and tore down buildings.  Joe Hawke’s case was heard by the Waitangi Tribunal, and they recommended returning the land to the Māori nation!  This was a huge victory for them! ...

Travel time equals learning time in an OAT adventure!  We are heading to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand with 1.6 million people, one-third of the entire population of the country!  In the 1970’s, it was the 5th or 6th largest city in the world based on land mass, but the population was more spread out.  For years, there was only one road in and out of the city, but now there is a network of highways. Auckland means “a desired place to be” and the Māori fought over this land of 53 volcanoes, dormant for 600 years and now eroded into hills, with great soil, and two harbors only 6 miles apart.  The Māori built villages at the base of these hills, and if they were threatened, retreated up the “mountains”.  It was a place where they could feed their families from the soil and the harbors and also defend themselves. In the 1840’s while New Zealand was known as a “den of iniquity”, musket wars erupted with northern Māori trading with the French for guns....

We are driving through New Zealand’s largest commercial forest which provides jobs and income for many people.  In the 1980’s, a small town and Māori village was one of the country’s wealthiest.  Under the Treaty of Waitangi which gives the English control (more on this later), they sold the Māori forest for the “betterment of New Zealand”.  One of the major purchasers, Harvard University, brought in machinery and mechanized the timber industry resulting in lost jobs and wages turning this village into one of the country’s poorest. Another Māori village on the New Zealand waterfront with a main industry of fishing was on a road which would be traveled by Queen Elizabeth on her visit in 1952.  The government thought the village didn’t look prosperous enough and wanted to move it up a hill and clean up the area for the queen’s visit.  The people refused, but one day while the community was working, the government came and leveled the village without permission…....

It snowed last night on the mountains in Queenstown.  Those white lofty peaks were hard to say goodbye to this morning.  We have a double hop first to Christchurch, and then to New Zealand’s North Island and the town of Rotorua. Again, no security at the airport in Queenstown nor Christchurch.  I was sitting next to a nice young man, a native New Zealander, on my second flight, and he brought up the subject of no security.  “A lot different than the US,” he said. Rotorua is located in an active hot springs area and the smell of sulfur is in the air which can vary daily.  The town is known for its numerous springs and spas which I am looking forward to enjoying!  Percentage-wise, the largest population of Māori people live here also. I forgot to mention the legend attached to Sterling, the largest fall at Mitford Sound.  Supposedly, the mist from Sterling on your face will keep you young!  Maybe I won’t need a spa treatment at Rotorua! Seve...