Trying to Cook in NZ

My weekend last week coincided with Waitangi Day here in New Zealand. That is the day, in 1840, that a treaty was signed between British representatives and Maori leaders that made NZ a British colony. The treaty then became a footnote in history. Too short and general to be a constitution and translated poorly when written, it spent the next 130 years being systematically broken. But in the 1970s a movement started to grow with Maori making claims against the treaty and gaining back land taken from them and getting large cash settlements from the government. The biggest problem with the treaty it seems is that when it was translated into Maori, it was done so poorly that it became two different treaties, one for each side. The day didn’t become a holiday until 1974. Today, it is celebrated or protested by a minority. The majority of Kiwis use it for an excuse to go to the beach. But that is not the real story for us. Since the holiday fell on my weekend, Nina and I had a day off together. She managed to get off work early on Tuesday, the day before the holiday (that turned out to be pretty easy since Monday was Nelson Day, another holiday) and we drove to the Nelson Lakes National Park.

A short hour and fifteen minute drive south of Nelson, is the northern tip of the Southern Alps. The two major lakes that make up the park are Rotoiti and Rotoroa. We got there in the afternoon and headed to a campground on Lake Rotoiti. The place was nearly deserted and had a great view over the lake to the mountains in the background. The lakes were carved by glaciers 8000 years ago and make for some amazing scenery. They are also home to New Zealand’s oldest fresh water Eels. They don’t reach maturity until age 90. We heard that you could feed them bread from the docks, but we didn’t see any. Maybe next time. The next morning we woke up and drove to lake Rotoroa, it is further from the main road (14km) than Rotoiti, so it doesn’t get the same traffic and was very tranquil. There we went on a hike through beach forests and up to a nice waterfall. I even saw my first Tui. It was a beautiful day in the woods, the perfect temperature and the amazing scenery of New Zealand that I haven’t really gotten to experience for a while. I am really looking forward to quitting my job and spending some time traveling around and hiking. Hopefully, that will happen in the end of March the fall will be starting and the crowds will be heading back to where ever they come from. On our way back to Nelson, we stopped at Rotoiti again and were amazed at the crowds. There were hundreds of people there boating, swimming and picnicking. It was quite a bit different from the other lake. That was a great trip and it was a lot of fun to get away from Nelson with Nina even if it was for just one day.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.