Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Gone But Not Forgotten



So here we are, all back in the same country at the same time, getting on with our ordinary lives again. New Zealand is already fading into the distant past, and it seems strange to think I was there just last week. As I was flying from Tauranga to Auckland, in a plane so small it was more like a flying taxi than a grown-up Jet Stream, I gazed out the window at the green ground rushing past below and wondered when I would be back again. The tidy suburbs of Tauranga, liberally sprinkled with swimming pools glistening like opals in the sun-drenched backyards, crowded around the bays and estuaries that make up the city boundaries before we swooped away over farmland and orchards. Orderly rows of kiwifruit - large commercial properties that export their furry brown vitamin bombs around the world and even as far as Lochem - bristled like a giants stubble, the orderly lines belying the tangle of vines at ground level.


It wasn't long before we left even those behind and the land became hilly then abruptly transformed into dense bush. It's never far away in New Zealand, where it's rare to be able to lift your eyes to the horizon without seeing a bush clad hill crouching in the distance. Kiwis have grown to love the abundance of wild country in the land but it wasn't always so. Settlers struggled with suffocatingly dense growth so different from the stately forests of their home lands that they must have felt they'd landed on the shores of another planet. Early farmers hacked and burned and tore the bush from the soil to plant their farms, while burgeoning towns slashed at the crowding natives trees and shrubs to build their houses and roads. One of our great artists, Colin McCahon, once described the New Zealand landscape as "a land with too few lovers".
Yet now, fortunately, the forests are preserved and vast tracts of national park ensure that the bush remains undisturbed today apart from hikers and hunters wanting to flex their muscles. As kids our Mum and Dad took us on day trips, hiking up mountains, to waterfalls, and through hilly ranges. Ask any New Zealander what the bush is like and they will be able to close their eyes and instantly be transported to a world of deep green light filtering through the dense canopy, cool damp undergrowth pressly lushly against the moss covered trunks of tree ferns, palms and massive podacarps rising to the light above, and hear the whistle and call of native birds.


No matter how far I travel, all it takes is a moment's reflection to be taken back there again, and that was a comforting thought as I sped away chased by the shadow of the plane far below.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your gorgeous photos and descriptive text capture me! I used to live on Guam and find your photos make me long for the beach, the warmth, the color of the sky and ocean, Ah....
And I am enjoying your saga from NZ to Holland to Singapore to NZ and back to Holland. Keep up the great work for vicarious travellers like me. :-)

Anonymous said...

Bunnyland!