stone.
Landing, the aircraft groans, moans, creaks and squeaks in protest at the rough ground. The ground crew, meaning someone nearby on the airstrip, opens the door to the cabin and a bewildering cacophony of unidentified birdsong greets us, as if we had just been emptied out into an aviary. The air is noticeably fresh and clean, laced with the fragrance of vegetation and flowers. The temperature is cool, the chilly wind blowing down the runway. Walking from the airstrip towards the settlement, I keep a sharp lookout for Kiwi-eating dogs. I trust they can tell the difference
between a Kiwi and a Canuck far from home; I should have stitched a maple-leaf flag prominently on my pack.
In the Department of Conservation office in Halfmoon Bay, I ask how dangerous it is to walk in the rainforest.
The DOC worker answers: ‘There’s nothing dangerous here, except a spider and that hasn’t been seen for a while anyway. Niver iver bite you.’ She converts the ‘a’ to an ‘e’, the ‘e’ to an ‘i’ and the ‘a’ in front of an ‘r’ to a double ‘aa’, dropping the ‘r’, as in cars to ‘caas’ and farms to ‘faams’.
‘What about those dogs?’
‘You mean the dogs that killed the kiwis?’ she says nonchalantly.
I nod, trying to look cool about the subject too.
‘Destroyed them.’
‘So I should be safe?’ I ask, just to be sure.
‘They attacked kiwis,’ she explains.
‘But how did they know the difference?’
‘Between what?’
‘Well, like between me and a Kiwi.’
‘Between you and a kiwi?’ she repeats.
I nod.
She blinks a couple of times, then with the infinite patience of a civil servant, launches into a spiel on the native wildlife. ‘Pre-human New Zealand was separated from other land masses in the Mesozoic period, more than 150 million years ago, before the evolution of land mammals. The only native mammals in New Zealand were two species of bat. That’s why birds became the dominant fauna. Some bird life adapted in the absence of mammalian predators to become flightless or weakly flying birds, like the kiwi.’
‘You mean kiwis can’t fly?’ I repeat my fellow passenger’s assertion.
‘Yeah. That’s why it’s so easy for the dogs to get them. The other birds can fly out of danger.’
The penny drops. It seems incredible that over the tens of millions of years some mammals, apart from bats, did not find their
way to these fertile islands. None of those odd and dangerous creatures from Australia ever climbed on a piece of wood and drifted across the Tasman Sea. There are no snakes of any kind here, never mind poisonous ones. Apart from humans, there is nothing to eat me, maul me, trample me, bite me or even scare me to death. Even the dogs are going to leave me alone as long as I don’t flap my arms helplessly.
I continue through the settlement. Outside a wooden cottage with a white picket fence, a hand-painted sign proclaims it to be ‘Jo and Andy’s Place’, in competition with ‘Ann’s Place’ and ‘Dave’s Place’ down the road. Jo and Andy’s place proves a little austere, heated by coal and wood, and with a chemical toilet. Yet it is connected to the real world and Jo’s mother by e-mail umbilical cord. Both Jo and Andy have fled the moral decay of America and this is about as far as they could get.
Halfmoon Bay was first settled in 1865. The first post office opened soon after in 1872 and the first school in 1874. There is a frontier-style general store, an old pub and a few quaint wooden cottages barely protruding from the thick vegetation, smoke curling from their hidden chimneys. A dozen fishing boats rock lazily at their moorings on glassy, breathing swells; sea birds strut self-importantly on an empty beach. It definitely feels as if I am far away from anywhere: there is no one in sight. I pass an empty bowling green, a Returned Servicemen’s Association hall, and an Anglican church. The only sign of life is the pub, which has a couple
Landing, the aircraft groans, moans, creaks and squeaks in protest at the rough ground. The ground crew, meaning someone nearby on the airstrip, opens the door to the cabin and a bewildering cacophony of unidentified birdsong greets us, as if we had just been emptied out into an aviary. The air is noticeably fresh and clean, laced with the fragrance of vegetation and flowers. The temperature is cool, the chilly wind blowing down the runway. Walking from the airstrip towards the settlement, I keep a sharp lookout for Kiwi-eating dogs. I trust they can tell the difference
between a Kiwi and a Canuck far from home; I should have stitched a maple-leaf flag prominently on my pack.
In the Department of Conservation office in Halfmoon Bay, I ask how dangerous it is to walk in the rainforest.
The DOC worker answers: ‘There’s nothing dangerous here, except a spider and that hasn’t been seen for a while anyway. Niver iver bite you.’ She converts the ‘a’ to an ‘e’, the ‘e’ to an ‘i’ and the ‘a’ in front of an ‘r’ to a double ‘aa’, dropping the ‘r’, as in cars to ‘caas’ and farms to ‘faams’.
‘What about those dogs?’
‘You mean the dogs that killed the kiwis?’ she says nonchalantly.
I nod, trying to look cool about the subject too.
‘Destroyed them.’
‘So I should be safe?’ I ask, just to be sure.
‘They attacked kiwis,’ she explains.
‘But how did they know the difference?’
‘Between what?’
‘Well, like between me and a Kiwi.’
‘Between you and a kiwi?’ she repeats.
I nod.
She blinks a couple of times, then with the infinite patience of a civil servant, launches into a spiel on the native wildlife. ‘Pre-human New Zealand was separated from other land masses in the Mesozoic period, more than 150 million years ago, before the evolution of land mammals. The only native mammals in New Zealand were two species of bat. That’s why birds became the dominant fauna. Some bird life adapted in the absence of mammalian predators to become flightless or weakly flying birds, like the kiwi.’
‘You mean kiwis can’t fly?’ I repeat my fellow passenger’s assertion.
‘Yeah. That’s why it’s so easy for the dogs to get them. The other birds can fly out of danger.’
The penny drops. It seems incredible that over the tens of millions of years some mammals, apart from bats, did not find their
way to these fertile islands. None of those odd and dangerous creatures from Australia ever climbed on a piece of wood and drifted across the Tasman Sea. There are no snakes of any kind here, never mind poisonous ones. Apart from humans, there is nothing to eat me, maul me, trample me, bite me or even scare me to death. Even the dogs are going to leave me alone as long as I don’t flap my arms helplessly.
I continue through the settlement. Outside a wooden cottage with a white picket fence, a hand-painted sign proclaims it to be ‘Jo and Andy’s Place’, in competition with ‘Ann’s Place’ and ‘Dave’s Place’ down the road. Jo and Andy’s place proves a little austere, heated by coal and wood, and with a chemical toilet. Yet it is connected to the real world and Jo’s mother by e-mail umbilical cord. Both Jo and Andy have fled the moral decay of America and this is about as far as they could get.
Halfmoon Bay was first settled in 1865. The first post office opened soon after in 1872 and the first school in 1874. There is a frontier-style general store, an old pub and a few quaint wooden cottages barely protruding from the thick vegetation, smoke curling from their hidden chimneys. A dozen fishing boats rock lazily at their moorings on glassy, breathing swells; sea birds strut self-importantly on an empty beach. It definitely feels as if I am far away from anywhere: there is no one in sight. I pass an empty bowling green, a Returned Servicemen’s Association hall, and an Anglican church. The only sign of life is the pub, which has a couple
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