The Edwardian Kiwi

Press, 27 September 1983, Page 17

The Edwardian Kiwi

... or how others see us

ROY PERROTT, in his travel article in the London “Sunday Times,” takes what he calls “a backward trip to New Zealand.”

There is a corner of New Zealand that is forever slightly more English or Scottish than the mother country herself. The only puzzle sometimes, as you blink through your first days of the unfolding Kiwi scene, is to determine what particular period of British life we are trying to hold on to.

A Saturday morning in Christchurch captures a somewhat Edwardian flavour, with the wide and resplendent greensward near the Anglican cathedral occupied by dozens of small boys engaged in very orderly cricket games. Groups of public-school chaps in straw boaters languidly watch, and comment from the shade of the flowering horse-chestnuts on the boundary. Beyond them the River Avon saunters past weeping willow, groves of oak and beech, and a profusion of daffodils. Every branch and blossom has been charged with the solemn duty of declaring that this is not the southern hemisphere at all, but just down the road from Cheltenham.

Just around the corner my taxidriver pointed to a figure planting rows of cuttings in a herbaceous border. That was Jim Mac-some-thing, he said. “He wins all the gardening prizes.” Jim was sporting the biggest tam o’shanter I had ever seen, a sort of orange-and-gold tartan with surmounting pompom—a style likely to be thought a trifle too showy and forward for Inverness.

The attempt to hold on to a dream-image of home is sometimes so strong that it becomes an intriguing exercize to spot the incongruity. Many of the young cricketers play barefoot: nothing to do with poverty, but signifying that astonishing EnZed confidence that no one vandalises bottles or leaves dangerous litter around. The boys say “Solong” to each other for leave-taking, joining the rest of the country in perpetuating some of the slang and repartee of 1945. A similar nostalgia, as well as economy, must be responsible for keeping so many veteran cars on the road—Vanguards, Austin Westminsters and Hillman Huskies.

Sophisticated Australian visitors are .amused by New Zealand’s oldfashioned ways and claim to detect a state close to hibernation. “Just like going home to mother,” one traveller has said, an aphorism that can be taken two ways. Intellectual stimulation is scarce, and Montparnasse it’s not. Television may not be all talks on sheepdipping but it does tend to find its ratings in “Coronation Street,” racing, and rugby. Big news in Europe tends to find the papers giving the space, instead, to “Wakatiki sewage scheme row.” It is unashamedly parochial, a country where—as premier Rob Muldoon once put it—“the average bloke is king.” The uninspiring aspects of this search for averageness would mainly matter if you intended living there. Fortunately, the holiday visitor mostly gets the blessings of the other side of the coin. The easy equality and directness is refreshing and manifests itself splendidly in the no-tipping rule. When I left an extra ten cents purely to round off a bill the 1

waitress came after me with the coin. I must say that kind of parochialism is appealing. With a population of 3,200,000 occupying an area slightly larger than the United Kingdom, what New Zealand has in abundnance is space and the tranquility that goes with it. Tourism has become the second fastest growth industry, setting up good hotels and motels everywhere. Restaurants have been rapidly improving and you would be unlucky to hit upon the one where a friend was served a nice cup of tea alongside his bottle of Burgundy. A new generation of foreign-experi-enced chefs is now doing imaginative justice to New Zealand’s wealth of sea-food (lobster and oysters need not mean bankruptcy here) and excellent beef and lamb. As an essential aid to exploring cuisine, get Michael Guy’s paperback “Eating out in New Zealand” as soon as you arrive.

Where to go and how to do it? Let’s be drastic and say that the best bits lie at the extremities—the lower half of the South Island (snowcapped mountains, lakes, glaciers, fiords, unforgettable scenery) and the northern tip of the North Island (sub-tropical warmth and orange groves around the Bay of Islands). But New Zealand’s perhaps unique merits come to the fore pretty well everywhere, namely a wonderfully unspoilt terrain that you can safely get to grips with in your own style, whatever your age. No snakes or dangerous animals, and honest and helpful people. The variety of outdoor things to do at all levels of skill or ineptitude covers all possibilities from gentle botanical walks to heroic back-packing hikes along the national network of walk-ways; memorable trout-fishing, alpineclass mountaineering in the Mount Cook range, ski-ing, sailing, or simply loafing on beaches. I was impressed by the compactness of some centres like Queenstown, sunning itself on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, where members of a family, or the two halves of a couple, could fix themselves up with different things yet not lose touch.

To get there, I had a comfortable flight with Air New Zealand which goes via Los Angeles (with a stopover option) and Tahiti. From Auckland, how to proceed: New Zealand is not cheap, and thoughts of economy are pressing. Using a hire car and the excellent motels (with private kitchen) a couple might spend $92 a day, with meals extra. Most of the 38,000 visitors annually from the United Kingdom have the problem of cost partly solved by visiting relatives. Another time if I could not discover a long-lost cousin to impose upon, I think I would reflect on house-swapping possibilities. Otherwise, for a first-time visit, I would recommend one of the coach-and-hotel package tours doing a circuit of the south and west coasts by way of Queenstown, Milford, and Mount Cook.

Speaking of getting to grips with the scenery, I tried a few hours’ trout-fishing on Lake Rotorua with Rex Forrester, who is head of New Zealand’s hunting and fishing office, and who is ready to correspond personally with detailed advice to anglers contemplating a visit. No need to disparage the

humblest Pommie canal to agree that New Zealand waters have a distinctly gold-plated pedigree as a fishing experience, with the two three-pound rainbow in the boat (dare one to so casual?) almost an incidental to the pleasure of trolling in the shade of Mount Tarawera.

More ambitiously, I had another shot at the all-comers’ record at Mount Cook where the River Tasman spills in a feast of green water straight off the glacier. At the heads of deep pools we could make out the shadows of five-or-six-pound brown trout. We also detected, though belatedly, that the

biggest storm for months was getting up. Soon a howling gale from the Tasman Sea was slamming at the Southern Alps, hurling Paradise duck and dotterels sideways as they tested take-off. As our fishing posture approached the horizontal we gave up and drove out of the magnificent wilderness. On the way back, Noel, the guide, told me about the Dobson river, over the hills and three days’ hike from any habitation. It is reachable by light aircraft, and fewer than a hundred people have ever fished there. The 15-pound brownies known to be there silently await their match.