Aotearoa - Moroni in New Zealand, 2006

This is a blog post I wrote in 2006 about my trip to New Zealand:



I wrote a little about my trip to New York City last year. In like fashion, I am writing a bit about my trip to New Zealand. Like New York, I was able to see a side of New Zealand that is not “touristy”. My friend Wayne had invited me to New Zealand, because his wife is a Kiwi. In fact, she is Maori. (For those of you who think that New Zealand is either a Caribbean island or part of Australia, the Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand.) As you will see, my New Zealand trip was less Lord of the Rings, than it was Whale Rider.

Wayne, my cousin Jonathan and I left Arizona on July 11th quite early in the morning. We reached Kingman, and from there I drove the rest of the way to Los Angeles while my traveling companions slept. By the time I reached LAX, I had already traveled 11 hours, I was hot, sweaty, and need of a shower, and I was very, very sleepy.

Qantas Airlines is an Australian airline, and our flight took off from Los Angeles for a 12 hour flight to Auckland, sharing our flight with 75 Jewish students on their way to the South Island to ski.

So imagine – already having driven 11 hours, hot, sweaty, sleepy – I now get to spend 12 hours on a plane. The first thing I discovered is the difference between domestic airlines and international airlines. International airlines cram as many seats as close together as possible to be able to squeeze as many people on the flight. Their pursuit for the almighty dollar results in a very uncomfortable seat so close to the seat in front of you that you can’t shift your feet. And it is worse when the person in front of you puts their seat back all the way. The claustrophobia is unimaginable. It is like being sealed in a coffin for 12 hours, except they serve a hot meal. There was no sleep for me. Thank God they had a good selection of entertainment. (I discovered Australian performers such as Bernard Fanning and the Living End in this manner.) I watched movies until my eyes dried up in their sockets.

We mostly made it through customs okay. I took several food gifts for the people I would be staying with. Ranch dressing apparently is something you can’t find Down Under, so I took several bottles of Hidden Valley Ranch, along with bottles of real salsa. The customs agents took several minutes reading the label on the ranch dressing, trying to determine if it was a verboten dairy product.

The first thing I noticed of Auckland was the weather. My Kiwi friends had been giving me harbingers of doom about the icy, cold New Zealand winters.

Before the trip, I had asked, “Does it snow in Auckland?”

“Na-ooo,” they had answered in their Kiwi accents.

I explained that I had spent an entire New England winter working outdoors with just a light jacket. They insisted I would need a parka.

When I got off the plane it was balmy and cool like a spring day. It was winter in Phoenix. It was so pleasant and green.

My first experience of New Zealand was the food. At 5:30 AM, we stopped by a bakery, and I had my first meat pie. Steak and cheese. In the States, we have chicken pot pies. Crap. Total crap compared to these New Zealand pies. The crust is fresh and flaky, and they are loaded with meat.

Immediately, we were whisked away to a water park called Parakai. I was so exhausted, but determined to beat the jet lag by staying up until bedtime. Diane – my friend’s wife – has a friend named Marilyn who was putting on a BBQ at a water park for the Young Women’s organization of the local LDS Church. So here we were – a bunch of middle-aged guys at a social function for teen girls. Awkward to say the least. The hot spring water was a balm for the exhaustion I was experiencing.

After this, we went to a beautiful beach called Murawai. It is a protected habitat for a bird called the ganett, a bird that migrates between New Zealand and Australia. Then we drove around Auckland to get to know the environs. I could have gone home that evening and seen enough to satisfy me. I was so tired that everything was a blur of driving on the wrong side of the road and an endless succession of roundabouts (or rotaries, where we come from).

We went home for the evening. We stayed in the home of Diane’s father, Samuel. He is a very gentle, old man of Samoan descent. We learned that Auckland is the largest Polynesian center in the world – a conglomeration of Maori and other Pacific Islanders.

The next morning I got my first experience of the Polynesian custom of eating. Samuel served a huge bowl of porridge for breakfast. That would have been enough. But then came the eggs, the bacon, the sausage, the toast, the spaghetti, the boil-up (Polynesian dish of pork and boiled cabbage), and the food will keep coming until you beg them to stop. On the surface this may seem paradise for a big guy like me. But soon my pants stopped fitting right.

We spent the day touring the Auckland Museum, which mainly displays artifacts of island culture. That evening, we had another Kiwi experience – the takeaway. (Or takeout in our vernacular.) Fish and chips. Not the frozen garbage we have in the States. This is fresh, top quality fish breaded and fried, served with a mess of chips (fries), generally wrapped in a newspaper and served with tom-AH-toe sauce. The most common meal I had in New Zealand.

The next day, Saturday, served the entire purpose of our visit. According to Maori custom, a year or so after the death of a loved-one, they purchase the gravestone. The family will gather in the cemetery, cover the new gravestone with a cloth, and then unveil it for the whole family. They call it an “Unveiling”, and it is just a big occasion as the funeral itself. This particular Unveiling was for Diane’s deceased mother.

We met on beautiful memorial grounds in Kelston, and the whole family gathered at the bottom of the hill where the grave was located. Then one of the granddaughters stood at the top of the hill, began shaking her hands to the air and shouting out the Maori song/ chant for welcoming the family.

“Kara nga!” she called. Welcome.

They unveiled the gravestone, complete with a photo of the deceased embedded on the stone. Everyone then said a few words over the grave directly to the deceased as if she were there. Most of it was spoken in Maori.

The banquet after the Unveiling was conducted at a local LDS chapel. The family – most of them not Mormon – were told that they could not smoke on the church grounds, but could smoke out on the curb. So when we pulled up, there were about 50 Maori smoking on the curb.

The meal was purely Polynesian. Roast pig (with the head still attached). Taro root. Boiled bananas. Kumara (sweet potato). Roast pumpkin. Deep fried potatoes. Chop suey. Raw fish in coconut milk and lemon. Curry chicken. It was so, so delicious. But I can see why Polynesians are so heavy, and why they have problems with diabetes. I was so stuffed I could barely walk.

Directly from there, we went to what the Maori call a “Twenty-first”, which is a little like the Mexican quincianera. When a Maori girl or boy turns 21, if they have shown themselves to be responsible, they are given a key to the home. They are given a huge party along with it.

This particular Twenty-first was for Diane’s cousin Adrian. It was held in a marae, or ceremonial Maori longhouse or meeting house. We were not allowed in until invited. Out back, we watched the men cook the hangi, or pig roasted in a pit with hot coals the traditional Polynesian fashion.

The traditional welcome call was sung again, and we entered the marae. We were greeted by a row of young Maori men doing the haka, or war chant. I have to say – I have never seen anything as masculine, as manly as Maori men doing the haka. They beat their chests with their fists. They slap their arms and knees. They roll their eyes. They stick their tongues out, and they shout at the top of their lungs:

Ka mate! Ka mate!
Ka ora! Ka ora!
Ka mate! Ka mate!
Ka ora! Ka ora!

It is death. It is death. It is life. It is life.



Then the feast began.

Keep in mind, I had just come from a feast. It was like Thanksgiving twice in the same day. Hangi. Abalone in curry sauce. Raw oysters. More raw fish. They had to cart me out of there.

The next Monday, along with Wayne, Diane, and their family, I traveled north of Island to the part of New Zealand they call “Northland”. Northland is very rural. Much of it is undeveloped and as rough and raw as when the Maori first came to this land. Whangerei, and up to the Bay of Islands where we toured Waitangi, where a treaty was signed between the Maori and Her Majesty’s representatives, establishing New Zealand as a Maori nation under British rule. We stayed the night at Kaikohe, where we spent the evening bathing in the hot springs at Ngawha and staring up at the Southern Cross, uninhibited by the glow of city lights.

Tuesday, July 18, we went to Motukiore, the ancestral lands of my friend Diane. We stopped by the local marae. I find this custom of the marae to be very compelling – a community center where the village may eat together, meet together, and even enough mattresses and blankets to throw on the floor that the whole village can sleep there. The marae represents the ancestors. We stopped to have a Milo (hot chocolate) with Diane’s Uncle Harry, a Maori elder. He is of the Ahipara tribe, and he complains that those Maori of the south part of the island have never been kind to the Ahipara. They used to come up, capture the Ahipara and eat them. It gives hangi a whole new meaning.

We drove to Cape Reinga, the northern most tip of New Zealand. From there, there is a fantastic view of the Pacific. Exactly 6500 miles from Los Angeles. We stayed a couple of nights with Cousin Willy in the town of Ahipara. He is a single school teacher in that town, a descent guy from the South Island. He put Jonathan and I up in his shed out in the back, just a hundred yards away from the beach. I could hear the surf out back. Our beds were basically two pallets with mattresses on them. It was actually a lot of fun.

While in Ahipara, we went to Ninety-mile Beach, and Jonathan actually went swimming in that cold water. I caught a cold there that lasted for the whole next week. We also looked at some shops where they sell crafts and furniture made from the ancient kaori trees that are buried under the forests of New Zealand. People have made a living digging them up, drying them out and making things out of it. They also dig up the gum from these trees.

On the way home, it seemed like every clerk at every dairy (Kiwi for convenience store) that we stopped at was a cousin of Diane’s. We crossed Hokianga Harbor by ferry, and we stopped by a very large kaori tree, the oldest and largest tree in New Zealand. We drove through quite a bit of what I would call jungle, but the Kiwis call it “bush”.

Back in Auckland, we visited with Diane’s cousin Karen, who is raising money for her blind and deaf brother-in-law to go back for a visit to the Cook Islands. This made the local paper while we were there.

Victor and Neta also invited us to there house for dinner. They are from the small Pacific island of Niue. There are only 1500 people on Niue, and they are all related to each other, descended from a Spanish sailor who shipwrecked there more than a century ago and intermarried with the natives. Although about 40,000 Niueans live in New Zealand. A hurricane swept through the island a few years ago and caused much destruction. The storm wiped about 300 people.

Victor introduced us to a beloved Kiwi tradition – rugby. They have their national team – the All Blacks. And then they have their minor league, which is just as popular. On this particular evening, the All Blacks played South Africa (and won). Before the game, the whole team did their traditional Maori haka for the opposing team. That gets the crowd wild.

On Monday, July 24, the American in our crew – Wayne, Jonathan and I – took a road trip. The rest of the family wanted to stay in Auckland. We drove south the Hamilton. There we visited the Mormon temple, and we stayed the night at a “motor camp”, which is basically a hotel where all you get is a room and a bed, and you have to share the bathroom with everyone else staying there. Hamilton is close to the farm where Hobbiton was located in the Lord of the Rings, so the terrain looked familiar.

The next day, we went to Rotorua, which is a resort community. This area is known for its immense geothermal activity – geysers, hot springs, boiling mud pits. As a result, there are many spas there. We went on a tour of a simulated Maori village called Te Piua, and then we enjoyed ourselves basking in the hot waters of the Polynesian Spa. We heard rumors of mud baths where everyone bathes in the nude. But damn it, I just couldn’t find it! J

We drove on to Lake Taupo, where we stayed the night with Diane’s cousin Yvonne, and her husband Dion. There house is decorated with many paintings and artifacts that have a Native American theme. Jonathan asked Dion, “Why do you have such an interest in Native American lore?”

“Let me show you,” answered Dion. He showed us a painting called Our People Are One, which illustrated the similarities between Native American culture and Maori culture. This was something quite compelling to Jonathan and I, as our Mormon culture teaches us that there is indeed a connection between the Islanders and the Native Americans.

I told Yvonne and Dion what Uncle Harry said about the tribes down south eating the Ahipara. They both laughed about that.

“The Ahipara was the last tribe to stop eating people,” he explained.

Wayne wound up getting sick, and we wound up staying in Taupo for two days. This wound up being the most enjoyable time for me. Dion showed us around his work. He works on Maori trust land, working a farm for there. He raises sheep. But mostly he raises red deer – for meat, but also for their antlers, which are considered aphrodisiac by the Korean and Chinese cultures.

From Taupo, we drove to Mount Manganui for a fantastic view of the Pacific. We stopped in Paeroa, where they bottle the soft drink L&P, “world famous in New Zealand”.

Our final weekend was spent with everyone making us farewell feasts – just in case we didn’t eat quite enough. Our last day, we went to the Avondale flea market where I bought gifts for my whole family, including the bone and jade Maori jewelry that is so well known here. I met a Maori man with the traditional moko – or tattoos – all over his face. “You’re Mexican, ay?” he asked. He was the only person to correctly identify my ethnicity while I was there. I expressed amazement at that.

“I’ve been around,” he smiled.

It was a sad thing indeed to fly home. It was such a moving visit. I will always be haunted by the beauty of New Zealand. But I will also always remember the hospitality and openness of the Maori people. I missed my family, but I will also miss New Zealand for the rest of my days.
There were two things that I wanted to see while in New Zealand – the kiwi bird and the weta (largest insect in the world). I saw both – in captivity.