rtw with lucy

Well, we’ve just almost completed our whirlwind tour of the South Island of New Zealand, and it was not very much like Oz at all. For one thing, the only animals we’ve seen here have been introduced, except maybe the fur seal. There are lots and lots of sheep here, and NZ has just as much problems with rabbits as Australia, if not more.

The problem is, everything they bring in here just thrives. The roses are the biggest and best anywhere. The dahlias are as big as dinner plates. Fruit trees grow wild everywhere, as well as in the gardens. This is interesting in light of the fact that before the Europeans came, there was almost nothing to eat. The only native land mammal was the bat, for heaven’s sake. There were a few plants that provided food, but all were labor intensive to prepare, so I get the impression that the Maoris mainly confined themselves to seafood and the sweet potatoes that they brought with them from somewhere in Polynesia. (note: if you are a Kiwi, and you know better, please correct me, as this is all gathered from hearsay.) They had tried to bring pigs and chickens, but somehow these were lost and they were cut off from prior contact, so the place, beautiful and productive as it is now, just didn’t grow much beyond mosses and ferns. The moa bird, which is something like an ostrich, only twice as big (no really), were eaten very quickly, and I’m wondering if it’s because they tasted good, or because they were threatening? I mean, what if they had a disposition somewhat similar to that of a goose? I guess I should go back and mention that the Maoris came over here around 1000 A.D., and before that there were no people in NZ at all, so it is the last land mass of any size to be settled.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 2:54 am 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.