Here's a collection of things that strike us as so essentially and uniquely Kiwi that they wouldn't happen anywhere else.
The 2004 Academy Awards were a huge deal here, as you can imagine, with Return of the King and Whale Rider's star Keisha Castle-Hughes nominated for so many awards between them. The Embassy Theater in downtown Wellington is the site where all the LOTR films premiered. It's a restored movie palace that LOTR director Peter Jackson has some money in. It hosted Return of the King for almost our entire stay here. Click on the picture and you'll see the Nazgul flying monster that adorned the building all summer.
The theater hosted a live broadcast of the Academy Awards show on satellite in the middle of the day. I couldn't resist. As in many NZ movie theaters, beer and wine was available at the concession stand, and the crowd was primed for a good time. There were local comedians to keep things lively during the commercial breaks, and contests and recognitions for many of the audience members. Dame Sylvia Cartwright, the Governor-General, was there for most of it, and Prime Minister Helen Clark showed up near the end as the Best Picture Award was pending.
You can imagine the raucous support that NZ and its film progeny enjoyed throughout the afternoon. There must be a special place in Kiwi Hell for Russell Crowe; every time his name was mentioned the place erupted in boos and catcalls. There was even a cruel contest among the audience for the most insulting line to deliver to Crowe.
I was the only one to cheer when Billy Crystal thanked everyone from Long Island in a parody of the many thanks to all of New Zealand that dominated the awards, but the crowd was generous and seemed to view me as an entertaining oddity.
It was a great way to spend the afternoon. You could see that the awards and recognition really meant something to the local folks, which should be no surprise after realizing many of them had spent part of all of the last 7 years working on the Ring movies.
Vegetable
Sheep....These are low-growing plants that are common in alpine areas of New Zealand. They got their name from the fact that at a distance they can be mistaken on hillsides for sheep. The picture on the left is from Christchurch in 1906, showing some men carrying harvested vegetable sheep. The right-hand photo is a close look. When they're in flower they also have a scent like the Manuka, or tea-tree plant, which is very fragrant.
And the buff guys who use them to iron their shirts in the morning after their workouts!
Wild
Sheep Comes in from the ColdMeet Shrek, a Merino sheep that outwitted "musterers," or ranch hands, for 6 seasons on a sheep station in the South Island. Because he wasn't herded in from free-range pasture for such a long time, he grew a record-long coat of wool. His 25Kg fleece is about to be shorn in a charity event by New Zealand's championship sheep shearer. The shearer won his title last month in a widely followed and publicized "shear off" that also takes place every year. (To read more about this definite "Only In NZ" event, check out www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/CU0404/S00013.htm.) This sheep was news in all media for days after he was found and rounded up. Unlike other sheep his age, his new notoriety means he'll be spared from the freezer works (slaughterhouse) and kept in relative comfort on the sheep station. Presumably, he'll become a tourist stop, as well.
Mt.
Ruapehu is one of New Zealand's active volcanoes on the North Island. We
did a two-day tramp around it in March, which is described, along with pictures,
in the Tongariro Crossing chapter.
Worrying about a volcanic eruption in a relatively well-settled area is one thing. But the big danger from Ruapehu is more immediate: the catastrophic release of water from a crater lake that has been slowly building up to the point where it's expected to break through its natural dam and release a huge flood of water and mud called a lahar.
To quote from NASA's Earth Observatory website (www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov),
"Scientists estimate that Ruapehu has experienced 60 lahars in the last 150
years. A devastating lahar in 1953 killed more than 150 people, who died when a
passenger train plunged into a ravine when a railroad bridge was taken out by
the lahar. The flank of the volcano below the lake is deeply carved by the path
of previous lahars; the gouge can be seen just left of image center.
"Currently scientists in the region are predicting that the lake will overflow in a lahar sometime in the next year. There is great controversy about how to deal with the threat. News reports from the region indicate that the government is planning to invest in a high-tech warning system that will alert those who might be affected well in advance of any catastrophic release. Others feel that the government should combat the threat through engineering at the top of the mountain, for example, by undertaking a controlled release of the lake."
In other words, the question isn't whether, but when this catastrophic flood of mud and water will occur.
