Present Imperfect

It Rained A Lot | October 13, 2003

Okay, I admit, it looks bad. But I have been in New Zealand for the past two weeks and I didn't feel like paying extra dough at an Internet cafe to update my blog while I was gone. So, there's not going to be a blow-by-blow account of "My Fall Vacation by Bronwyn Anne Jones."

I will, however, share the following fascinating observations about The Land of the Long White Cloud.

1. Never inquire about the weather forecast in New Zealand or you will be met with smirks and sarcastic comments in the vein of "I don't have a crystal ball." To be fair, the weather can turn on a dime there, but it's not like I was asking whether there would be hail on the 22nd of December 2028. I wonder if they have a farmer's almanac...

2. New Zealand is beautiful. I know, I know, you've heard it all before. But let me try to explain. New Zealand is beautiful in a primeval, otherworldly, truly sublime way. I'm talking sublime in the classical sense, where the eighteenth-century poet surmounts the rocky outcropping and gasps in both amazement and horror at the devastating gorgeousness of untamed nature. I think the standard reference on this business is Thomas Jefferson's "The Natural Bridge" in his Notes on the State of Virginia:

Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have resolution to walk to them and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet and peep over it.? Looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head ach.? If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme.? It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable!

But, oddly enough, I took H. Rider Haggard's She with me and there's a passage in there that pretty much sums it up, too. (Though he's actually talking about a nekkid lady, so yeah):

I have heard of the beauty of celestial beings, now I saw it; only this beauty, with all its awful loveliness and purity, was evil--at least, at the time, it struck me as evil. How am I to describe it? I cannot--simply I cannot! The man does not live whose pen could convey a sense of what I saw. I might talk of the great changing eyes of deepest, softest black, of the tinted face, of the broad and noble brow, on which the hair grew low, and delicate, straight features. But, beautiful, surpassingly beautiful as they all were, her loveliness did not lie in them. It lay rather, if it can be said to have had any fixed abiding place, in a visible majesty, in an imperial grace, in a godlike stamp of softened power, which shone upon that radiant countenance like a living halo. Never before had I guessed what beauty made sublime could be--and yet, the sublimity was a dark one--the glory was not all of heaven--though none the less was it glorious.

That's not to say that New Zealand's beauty is evil, but it is certainly foreboding. Mt. Ruapehu, one of a handful of active volcanoes on the North Island, erupted three times in the last 100 years. Avalanches are common occurrences. The 7.0 earthquake that struck a couple of months ago in Te Anau on the South Island was hosting aftershocks of 6.8 while I was there. Glaciers hover directly above tropical rainforests. You can drive from the beach to a snow-covered mountain in an hour. For a country with a population of only four million on a land mass of just over 100,000 square miles, that's just an awesome amount of geological change and variety to process. The Maori say that the North Island is Maui's fish, the South Island is his canoe and Stewart Island is his anchor, which makes sense because you kind of feel as though you're adrift aboard this amazing place with no real assurance of where it will take you next.

3. People don't belong in New Zealand. No, really. See, when the country broke off from the supercontinent of Gondwanaland about 100 million years ago, all it took with it were plants, insects and birds. I believe I recall our guide mentioning that there were one or two native mammals (a badger was one, I think) and reptiles (a lizard, the tuatara; I saw one that was over 60 years old). Other than that, mammals were really not on New Zealand's menu. Even the Maori people came across the ocean from Polynesia. So, I think part of the reason the place seems so strange and awe-inspiring is that people, and everything they bring along with them, don't quite fit in. The land is more than accommodating, but it also seems slightly wary of its inhabitants. Luckily, unlike the residents of the United States, kiwis have unending respect and pride in their country and its natural beauty. Otherwise, and I know this sounds ridiculous, I do believe the gods would be angry. There is just this sense of honest-to-goodness symbiosis between the land and the people who live there. The first European settlers did bring their own flora and fauna along, and some of it has done more harm than good, but if you even think about entering New Zealand with a grain of potentially damaging foreign soil on your hiking boots, they will fine you $200 minimum. It's that serious. That's how much they respect their land. And that's worth a good deal of respect on its own.

4. Everyone, regardless of gender, is a mate. Excellent.

5. New Zealand is occupied by many, many ruggedly adorable, adventuresome, funny boys with good hair. So that's nice...you know, if you like that sort of thing.