New Zealand 2008

When the Auckland Workshop ended, we rented a car and roamed the New Zealand countryside, stopping at B&Bs and "Farm Stays", getting to know a wonderfully hospitable people.

A placard advertising "Devonshire Cream Tea" drew us into this little cafe in Te Kauwhata. Though place names are often Maori, New Zealand seemed very English to us, even to driving on the left.

Here's my favorite NZ image. Mike and Janet Fleming (she's president of the New Zealand Christian Writers Guild,) are oyster farmers on remote Whangaroa Bay. John and I quickly learned to remove shoes before stepping inside their house - or anyone else's, even in cities. New Zealanders' shoes come off swifter than any place we know: people often go barefoot in shopping centers, restaurants, theaters, museums. Maybe shoes just aren't compatible with the nation's pioneering spirit!

This is a "tiny" Kauri tree, compared with the giants - larger even than our California Redwoods - that once covered these hills. The bark felt to me like cement! Because high-quality shellac could be made from the sap, the great Kauri forests were swiftly exploited and destroyed.

This innocent-looking dish is a waistline Waterloo! Fred and Jan Swallow invited us to their home for a "real New Zealand meal". Lamb, of course, (this is sheep country), and for dessert this New Zealand specialty, "Pavlova", a to-die-for (and sooner!) concoction of egg whites, sugar and whipped cream.

Auckland's dramatic skyline from the ferry to Great Barrier Island - so named by Captain James Cook because it provides a breakwater for the mainland against ocean storms.

We went out to the island so that John, who'd never been to New Zealand, could meet my friend Kay Stowell. When I conducted a Writers Workshop on the Barrier 13 years ago, Kay made me her "American mum", so of course she had to meet "dad".

In Kay's off-hours from the Visitor Center at Port Fitzroy, she photographs New Zealand's unique and endangered bird life. Before Polynesians came to these islands around 800 AD, the only mammals here were bats. Now there are rats, dogs, cats, weasels, stoats, possums. When I saw what I took to be an ordinary brown duck, Kay was indignant: apparently this is a very rare brown teal almost extinct on the mainland.

New Zealand is not only the most isolated landmass on earth, but the most volcanically active. A scalding sulphur pool fills an ancient crater.

Escaping steam heated by underground magma creates a geyser near Rotorua.

Even in the town of Rotorua, steam vents are everywhere, meaning that graves must be built above ground. Services here in Maori and English are so popular that worshippers arrive an hour early to get seats.

A Maori storyteller keeps the traditions alive. His cloak is an imitation of the shaman's kiwi-feather robe. The flightless kiwi - New Zealand's symbol - today is being captive-bred back from extinction. The pictures we took in one of these rescue-habitats are too dark to reproduce (Lights are kept dim since kiwis are night-foragers.)

A Maori warrior enacts the traditional challenge to new arrivals. If the visitor doesn't flinch before hostile shouts and gestures, he's made welcome. Warlike conventions no longer hold, but New Zealand's welcome remains!

TO COME NEXT: HONG KONG