Week 7: Auckland & The Bay of Islands

Greetings!

We are en route from Auckland to Wellington (by plane) after our time in the Bay of Islands.  Because we just boarded a plane, there’s something that’s fresh in my memory that I have to tell all of you about traveling with Aimee: Aimee has some sort of subconscious compulsion or disease that causes her to disappear precisely when boarding begins.  She’ll be there with us one minute, but then when boarding begins you’ll look around and she’ll be gone.  Whether it is a trip the bathroom, to fill up a water bottle, or to do some shopping, she always seems to go right before boarding.  This drives me nuts.  I like to be ready to board when boarding begins, even more so in Chile and New Zealand where there is no order to the boarding process; it’s first come, first served.

Anyway, Auckland and the Bay of Islands.

Auckland isn’t the capital of New Zealand, but it’s the largest city.  It’s a big, modern city set upon dozens of dormant volcanoes between two bays which lead to either the Pacific Ocean or the Tasman Sea.  The modernity and the wealth, combined with the tropical climate, made it feel like a Hawaiian Vancouver.  

On our first day, we arrived from Santiago at 4am but couldn’t check into our AirBnB until about 2pm, so we found coffee and went to Cornwall Park and One Tree Hill to walk around and take advantage of the playgrounds for the boys.  Cornwall Park/One Tree Hill is a beautiful place set away from the Central Business District in what feels like more of a suburb than the actual city. From the top of the hill, you can see all of the city.

Cam and I at the top of One Tree Hill
(there's no one tree)

Sheep in the city

After the park, we got more coffee and then I dropped Aimee off at a fancy hair salon for a couple hours of pampering while the boys and I went to a bookstore and grabbed an early lunch. We checked into our AirBnB, an apartment in the Viaduct Harbor area of the CBD, among hundreds of outrageously luxurious yachts (motor and sail).  

Actual America's Cup winning boat

We should have added something to give
perspective; this thing is gigantic

We were close to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, which is the most prestigious yacht club in NZ, and we saw some of the biggest private yachts I’ve ever seen.  On our second day, went to the NZ Maritime Museum and learned about the country’s maritime history, from the waka (canoes) of the early Maori through the high technology yachts sailed in the America’s Cup.  We spent our third day on Piha Beach, the most famous surfing beach and most dangerous swimming beach in NZ.  They even have a reality TV show about how dangerous it is, featuring surfer and swimmer rescues.  We ventured out only a little bit into the waves.  It’s a beautiful spot that was also reminiscent of Hawaii.

Wes and I at Piha Beach.  Yes, I need to
take more pictures with Aimee in them.

After our day on the beach, we all went to see a movie in the theater.  We decided a movie might be a good, normal thing for us to do with the boys.  We’re not sure if it was the transition from Chile, the jet lag, the day spent walking around town, or just general travel fatigue, but the boys had been driving us completely nuts the first few days in Auckland.  They complained, misbehaved, and fought more than usual and our patience, as well, was nearly nonexistent.  Things have improved since then (the movie night out and some additional beach time on our way to Bay of Islands seems to have helped us all).

On our third day in Auckland, we visited a family who lived in Whitefish Bay and are friends of friends. He’s from NZ, she’s from Germantown and they lived in WFB for a while before moving back to Auckland.  We had a great time with them, hanging out all afternoon while Cam and Wes played with their boys in the pool and in the yard. We may try to see them again on our way out of Auckland back to the U.S. at the end of March.

After our afternoon with new friends, we checked a “must-do while in New Zealand” item off of the list: we went to a professional rugby match.  We watched the Auckland Blues (historically one of the best teams in NZ professional rugby, but a recent underperformer) host the Christchurch Crusaders (defending Super League champions) at Eden Park, the NZ national rugby and cricket stadium.  It was a pretty exciting game, ending 22-24 (to the Crusaders), even if we didn’t understand all of the action.

Eden Park

On Sunday, we drove up to Bay of Islands, stopping at a place called Omaha Beach on the way north. Omaha Beach is about an hour north of Auckland and a popular day-trip/weekend getaway spot for Auckland families.  It’s a small, beautiful beach surrounded by expensive homes.  The waves were up a bit more than usual, but without the dangerous currents of Pahia Beach, so the four of us played in the waves for hours.  It really made me regret the lack of time we spend on beaches playing in the waves and miss our visits to Long Beach Island with the Varon and Greenberg families.

Bay of Islands is an area of beautiful, tropical coastline.  The bay is full of sail and touring boats.  We spent yesterday out on a four hour dolphin spotting cruise on which we spotted no dolphins (kind of like when we went to the Atacama Desert to see no stars – it seems both Chile and New Zealand like to play hard to get with their natural attractions).  The day before, however, Aimee and I ate oysters and drank some delicious NZ white wine while the boys played right in front of us on the beach and a pod of Orca Whales swam a little bit offshore. So I suppose we can’t complain.

Aboard a ferry in Bay of Islands

The highlight of Bay of Islands (for Aimee and I, at least) was our visit to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds and Museum.  The Bay of Islands area is where sailors from Britain first started settling and has a rich history related to that settlement and the related interaction between the British and the indigenous Maori.  Russell, the small village where we enjoyed our oysters and wine, was the first colonial capital of NZ.  The Treaty Grounds is where representatives of Queen Victoria and several Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which set out the relationship between the crown and the Maori in New Zealand.

Cultural performance at the Treaty Grounds

The NZ flag of independence

The story of the Treaty itself is interesting (the British translated a couple key words in a way to make things more palatable for the Maori, and therefore made the Treaty more likely to be accepted, while giving the British a bit more governing power), but the entire approach to the integration of British and Maori people at the time is plainly amazing.  It is nothing short of something that has changed our entire perspective of history and, while we certainly could have read about it from Milwaukee, will be one of the most valuable things we take with us from this trip.

Hold onto your hats, because this blog is about to take a dark turn into history and contemporary politics. You may recall from a previous blog post that I made passing mention of the fact that people we’ve met perhaps shouldn’t be as surprised as they are about our election of Trump as president. The U.S. somehow benefits from a reputation of greatness and, consequently, our choosing a cruel, racist man who is interested only in promoting his own interests and the interests of others like him (wealthy men), is contrary to that reputation.  Thus, their surprise.  But that reputation doesn’t match reality or history.  The U.S. – its social and economic structures, its politics and laws – was founded on the backs of slaves and on the evisceration of the indigenous population.  To this day, not only has the country not atoned for its mistakes, but it persists with institutional discrimination and intentional impoverishment of entire classes of people for the benefit of the rich.

I knew all of that before I came to the Treaty Grounds, but it was the story of the Treaty of Waitangi and the history of the integration of the British and Maori that suggested the possibility that the cruel, racist shadows that hang over 250 years of U.S. history weren’t a foregone conclusion.  New Zealand was another country with an indigenous population colonized by Britain and they were able to find a way to (relatively) peaceably co-exist.  

That’s not to say that things went swimmingly for the Maori – there were violations of the Treaty and land seizures, discrimination and violence – but there is no Trail of Tears, no genocide in New Zealand’s history.  I realize that’s not a high bar, but it is the one we have set.

What’s more, New Zealand has confronted the ways in which it has failed to adhere to the Treaty and its principles.  In 1975, it established a tribunal to adjudicate prospective claims by Maori that non-Maori or the government breached the Treaty.  In 1985, the jurisdiction of the tribunal was expanded to include claims dating back to 1840, the year the Treaty was signed.  The country, along with Britain itself, has atoned for its sins (minor in comparison), rather than requested blanket absolution.  As a result, the Maori population has experienced a resurgence and the country as a whole has embraced the Maori culture and the history of co-existence.

Why was one British colony able to struggle towards some form of cultural integration, with success and failure but without widespread cruelty and mass murder, while another discarded any notion of integration whatsoever and embraced its own cruel, racist right to subjugate and extinguish other people?  Was it the effect of the Revolutionary War?  Because the colonies won independence, were they endowed with some sense of right to the land and to do whatever they wanted with the people who already lived there?  Did it have to do with geography?  Both the size of North America and the proximity to Britain (meaning that the influx of colonists and white immigrants from Europe was much larger than in a remote place like New Zealand)?  And even if there is an explanation for our history (and, let’s be honest, most of world history is of people in power doing terrible things to everyone else) what is the explanation for why we have not confronted it and atoned in any way? Is it because, to this day, too many of us are cruel, racist men who are interested only in promoting our own interests and the interests of others like us (or, at least, want someone like that as our president)?

I can’t wait to read your comments.

In other news, Wellington is pretty great so far (I’ve picked up writing this blog after we’ve been here for a while and explored a bit).  There’s a lot of good craft beer and at least the promise of good coffee. Coffee is one thing we haven’t mentioned, but we should have.  There is no coffee in Chile and New Zealand; only espresso.  You cannot get “a coffee.”  The best you can do is “an americano.”  And if you want to make it at home, it’s pretty much instant coffee (NesCafe) or nothing.  Aimee and I love our coffee, and this situation has been difficult.  Not that we’re asking for your sympathy.

Oh, Gandalf!

I don't know yet if it's good coffee,
but at least they pair it well

That’s all for now. You guys won’t believe what happens on Wednesday.  Spoiler alert: Trump does not resign right after establishing a tribunal to adjudicate grievances submitted by Native Americans.

We miss you all.

Max, Aimee, Cam & Wes