Road Scholar has so many advantages. One great one is that groups get expert lectures periodically during trips. I love these talks. Today, Hazel gave us the whole history of New Zealand in under ninety minutes. She was impressive and the lecture was captivating.
If there is a sub theme for me, of the past week or so when Mark and I visited the Paihia area and now Auckland, it would be how, after signing a treaty, the situation progressed over the next decades. The answer is, things progressed so well for the Māori at first that the British couldn’t tolerate it.
The Māori turned out to be excellent farmers and great at negotiating trade. Meanwhile, more and more immigrants were arriving from Europe, and they needed land. The New Zealand Wars were a rough part of history here where Māori lost an immense amount of their land, and their chance for trade was severely undercut.
As of 1985, New Zealand has a tribunal to try to recommend some recompense for the at least 12 million acres of land that was removed from Māori ownership during the mid-to-late 1800s. Hazel made the point that she thought the best benefit of the tribunal was that New Zealanders had to learn about their history. New Zealand stands as an example for facing hard history. This doesn’t mean everyone is of one mind. When I compare NZs work on hard history to the USs, I see NZ as doing a better job, so far. I believe the US has made its best progress toward a strong society when it faces hard history. For us, this happens in fits and starts, and as is happening now, sometimes, actual retreats.
So, with all this history in our heads, we moved outside for some fun. First on the program was a yacht experience. The definition of a yacht is a bit slippery, but ours was a sailboat. It was pretty on the water, and without a lot of wind, a very gently trip, beginning and ending under motor.
After disembarking, we headed by coach to lunch at the Wintergarden, near the Auckland War Memorial Museum. After lunch we had a leg stretch around the glass houses, and then climbed a small hill to the imposing entrance of the museum.
The museum’s name is only partly accurate. It was begun before the Great War from a natural history based collection. The Great War interrupted its construction, and then after the war and its impact, the idea of adding a memorial to the purpose of the museum took hold. One floor is dedicated to the war memorial, but we couldn’t tour that floor due to roof and ceiling work.
We had a docent-led tour of highlights of the collection: plants, animals, and a history of how the Polynesians colonized the Pacific. There are many Māori items of course, and also items from related peoples. I was very interested in this reconstruction of a moa:
They were huge birds, hunted to extinction about 200 years after humans arrived in New Zealand. They were simply too easy to kill. Enough bones have been found to build this model of a female. The males were much smaller:
It’s a wonderful museum and represents many aspects of New Zealand.
At dinner time, we were back on a boat, this time to ferry across the water to eat Turkish/Mediterranean food at Devon on the Wharf.
Our time in Auckland so far has been on the Pacific, Waitematā Harbor side of the city. The other side of the city sits on the Tasman sea. Auckland is massive. Every view across water has buildings. So far, I have no sense of the Tasman sea side of the city. I just keep being amazed at the blue sky and the brightness of the light.
