Big Trees, Sunny Beaches, Mythical Mountain

Saturday, 23 January 2010     Wellington, New Zealand

Last night and for the next four nights (leaving Wednesday morning, 27 Jan.) we are staying at a B&B high on a hillside overlooking Wellington Harbor.  A storm has been blowing in for a couple of days now, and Wellington has been cold and rainy all day.  We just stayed indoors until we finally had to go out to get dinner.  The weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow and be reasonable the rest of next week.  Foremost on our agenda for the next three days: the Te Papa museum, the Wellington Botanical Garden, and several gardens out in the surrounding countryside.  We also intend to make an excursion to the village of Featherston, hometown of our special friend David, still remembered there as the mathematician lad who went off to the US and became a famous professor.

BIG TREES

Back on last Saturday, 16 January, we were staying at a B&B in the Northland town of Whangerei, and drove out to a couple of stands of the last remaining giant kauri trees.  These trees grow tall, straight, and without branches on their lower trunks.  They are unique to New Zealand, and were the source of an enormous timber industry during the nineteenth century.  Originally they were a prized resource for the masts and cross-spars of the ships of the British Royal Navy.  Later they provided durable timber for buildings, and were a principal export sustaining the developing economy.  But, predictably, they were overharvested nearly to extinction, and now there are only a few thousand hectares of remaining natural kauri forest.  Here is a picture of the tallest, Tane Mahuta ("God of the Forest") posing cooperatively behind Paula ("Goddess of the Thompson Garden").

SUNNY BEACHES

On our drive through the Coromandel and then down the West Coast through the Taranaki region, then Wanganui, and on to Wellington, we stopped at several beaches.  Paula walked through the sand studying seashells, while Tyler studied astronomy (you know: gazing at the heavenly bodies!)  Here are three of the beaches.

MYTHICAL MOUNTAIN SHROUDED IN CLOUD

If you look at a map of New Zealand, you will see a distinctive bulge on the lower west coast of the North Island.  A closer look at the map will show clear evidence that this bulge, called the Taranaki region, is a classic conical volcano known (and shown on maps) by both its Mauri name, Taranaki, and it's English name, Mount Egmont.

They sell postcards purporting to show the mountain.

It is touted in all of the local tourist establishments, the New Plymouth i-Site (government-run tourist information center), and enshrined in one way or another in many regional placenames.  But I am here to tell you that it is a myth.  There is no mountain.  We drove up two of the three major access roads and visited the Taranaki National Park visitor center at 1100 meters elevation, and we never saw any mountain.  It was raining, cloudy, and foggy the entire day, so the visitor center attendant tried to assure us that the mountain was really there but just shrouded in clouds.  I don't think so.  I think these clever New Zealanders just invented the Taranaki mythical mountain and got it put on the maps to boost the tourist trade.  So, since I wasn't able to take any pictures myself, I'll just have to post this picture post card for you to admire.