05.24.2004 - Te Anau, New Zealand

New Zealand looks very different from Australia. Flying into Auckland, I was immediately struck by how green everything here is. It reminded me of flying into Ireland. This is in sharp contrast to Australia, which has very limited green. Obviously it rains much more on this side of the Tasman Sea.

When I was going through New Zealand customs the other day, I had filled out the form and written for occupation “professor.” An agent looked at it and asked me “Professor of what?” I said, “history,” and he said, “fine,” and wrote history on the form. Apparently there are some disciplines for which professors are considered dangerous. Strange.

Auckland proved to be a very pleasant city. It is built on top of 40-some volcanoes, and the streets in many places are as steep as those in San Francisco. The city makes less pretense of being Old World than do some other colonial cities. The most prominent feature is a huge sky tower that looks something like a spaceship docking station from Star Wars. Some people here don’t like it, but it certainly makes the skyline distinctive. On Saturday evening at dusk, I took a ferry over to Davenport, on an island across the harbor. The view of the city with its lights and the sky tower was very pretty on the way back, after dark. Not much was going on on the Davenport side, and I returned quickly. As I was approaching the ferry slip, I saw a guy wearing a New Orleans Saints jersey—Danny Wuerful, number 7. I was startled and asked him how he happened to have it. He said he’s a Saints fan. He told me he saw them play on Sky TV a few years ago and thought they have really cool uniforms and people in New Orleans drink a lot, so he became a fan. He actually follows the team; he knew about their only playoff victory in 2000 and sent away for a pennant when they won the division championship. He says he’s probably the only Saints fan in all of New Zealand. What were the chances of me running into him? Weird.

Coming back across on the ferry, I looked up into the clear night sky and saw the Southern Cross for the first time. And the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior II, was docked right next to where the ferry returns to Auckland’s main harbor.

My lecture at the University of Auckland (as in Australia, people here call the university “the uni”) went very well, I think. There was a surprisingly large crowd for late on a Friday afternoon, and many people had questions. Afterwards, we adjourned to the Old Government House, which is now apparently a faculty club, for drinks, and then on to dinner at a very good Italian restaurant.

My appearance on national radio in New Zealand on Saturday morning also went very well, although I needed more time to explain my ideas. The host, Kim Hill, gave an excellent summary of my arguments in her opening, though, so I think it was fine.

Speaking of “fine,” that’s what the weather people say in Australia and New Zealand for good weather, in place of our “fair.” “Fine” seems much more appropriate; I’ve always thought that it is inappropriate to describe days with perfect weather as “fair.”

I went to the Auckland Museum on Saturday afternoon. While I was in the museum store my favorite album, Norah Jones’ Come Away with Me, was playing.

In some ways it seems like these countries are a mirror image of the US. As in the UK and Ireland, they drive on the left, which means everything in the way of controls in the cars is the reverse of what we’re accustomed to. Radio knobs are reversed, with the volume control on the right, closer to the driver. And the controls for directional signals and windshield wipers are on opposite sides of the steering wheel from where they are in American cars. This leads, I’m told, to Americans and Europeans frequently turning on the wipers when they want to signal a turn. So far it’s only happened to me a few times. In fact, I’m beginning to think that driving on the left is normal. I’ll have to adjust back when I return to the states.

But the cars are not the only mirror images. It sounds strange to hear on a weather report that the winds are going to be very cold today because they’re coming from the south. But I can now testify that a strong south wind in the Southern Hemisphere can be every bit as cold as a north wind in the Northern Hemisphere. When I reached Te Anau this afternoon, it was bitter cold. It will be below freezing tonight, and the south wind is howling. My guess is that the wind chill must be in the single digits Fahrenheit. I bought a wool hat and scarf today for my ventures onto the fiords the next two days.

On Sunday, I flew from Auckland to Dunedin. It was cloudy over most of the South Island, but the snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps stood out high above the clouds, particularly the majestic Aoraki (formerly Mt. Cook), the highest mountain between New Guinea and the Andes. Although it was a gray day, Dunedin proved to be very interesting. It is a southern “New Scotland.” Dunedin is, in fact, the Gaelic name for Edinburgh. The city has an octagon, rather than a square, at its center. There is an impressive Anglican cathedral, St. Paul’s, on the octagon, and a remarkable old Presbyterian church that looks like a Gothic cathedral. I had breakfast at a place called the Bronx Bagel Company. This is where the Cadbury Chocolate factory is located, and I was tempted to go on a tour, but didn’t. Nor did I tour the Speight’s brewery, although I’ve found that I really like their ale, especially the Old Dark.

In the afternoon, I drove on a very winding, narrow road along the coast out to the end of the Otago Peninsula. The drive was pretty, even on a cloudy day, but what was best came at the end. I visited the royal albatross colony on Taiaroa Head, which also has a lighthouse on high cliffs above smashing surf, and an old fort dug into the rock. I saw several young (but huge) albatrosses, but no older ones in flight. This is the only mainland colony of albatrosses in the world. Then I went to the nearby Yellow Eyed Penguin Conservation Reserve. These penguins are very rare. Only about 4000 exist. The small group I was with saw some of the penguins waddle ashore and then we saw some up quite a bit closer. Then, as we were leaving, walking in covered trenches that seemed like World War I, we came upon two of the penguins that came right up to an opening in the covering over the trench. Because we were at a dug-out level, we were essentially face-to-face with these remarkable creatures. I hope my photos come out.

Today I drove from Dunedin to Te Anau. It was an interesting day with clouds of varying colors hovering around mountains and patches of blue sky peeking through. It made for what I hope will be some good photos. Somewhere south of Dunedin, there were two signs coming into a town. The first read: “Slow Down.” The second reported of the town: “No Hospital. No Doctor. One Cemetery.”

I’ve noticed on the radio that when an internet address is given, they say here “dub, dub, dub” for www.

One of the nice things about New Zealand is that their dollar is worth even less than ours. Less even than Australia’s. Currently the NZ$ is worth about 61 US cents. This makes things quite inexpensive here. I realized today that a rough approximation of the cost of something in NZ$ the same ratio as figuring kilometers to miles. A NZ$ is about .6 of a US$, as a kilometer is about .6 of a mile. Convenient, although meaningless.

The next two days are supposed to be “fine.” I hope so. I’ve booked the boat trip on Doubtful Sound for tomorrow and plan to go to Milford Sound, which I expect to be the crowning sight of my trip, on Wednesday.

RSM