RosieBell

Last loneliest loveliest lacerated

I have been mourning that my beautiful, laid-back homeland should be so violated. We expect physical earthquakes, like the one that knocked down Christchurch back in 2011 and killed 185 people. We don’t expect to be shaken to pieces by terrorism. The last terrorist attack was back in 1985, when a couple of French agents blew up the Rainbow Warrior, with one casualty. 

The country is trusting and easy-going and feels itself immune from invasion and terrorism, which is why the perp chose it. If he could strike New Zealand the massacre would get world coverage, as it did, and no country feel itself to be safe.

There is a redneck tendency in Christchurch but I am uncertain if it takes an organised form, and it is not known if he had helpers. It is also not yet known what kind of failure there was of surveillance and policing of a political movement that meets on-line instead of in cellars. He seems to have acted like Anders Breivik, as a lone show-off pretending to be a warrior for western civilisation. Why don't these guys listen to Mozart or visit cathedralsto celebrate this western civilisation?

I’ve read the statement by the alleged perpetrator. It’s standard fascism - ethnic cleansing with a whiff of master race, the re-creating of family life to bring up the birth rate, despising our society’s soft liberalism and hedonism, and love, over-powering love for violence and warriordom. There’s also a touch of eco-fascism. Mosely is cited, as is Breivik.

It’s hellishly cheeky for an Australian in New Zealand to complain of cultural and population take overs, which were inflicted on the indigenous populations of both countries, and where that colonisation is still a live issue.

David Toube of Quilliam, and once of this site, has an excellent piece of analysis on Radio Scotland.

He outlines the following:-

1. The influence of Camus’ Great Replacement (see here for more detail) a theory that the European capitalists are conspiring to replace the white population. This is similar to the motivation behind the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, where Jews were blamed for bringing in non-white people.
2. The vision of the perp as a soldier in the 1000 year battle against Muslim invaders (he aspires for Istanbul to be restored to Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia to be turned back into a church though he has no belief in Christianity.) This battle runs up to the Bosnian conflict, with Serbian nationalists co-opted as allies.
3. The far right symbolism which shows he is an ethno-nationalist rather than a cultural nationalist. He uses the black sun symbol as per Himmler as well as Odin’s cross and other neo-Nazi slogans. Do these people actually believe in Valhalla as ISIS believe in martyrs and 72 virgins?
4. Like ISIS this kind of ideology works as inspiration for self-motivated atrocities rather than organisations of cells and members. This makes it difficult for would-be perpetrators to be tracked down.
5. He uses the language of the meme outrage LULZ culture, and its revolting look-at-me, how-far-will-I go nihilism. There are in-jokes for the 8chan audience (Bellingcat analysis here and article by Ben Sixsmith here).

Jason Burke has a piece on the similarity between the far right and Islamist extremists:-

Though there are substantial differences, rightwing and Islamist extremism, and extremists, share a great deal. The basic mechanics of the process of radicalisation – by peers, through the internet or otherwise – are very similar. As is the way both forms of violent activism are on the fringe of a much broader movement, much of which has bled into the mainstream in different parts of the world. There are no “lone wolves”, at least not in the sense of a solitary actor without links, whether virtual or real, to others.

“This is not New Zealand,” said the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who has acquitted herself well in an unprecedented situation for New Zealand leaders. It is now. Sadly, our modest kiwi exceptionalism has died. 

(An Australian Facebook friend pointed out that like Breivik the perp chose a country that wouldn't torture him to death.  Despising liberal civilised countries for being soft, he chooses one that will be soft on him.)

Update:-

I have just had an email from a family member who lives in Wellington. She says:-

“A big state of shock, with vigils being held all around the country including one in Wellington last night which had to be moved from the Civic Centre as so many people turned up - over 11,000 people at the Basin Reserve. There is another gathering in Wellington on Thursday and many of the smaller communities are holding vigils or remembrance events as well. I think the thing that we all echo is “this is not New Zealand”. It has had a colossal effect on everyone and there is a real sense of deep sadness, but also an outpouring of support for our Muslim community, the families, and the people of Christchurch. I haven’t spoken to anyone yet who didn’t have tears when they saw or heard what had unfolded.”

The perp’s intention was to cause a civil war between Muslim immigrants and refugees, and the native population. He hasn’t succeeded so far in New Zealand.

Hunt for the Cultural Appropriators/Fusionists

It's a bit late as it's finished its run in my local art-house cinema but do see Hunt for the Wilderpeople if you can. It  has a high New Zealand flavour. Most New Zealanders live in cities but in the backs of their minds is the bush, where men wear Swanndris and hunt wild pig with rifles.

 

The virgin bush – the wilderness – haunts the New Zealand imagination as hedged and cottaged England haunts the English one, and the Highlands the Scottish. The bush is the remains of Eden and the humans who have only been here since about 1300 are the Satans who massacred the angel birds, its true inhabitants. So when the heroes of the story are running through the bush and spot a huia it is a heart stopping moment for a New Zealander. It has the charge of the glimpse of the Holy Grail, it is the Lost Ark for Indiana Jones.

The film starts in a dishevelled bush-cleared farm with a shabby weatherboard house, the outside dunny of corrugated iron, the marcrocarpas and the broken wire fence, the steep, shallow-soiled dense forested mountains, so that those of us have been there can remember the dry slightly acrid smell of the bush and the trunks of the trees thick with epiphytes and moss and creepers, small forests on forest. A social worker brings a boy to be fostered by the couple, Bella and Hec, who live at the farm.

The story is an old theme, of a child who brings love and light into an old curmudgeon's heart, which dates from Little Lord Fauntleroy and Anne of Green Gables. The twist is that the kid is a horrid fat brat, Ricky, (brilliant performance by Julian Dennison) from a deprived urban background. Bella ( Rima Te Wiata), a practical and golden-hearted woman kindly nurtures the boy only to die and leave him with the her husband, the misanthropic Hec (Sam Neill). Through misunderstandings Ricky and Hec end up fleeing through the bush pursued by the barmy social worker (Rachel House), her enjoyably laconic side-kick policeman (Oscar Kightley) and ultimately any amount of hunters and the New Zealand army.

As there has been much annoying talk about cultural appropriation here's a fine example of cultural fusion. It's directed by a Maori (Taika Waititi), a lot of the cast are Maori. There is a Maori theme of an ancestral attachment to a particular place. The culminating moment is when the ashes of the Earth Goddess Heart of Gold Bella are returned to the waters.

There is also a cross-current of languages. Ricky speaks a mixture of social worker jargon, American rap and haikus, which he's been taught as a way of calming himself and expressing emotion. The social worker goes on like an American cop. As well as the curmudgeon theme, which has been given a refresh and charm – and even realism, as a course of bush craft would probably help a difficult urban boy -there's the zany, unjaded humour of The Flight of the Chonchordes with a touch of Hot Fuzz and a car chase including an army of tanks and the usual smashing everything finale.

A personal note. I saw Sam Neill when we were both young and he was beautiful in his first film Sleeping Dogs  where he ran around the bush..

 

It's lovely to see him after he has had a solid screen career now old, still handsome and still running round the bush. It's lovely too that in our youths the New Zealand film industry was thin and spasmodic, now it is well established and this film had an international audience and upbeat reviews.

My family and other cyclists

I wouldn't have thought of us as a cycling family.  I'm the only one who commutes by cycle.  I'm what New Zealanders call  'a cycling advocate" and it's been hinted to me that I am an obsessive bore on the subject. However, various members of my family cycle in their different ways.

We - my siblings and I - cycled when we were children.  We lived near the end of what we called a "metal"(i.e. dirt) road and to get to school we had to cycle about a mile and a half to the bus-stop. We would leave our bicycles leaning against a fence unlocked, as you did those days, and play games - walking along the parapet of the bridge over the big drain was one - until the crowded, superannuated bus picked us up to go about four miles to our country school.  

 

Our house and farm

My first year at primary school I was carried on the back of my sister Claudia's bicycle. Then the next year she went to the High School in town, and caught an earlier bus. The middle sister, L. said she wasn't going to carry a lump like me, so at the age of six I was taught to ride a bicycle, Dad holding the carrier and jogging behind me on our lawn for a week while I learned to balance. The children on our road cycled on a surface which would be an easy mountain bike trail these days, except when the Council came with its loads of crushed rock and graders, when it became hard work for our basic bikes.  "The grader's been here," we would howl as we tried to make our way through what seemed like small yellow boulders for the first few days, then the cars and tractors gradually formed two strips, the rocks heaped in the middle and down the sides and we had smooth dirt paths again. 

A notable time on this route was when a dead cow lay waiting on the verge for what we called the dead cow lorry. Oh, the stench of that cow - we'd hold our breaths as we went by  - and if we met the lorry, My God! Sometimes the dredger came to clear the big drain that  made the swampy land farmable. The verges were piled with mud, and weed and on the road would be eels,  some as big as your arm, struggling through the dust  back towards the water.  I was terrified of them and sickened by them, L. was fearless and would make to chase me with one.  She rescued a small black one once and kept it in a bucket of water, but it didn't survive, like the baby rabbits, pukeko chicks and other "found" small creatures.  Then cars would run over the eels or they would just die and you would dodge and avert your eyes from their smashed and maggoty bodies.

The others left school and went out to jobs, marriages and different countries, and L. said she hadn't been on a bicycle since those early days.  Then a few years ago friends suggested she do the Otago Rail Trail in a group.  She got a cycle and a pair of cycling shorts and enjoyed the trip hugely.  She has done other trails and she lives in the Hutt Valley in Wellington where there are 27 km of trails by the Hutt River where she exercises regularly and looks very fit on it. 

 

Bridge on the Rimutaka trail

She and I did a piece of the Rimutaka Trail.  This is an old railway track, so with easy gradients and tunnels.  It goes through regenerating bush and with stops at the information boards we headed uphill.  It took us about an hour and a half to get to Summit, 10km away.  There are a few rusty bits of engine and other signs of its train origins as well as a shelter and the usual Department of Conservation toilets (DoC really is great, setting up long drop toilets and information on trails all over the country). 

The Summit, Rimutaka trail

On Wellington Province Day, a public holiday, under a perfect blue sky it was a very popular route, and family groups were out, which are something of a hazard, as small children waivered from one side of a trail to another. As we sat at Summit eating a snack a gang of guys cycled past, including one on a unicycle. 

You could continue down to Featherstone in the Wairarapa and catch a train back to Wellington, as you would in the manner of my UK cycling.  We, however, cycled back the way we came, getting to the car park at about 12:30 and by then it was hitting 30 degree afternoon heat, which I would certainly have found hard to cope with.

Cycling in a New Zealand summer

Other than the river path in the Hutt Valley I didn't do any more cycling in Wellington. However I saw that cycling had picked up since my day.  I was four years in Wellington at Victoria University and I would never have dreamed of cycling.  Wellington is a walkable city, its public transport is quite good, and I would have dismissed the idea - the hills are precipice steep and it's famous for its southerly gales.

A view of Wellington from a friend's house in Kelburn

I love Wellington which reminds me of Edinburgh in being beautiful, hilly and windy, so not the most obvious city for cycling.  However the cycleways were marked for urban routes and I saw people on mountain bikes on squally days- and yes, you would need something with very low gears with hills like these.  L., whose office is out in Pauatahanui over a steep hill (Wellington is a system of steep hills and valleys) said that some of her colleagues commute by cycle. Evidently it's catching on. 

Postie in Devonport. Posties have always gone by bike.

I eventually got to Auckland and caught a ferry to my brother's place in Devonport on the North Shore.  A few commuters had their cycles on the ferry and there was a cycleway marked from the ferry stop to Takapuna. Auckland, with its warmer climate and lower hills you would think was an ideal city for cycling. I stayed at my sister's in Mount Eden, near a cycleway through the suburban streets.  I did a little of that and also an off road path through Walmsley Park. It was supposed to be a cycle path but it was not sign-posted, and when I got to the end of it, I had no idea where to go, so it receives low marks.  I didn't really sample enough of Auckland to give it a fair assessment but I did seem to end up on  busy roads a lot of the time, which were not well signed.  I would say that a start had been made for making the city more cycle-friendly, but my verdict now would be "fragmented".

Cycleway signs, Mount Eden, Auckland

I also went with my brother-in-law for a cycle along the waterfront.  This is marked as a cycle way, and  pavement has been divided by a white line, with the half near the kerb being painted with outlines of cyclists.  Cycling along Auckland's waterfront is very agreeable in many ways, as you are by the grand Waitemata Harbour among the Aucklanders on a Saturday morning jogging, boating, swimming, taking the kids out in buggies and on scooters and small bikes. A bloke on a wheelchair went by at high speed, doing training for what was probably the paraOlympics.  But it is cycling with all your attention on hazards. I was reminded of the Union Canal at its city end in Edinburgh.  It's picturesque but the towpath is too narrow and it's too busy with pedestrian traffic to be able to get up speed, and I usually miss out that bit and go along the streets.  Auckland's waterfront has all the hazards of a canal towpath in the city, with the addition of cars parked along the kerb and car doors opening out on you while people extract themselves and their children.  One door was open while three teenage girls sat in the car or stood on the pavement and hung out.

"I would have sworn at them but I'm a foreigner," I said. later to my brother-in-law later, who was also cycling the path.

"I swore at them," he said.


Reminder to car drivers on Waiheke Island

We were in a cafe at the end of the waterfront run comparing notes, and agreeing that it was more of an obstacle course than a cycle route. I cycled back along it, and another lot had their van doors open and were cleaning out their van, with a vacuum cleaner on the pavement.  The bloke training on the wheelchair went past with strong, fast moving arms and I mentally cheered him. I did enjoy my urban cycle, which was really a tourist's potter but this cycleway is not a serious cycle route for commuting.

Cyclists wanting to get somewhere at speed use the road instead and Auckland drivers think that they are being cheeky sods for cycling there because look, don't they have their own cycleway now?  rather in the spirit of white South Africans pointing to bantustans.  Look!  You've got your own state.  Why do you want a share of ours?

After this I noticed other pavements that were halved as cycle routes, and on the cyclist side the path would have a pole for a traffic light or something else stuck in the middle of it, and wondered what car drivers would think of a road where suddenly a concrete bollard appeared in their way.

My nephew J. showed me his Norco mountain bike. J. is big, blonde and macho and used to play rugby.  Now he has taken up competitive mountain biking and his bike has a special seat where you press a button to change its height. He was due to do some time trials in Rotorua and had been getting fit cycling up Auckland's volcanoes.  I had seen groups of mountain bikers on Mount Eden doing this on a Sunday morning.  He said though that Auckland drivers are awful - selfish and inconsiderate, which I well believed.  (I've heard stories of New Zealander drivers' resentment of cyclists).

As we walked back to the car from J's house, his children followed us, the little girl in a pedal car and the sturdy blonde boy toddler pistoning energetically on his tricycle as he headed along the pavement, obviously dying to be moving fast over uninterrupted tarmac. When he's old enough to cycle alone, perhaps Auckland will have safe spaces for him to do so.

My brother-in-law rides a recumbent tricycle.  He had a stroke seven years back, which has left him unable to drive and he can't walk far, but he can use a recumbent tricycle which has been adapted for his disability.  He now does regular exercise rides, and goes off to cafes so as well as gaining independent mobility, he has made some new friends. He has found the exercise, upping his oxygen levels, has been good for his mental health as well, with his speech improving (it sounds totally normal to me).  He and my sister are now evangelicals for the disabled being self-propelled, if possible.

 
My brother-in-law John on his recumbent tricycle

He also wears very snazzy colours on his bike and has become a feature of the neighbour hood.  People recognise him and his bike, and call out greetings.

The only other cycling I did was at Ruakaka in Northland, where the family has a beach house.  Ruakaka is a couple of hours north of Auckland, a town that was built for the workers at the oil refinery at Marsden Point. It is very flat, and also has 23km of perfect white sand beach.  However far the tide is out, you can swim in the surf, and it is safe.  Small children can play in the waves.  I went for a ride at low tide along the hard sand, with the waves of the Pacific curling over the bike tyres.  This being New Zealand, a beach like this has a handful of people on it.  My sister says the biggest number they have seen is seventeen.

On Ruakaka Beach

I only sampled cycling in New Zealand and now when I see new routes being advertised, would like to go back and do some of them. Any organisation who would give me a year's grant to do a survey of New Zealand's cycling infrastructure is welcome to apply

Biking is the new golf

The next day I set out on what should be the longest leg of my journey round the three volcanoes - 27km to Waiouru and a further 60km along the Desert Road back to Turangi.  It was another grey day, the clouds well down. I was on State Highway 49, which was reasonably quiet but there was the problem I had with New Zealand roads -the steep camber at the shoulder. Cyclists are happy to keep as far left as possible,  but on the other side of the white line I had the distinct feeling of tipping sideways on corners and I would start drifting towards the middle of the road, annoying the occasional driver behind. 

As I pedalled along, looking down to see I wasn't going too far on the wrong side of the cyclist's Pale, I noticed some white stuff on the road surface. It was ice!  It had snowed last night on the mountains, and though it wasn't cold - it was summer ffs - there was the ice.  I stopped to touch it.  Yes, ice.  There were signs warning "Slippery when frosty", but I thought they were for winter. I'd given up cycling at the beginning of December in the UK because of the icy patches on my route to work and had not really expected to see it again in a New Zealand summer.  The road was gritty and it wasn't really dangerous, just disconcerting.

I was cycling through New Zealand farmland.  From a hilltop you will get great panoramas of the land stretching ad sweeping away over hills and down valleys but close up it's barbed wire fences, grass, a few cattle here and there and shelter belts of pine trees, which I learned to dread, as they shaded the road and each time I saw them I knew there would be ice. 

I plugged on through this dull landscape for 27km until I reached Waiouru, the famously drab army town. advertising itself an oasis in the desert as it sits at the edge of my real destination, the Desert Road.  I stopped in a cafe for breakfast and watched two squaddies, male and female having a coffee together, i.e. both in camouflage and not speaking to each other, but communicating with their handheld devices. I told the waitresses that I planned to cycle along the Desert Road.  

Kids' ride in a Waiouru cafe

"I've never seen anyone do that," said one.

"I have, once," said the other.

It was a basic cafe, and the food and coffee were, as usual, delicious.  I sat and thought about it.  60km, in what looked like a strong wind that I could see bending the tussock, along a very busy State Highway One - the trucks were rumbling past -  in an area notorious for sudden changes of weather, and with no shelter at all.  It was looking like a bad idea. I went to the excellent army museum and among the musket and land wars displays rang the Tongariro River Motel and they said they would pick me up.  They thought I had been sensible, and said so on their website.

Ross, the motel owner, turned up at about 1pm and we drove along the Desert Road.  The clouds had lifted again and you could see the great volcanoes, as splendid as my memories of them.  Ross told me about his own cycling - he and a group were doing the whole of the New Zealand trail, a proposed off-road route along the whole of the country, mostly going through tracks across farms ("races" we called them in my New Zealand farming childhood).  I remembered them from our dairy farm and they were always covered with cow shit, and fairly muddy.  He said one time the cyclists all became crook with terrible gastric problems and that was from getting covered with cow shit - the walkers and horse riders among them had been fine.

So we got talking about the mountain bike trails and he said "mountain biking is the new golf."  And I heard that from other people, that golf was declining.  I thought mountain biking a great improvement on golf for all sorts of reasons, for instance that you would no longer be setting aside a tract of land for a monoculture of alien grass but just making a simple track through the bush and farmland. Also, I love biking and have never seen the point of golf.

View up river from Pillar of Hercules Bridge, Kaimanawa Forest (Ross's photo)

Ross took me for a drive through the Kaimanawa Forest, a tract of beautiful black beech forest and river gorges on the eastern side of the Desert Road, 15km south of Turangi.  There was quite a system of unsealed roads from constructing hydro-electric dams as well as some bush tracks and swing bridges, and he thought they should make a good mountain bike trail.  But the different tracks are not joined up in an official trail nor are granted the government money set aside for developing the New Zealand cycleway, and there were political issues over land ownership.  Ross, as well as being a cycling enthusiast, wanted to add a proper trail to the attractions round Turangi, since, he said, trout fishing, the main reason for going there, is declining.

Ross on swing bridge

I thoroughly appreciated being picked up and the tour of the Kaimanawa Forest.  After this I was back in Turangi far earlier than I'd expected.  In the UK if I got somewhere mid afternoon I'd go for an excursion to a church or castle or some such thing.  In New Zealand I cycled a short way to Te Kaanau.  Here I went for a stroll around the small geo-thermal area.  It was the only one I visited in the whole of my journey, and it's very modest compared to those in Rotorua but I was glad to see the mud bubbling and spitting and the water steaming among the manuka.  I then bathed  in the hot springs pool. An elderly American woman in the changing rooms saw my cycling gear and enthused about how nice their cycling guide had been to her.  She was referring to Taupo, with famous trails, and I could see why Ross wanted to offer the Turangi stall at the mountain biking market.  Planted forests where they have trails make more money from the cyclists than the timber.

Hot springs, Te Kaanu

After my soak I cycled round Te Kaanau which is where the Tongariro River pours into the southern edge of Lake Taupo.  On a wharf of silvered wood lads were fishing, another sitting on a seat reading a book, while some blokes, joking and laughing,  tied up their fishing boat and hauled in their catch.  Black swans and cygnets swam out in the water, which was as blue as could be, and dotted with little reedy islands where I assumed the swans must nest.  What a beautiful country my homeland is.  

Church, Te Kaanu

Tongariro River flows into Lake Taupo, with black swans

I had a terrific meal of fillet steak and polenta at a motel bar and then that night I went to bed at 10 and slept through to 6am. I had arrived in New Zeaalnd on Monday and it was now Saturday morning.   Jet lag was over, and I caught the bus to Wellington. 

Brakeless on the Old Coach Road

After the uphill slog of my first day cycling round the three volcanoes I had a lovely downhill run from Whakapapa Village back to State Highway 47 to continue south-west, on an easy up and down route past huge flax swamps to the  National Park settlement. There I turned south on to State Highway 4, which was a busier road, but not too bad.  Above me - well, it should have been bush clad mountain slopes and views of mountain tops but instead it was just cloud and rain.  I stopped on the bridge over the Makatote Gorge to take photographs while trucks carrying logs or sheep shook the camera and had a quick look at the Makatote Viaduct but it was too wet to hang about.

Makatote Gorge

I got to Horopito where I had the choice to carry on cycling the main roads to Ohakune, about 14 km away, or else turn on to the Old Coach Road, a mountain bike trail. Out of the thick rain I saw a family group emerging from the trail and thought, well that can't be too bad, and headed away from the tarmac into the bush.  I passed a bank of mountain cabbage trees, looking to my Northern Europeanised eyes, highly exotic, stopped by the Department of Conservation board to read the info, and then the sun came out in strength and began to dry me out. I sat in the sun and ate my sandwiches  feeling very happy, as I always do at lunchtime on any cycling day when the weather doesn't make cutting pieces of cucumber and cheese and placing them between bread impossible.

Mountain cabbage trees

Mountain cabbage trees

The Old Coach Road was opened in 1907 to carry supplies for the construction of the railway.  When the railway was complete and the state highway opened, the road fell into disuse and the bush took it over.  It was rediscovered and restored in the 2000s, first of all through local efforts and then with government funding. 

A smooth section of the Old Coach Road

The path was covered with big cobblestones from the old road. Tree roots were growing across it, and the rain had caused big stretches of mud.  However, it's only about 10km long, so perfectly doable, and I half walked, half cycled along it, reading the Department of Conservation's information boards, which told me about the vegetation as well as the story of the surveyors and navvies who made the road.   All around me was the New Zealand bush with its particular musty smell and very silent except for an occasional tui. More silent than a European forest, even more silent than my urban garden.  It was of course a summer afternoon, not dawn, but I thought there should be more bird song than this.  But it was lovely, as dense as jungle, but not as hot.  I'd stop for a drink and look across at the steep slopes of the bush, the unphotographable layer after layer of trees, each covered with epiphytes and moss, climbed over with supplejack, every one a little eco-system of its own.  Beneath them was the dense thicket of tree ferns and shrubs.  Stray off a bush path for a few yards and you can very easily get lost.

There was one bit I went through with a line of trunks very green and shadowy and - as you do these days - I thought "Lord of the Rings.  This is what Peter Jackson saw".  Near this was a huge fallen tree,  producing a little forest of moss and fern and other plants. The bush gives a sense of vigorous life growing, of every drop of soil, every surface shoting green. 

Fallen tree with epiphytes

A full surround of greenness

So I walked the difficult, twisty bits over stones and mud and cycled the easier bits until I came out to where I could see the railway viaduct and  hear a train go by.  It had started to rain again but the bush  sheltered me. The going was smoother now and I cycled along the zig-zag paths.  I tried the brakes.  They didn't work.  I tried them again.  I thought I must be imagining this.  I got to a small slope, set off, squeezed them again, then realised no, the wheel still spun, the bike kept going and I turned off the path into the bush for a soft landing.  (I had a mighty bruise on one leg after that).

Viaduct in the rain

Well, this was f- annoying.  I had no idea what was wrong with the brakes except that they didn't work. The cables were still in the right place, and that's as far as my knowledge went.  So I pushed the cycle , along a smooth  path downhill on should have been an easy ride.  Then the bush was on one side up the steep slopes and on the other there were a few fern trees dotting the more gently falling farmland.   Eventually I came to a car park and a big sign introducing the trail. 

I had no idea how far I was from Ohakune, my map being a tourist one with not much detail.  I didn't know whether it was 6km on a steep road or what. And it was slewing with rain.  I'd seen a farmhouse close by and walked to it, thinking I'd ask them to get the number of a taxi to pick me up.  But there was no-one there, not even a dog barking.  Standing in their doorway I called my accommodation.  Did they know of a taxi?  The manager, sounding very harassed, said she was only temporary and didn't know.  So I called up Ross, the guy who had rented me a bike.  He offered to come and pick me up.  No, I said, if I can get to Ohakune I can get the bike fixed.  He asked where  I was, I gave details  and he said I was only 2km from Ohakune. (I really should have been able to work that out myself - there had been plenty of signs on the way, but I was in something of a state). 

I found the road to Ohakune was flat so I could cycle it cautiously till I got to a bridge over a tumbling river, and was at the top of the town, by the railway station.  Ohakune is attractively set with the bushy hillsides rising sharp above it, and with its many older buildings, it is a pretty town.  However the handsome pub with the double storey of verandahs was closed, and it was very quiet, even by New Zealand standards. It is an alpine town that caters for skiers. There was no-one round to ask directions. I pushed my cycle around the steep streets, thinking how annoying it was not to be able to cycle to find my accommodation but then spotted a cycle hire shop and took my bike there.

Pub, Ohakune

This shop mostly hired out mountain bikes and offered transport to the bike trails, but it also did repairs. The friendly guys there checked the bike and said that some water had got into the cable housing - anyway, they could fix it on the spot.  A young blonde mechanic who would be a surfer if he wasn't a hundred miles or so inland, showed me his own mountain bike - no brakes at all.  He was one of the thrill-seeking mountain bikers, the skiers on wheels. He'd adjust the seat height, he said, so he'd use different muscles. 

I asked the guys if they were busy.  They said that on a day like this no-one would rent a bike and go out on a mountain bike trail - in fact they were quite respectful that I should do the Old Coach Road in such rain.  Except for the family group I'd seen at the beginning, I'd seen no-one else on the track.  I had a look at the leaflets in the shop showing the variety of mountain bike trails in the area, and how you could arrange to be taken to the beginning of the trail and picked up at the end (sometimes by boat).  I said I thought cycling had picked up in NZ. They said that the government had put $NZ50 million into cycling and had got in advice from England.  Advice from England?  So less advanced than places like Holland when it came to cycling infrastructure?  On the other hand, it makes sense to get advice from those in the process of developing cycling in a car owning society rather than one which had sorted it out in the 1950s.

Later I checked this $50 million investment and the advice from England with the New Zealand cycling pressure group Cycling Advocates Network. I got an email stating that:-

"The $50m was for a national cycleway (or more accurately a network of cycle trails). You can see details of what has been developed so far at http://www.nzcycletrail.com.

While it is a great recreational/touring initiative, it is arguably at the expense of real investment in cycling in urban areas, where the Govt has reduced planned investment in this area and other sustainable transport investments (compared to the previous Govt), largely to help cover the cost of building $9 billion worth of new motorways."

They had got advice from Sustrans for the national network and Cycling England for a couple of small city urban routes.  

So the policy is to build up a series of mountain bike trails for tourists, both local and international.  Tourism is a big earner in New Zealand and New Zealanders love the outdoors.  If I lived in New Zealand, I would certainly be doing these trails. I've been looking at them longingly as I write. and wondering if there are elegant cycling maps for them, like the ones that Sustrans produces.

However as a commuting city dweller I would also want - in fact think I am entitled to - some safe routes to my job and for work-outs in the evenings and weekends. It's like the difference between tramping and walking. I remembered the days when there was an excellent set up for tramping of four, five or six day trails, with well-marked paths, huts and wardens.  You would experience the wilderness driving to the beginning of the route and then being picked up at the end. But if you lived in a city you would not take a bus somewhere and go for a walk, or set out straight on foot from your door through those endless suburbs. However, in recent years the cities have developed urban walkways, besides rivers, and through parks. I stayed with friends in Hamilton, and we did just such a pleasant stroll. Going for a walk has become more ordinary, as it should be.

Safe urban cycling may ultimately develop from the mountain bike trails. Some of the trails are easy, and suitable for family cycling and the unfit, others are for the athletic.  If mountain cycling is taking off the urbanites who will go off for a week on them are going to want to get fit - which means they will want to cycle without fear in the cities, and pressure will build for safe cycling. Given the temperate climate, the cities should be whizzing with weekend cyclists working out and commuting, and then - and a vision of Auckland like Gothenburg or Amsterdam but with milder weather comes to mind, with the cars replaced by cyclists engaged in what is not a special pursuit, but an ordinary means of transport.

I tested my brakes in the car park outside the cycle shop and was much relieved to be able to stop at will, I set off through Ohakune, which has a population of 1100 and has the wide, long streets characteristic of New Zealand towns, which made finding my accommodation feel like something of a journey in the countryside. The manager of the lodge was relieved I had got there safely as she had felt bad at not being able to answer my tourist questions about taxis and had been ringing round to get the information. This place was very busy in winter, she said, but quiet at this time of the year. It offered a hot spa and after a pub dinner I soaked away. The evening was chilly for summer.

I then fell asleep on my bunk bed 9pm, and woke again at 1am to watch American crime programmes on television and continue with Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness , which is extraordinarily good on the atmosphere of Jerusalem in the 1940s among Jewish emigrants from the urban parts of Europe.  Amos Oz has powers of memory - of slight gestures and expressions - which  are uncanny.  The people he writes about were immigrants, like my own ancestors, but utterly different from them with their high culture, intense learning and the persecution that made them leave home.

Uphill into the wind with jetlag

I arrived in Auckland after the usual cattle-truck journey (Edinburgh - Heathrow - Guangzhou  - 26 hours of actual plane journey plus waiting in airports) and blinking like coming out of a cinema in daylight.  My sister picked me up and I walked around her garden touching the growing things after the plastics of aeroplanes and airports.  Then the usual terrible jet lag night's sleep and I caught a bus south to Turangi, at the edge of the central North Island plateau.

I left New Zealand when I was twenty-two and return infrequently. I was last in New Zealand in 2004.  The changes I noticed this time on the bus journey down south along State Highway One were the cycleways that were marked where cyclists were allowed a space on the hard shoulder and the occasional alternative route was indicated.

New Zealand is a car-owning society.  You get your driving licence as soon as you can.  I was amazed when I first came to the UK that people my age with degrees couldn't drive.  An adult drove.  Public transport was poor, there are long distances between towns and cities, and with most people living in one-storeyed houses with gardens, the cities sprawl and you commute and shop and socialise by car. 

So this provision for cyclists looked promising.  Also, mountain biking trails have taken off. My sister L has done the Otago Rail Trail and a new trail on the West Coast  for which I envy her, as the scenery there is spectacular. 

This holiday I was sticking to the North Island where my family and friends live and I had searched on the net for what cycling was on offer.  There were plenty of mountain bike trails around the geothermal areas of Taupo and Rotorua but I'm not a mountain biker.  The tour organisations offered bike hire and transport to the beginning and end of trails.  I wanted to cycle as I do in the UK, going off for a few days on roads and covering an area - Suffolk, the Yorkshire Dales or what have you.  Of course UK cycling can't be templated on New Zealand.  The UK has a dense network of minor roads, bridleways, cycle paths, and towns and villages every few miles, New Zealand has big state highways and thousands of no exit roads, dirt roads and walking tracks through the bush, with about 40 or 50 miles between settlements.   Also it is far more mountainous than the UK.

The Desert Road with Ruapehu

Desert Road, with Ngauruhoe in the distance

Ngauruhoe and pylons

Desert Road, pylons.  I took these photos later on the trip by car.

Fixed in my mind was the Desert Road that runs among tussock and beneath the biggest mountain in the North Island, Ruapehu, and the other two volcanoes, one, Ngaurahoe, usually spouting smoke.  I had been to university in Wellington and had hitch-hiked along this road in the holidays to visit my family in the north, and I had always been overwhelmed by its danger and loneliness.  The British have colonised New Zealand for less than two centuries, and what with the houses being made of wood and the farmland that looks raw and dishevelled, I would feel that I and my kind had just been dropped by parachute on this shaky ground.  Looking at the distances of the map it seemed possible to take three days and cycle a loop round Tongariro National Park, with the last and longest day being along that road.



So I googled and found the Tongariro River Motel in Turangi, which would rent me a cycle, panniers and a helmet (compulsory in New Zealand).  The owner, Ross, picked me up from the bus stop.

Tongariro River, on an early jetlagged morning

The Tongariro River is famous for trout fishing, and the motel caters mostly to fishermen.  Ross rents out bicycles with special carriers for fishing rods so that the cycling fisherman can be the first one at a pool.  He is a cyclist himself, and gave me advice about my route.  He also said I was mad to do this, and gave me a cell phone in case of any problems.  When I was trying out the bikes for size he told other people at the motel about my mad scheme.  He wrote about it on the motel's website.

The day started bright, but then the clouds came down and when I'd turned off State Highway One to State Highway 46 the west wind was blowing straight into my face.  The road, climbing through bushy,  landscape, wasn't steep but unrelenting.  My muscles were post Christmas, post Norovirus and post my gym closing for refurbishment.  I was not fit, and this was hard work.

There's a prison farm up here, and the Poutu Canal, and a canal, which is something profoundly urban in the UK seemed very strange in this semi-wilderness- in fact, it's part of a hydro-electric system.  On the other side is Lake Rotoaira.  I had a snack and toilet stop at a campground beside it, and it looked vast, grey and melancholy, with one person fishing.

I had imagined an awesome view of the volcanoes sweeping up on one side of the road dripping with lava flows (there had been an eruption in November), but the cloud hid them.  I toiled on and eventually in these clouds I could just see a vent from the side of Tongariro ejaculating stream.  I stopped at the side road that takes you further up the slopes of Ngauruhoe, which was closed because of "high level of volcanic danger".

The state highway wasn't busy, and if I did stop hill starts were easy because the roads are so wide you can get moving across the road horizontally. So I slogged it to the end of State Highway 46, and turned south-west onto State Highway 47. On the corner was a cafe!  No, closed.  This is ski-ing country, and in the summer the visitor numbers fall to trampers, mountain bikers and tourists doing the Tongariro Crossing, which the bad weather had closed.

Manuka in flower

I'd been cycling for 3 hours, and had done about 25km.  This was poor showing, and I set off again, besides typical New Zealand landscape - flax, toi toi, cabbage trees and manuka, which was in full flower, very white.  About 20 more km of what was really a tiresome grind, then finally the turn off to Whakapapa Village, with another 8km to go.  At that point the clouds lifted, and finally I could see Ruapehu, almost all 9000 feet of her.  The road now was going through the Japanese looking alpine landscape, and I saw some rubbish in the ditch. - the first rubbish I'd seen.  And thought, this country is so clean, and so beautiful, and so quiet, and except for natural forces like volcanoes, earthquakes and storms, so safe.

Ruapehu finally appears on the road to Whakapapa

This last part of the journey had more up in it, or perhaps I was just extremely tired.  I pushed on, got off and walked for a spell, pushed on, past waterfalls and streams and karimea forest and brown tussock grasses until I could see the Chateau Tongariro Hotel up ahead.  (When I was a child we knew this whole area as "the Chateau" and at fifteen I got up at 4am with my bible class to take a bus to "the Chateau" in winter so we could touch snow).  I went into the bar, ordered a cold drink and a cappucino, sat at a table and fell asleep for a few minutes, in a jet lag, cosh to the head narcoleptic fit. 

I woke up again, left the bar and found that Whakapapa Village was about 100 meters away, got my accommodation - a backpackers, quiet at this time of the year so I could have a bunkroom to myself, which was fortunate in my jet-lagged state.  I fell asleep at once, woke up at about 7:30pm and went and had a a delicious meal of lamb shank cooked with rosemary in the Skotel - all meals I had in NZ were delicious though a bit pricey.  The food is fresh, and very well cooked, with a variety of influences - Mediterranean and French mostly. The overcooked and unflavoured British foods that held sway until the 1970s have now gone.  Back to the bunk room, asleep at 10, awake at 1, reading until 5 and then asleep till 7:30am.  I wasn't at all sore or stiff from the day's toilsome cycle.  After December's dormancy my cycling muscles had woken up and were in reasonable order.

On Holiday

The end of my holiday in New Zealand.  Its beauty takes your breath away.

Hokianga, Northland, New Zealand

From my Rugby World Cup Correspondent

My sister L. and her friend Marie go to the semi-final, Australia v New Zealand.

We caught the bus to the fan zone from the airport, Quay Street is closed off for the duration.  The fan zone is spread around the wharves – the giant rugby ball (1.5 hr queue), the enormous barn like beer hall with multi screens; a “taste NZ” centre where you could buy tasters made by our top chefs;  an interactive area where you could join the action digitally and kick a goal, run the ball down the field and have your photo taken amongst the action.  The young lad we watched lining up for a kick was so small he didn’t register, so had to be held up in the air to make his kick – it gave us all a chuckle.  We wandered around the super yachts (quite a few extras in town for the event); and the Wynard Quarter, a big new restaurant area.  Also went into the $2 million plastic waka [canoe] which had a 3D film on Maori culture, plus demos of wood carving and tattooing. 

Plastic waka

 6 hours of fan zone, followed by the “fan Trail”, a 5 km walk through the city, along Karangahape Road to finally Eden Park.  We stopped at a couple of pubs along the way, including the Dogs Bollix, one I had always wanted to go to.  It was there we ran into a big group of Canadians, wearing shirts they had specially made, one half red with Canadian symbols, the other black with the Silver Fern.  They said they knew Canada wouldn’t go the distance so they needed a second team to support.  They were wearing hats, one side red with a beard, for one of their local players, and the other was black with long dreadlocks.  I asked if they thought Kiwis were Rastafarians, but they said that was in support of Ma’Nonu, and his dreadlocks.  He is easy to pick out in the All Blacks on the field, with his dreads flying.

Canadian supporters
The fan walk had entertainment along the way – jugglers, drummers, free ice-creams, singers, fire eaters and so on, to encourage the fans along the walk.

The streets around Eden Park were like a street party – people had tables and chairs set up in their front gardens, having dinner, with TV’s to watch the game, although you could certainly hear it from there.  We had earlier heard the choir practising the national anthems.

 Our seats were in the temporary scaffolding stand, which were as high as the permanent stand and there had been some trepidation that it would feel as though you were falling off the edge.  After 100 steps climbing up through the scaffolding, we reached a platform, and our seats were just there – not in the 20 rows even higher up.  And what a view.  Truly fabulous.  We were sitting next to a couple who had driven up from Te Awamutu, at their first ever test match, both in their 80’s!  The game got underway and the noise – the noise!  Which got even crazier when the All Blacks won.  Marie said next day that her shoulder was a bit stiff – apparently when we won when everyone was jumping up and down and screaming, I had her by the arm and was shaking her like a rag doll. 

Our muscles were stiff, and I have to be honest, it took about 3 days to get over it.  I felt as though I had played the game, not just watched it.  So the country is gearing up for an even bigger party.  Let’s hope we have something to really celebrate.

Final:- New Zealand v France

After partying myself to a standstill for the semi, it was a more subdued affair for the final.  A group of friends, a big TV and good wine.  There was a lot of yelling and screaming at the start, a try was scored which took things to a greater decibel, but as the game went on, we became quieter. there was the odd expletive, and then we were a group of All Black fans, 10 mins from the final whistle, cowering, praying, begging and finally we were released from torment.  Oh what a relief.  I own up to not being able to watch the screen for the last 15 minutes. I moved to the kitchen and scrubbed and scrubbed the  bench to a gleaming shine, while the commentary boomed around the room.  I just couldn't look.  At the whistle, I think between us there were a few tears, and when we saw Big Brad Thorn shed a tear as well, we felt humble and proud.  Wow, the French sure brought their A game.
 
So today all around town there are sore heads and such a level of excitement.  World Champions.  The stadium of 4 million was a reality - the support around the whole country was huge. 

At the moment on TV is a News Special, covering the victory parade up Queen Street.  A fleet of utes (how Kiwi!) is winding its way very slowing up the street, with brass bands playing and doing the haka, bag pipes, and now a another brass band dressed up as kiwi fruit (!).  A huge blow up rugby ball, ticker tape blowing in the breeze, millions of balloons and flags, and amongst it all people parading dressed as clowns and kiwis and crazy costumes.  The crowd in places is 100 metres deep along the route.  And now Captain Ritchie, standing high on a truck, holding up the golden cup.  Anytime anyone is asked how it feels, the word on everyone's lips is Awesome!

I think we can live off this quite well for the next 4 years. 

A bit of patriotism

I'm totally indifferent to sport, don't know and don't care about the rules of rugby, but I do want the Kiwis to beat the Aussies.  

If I was an Aussie I'd post a clip of that great song, Waltzing Matilda.  We haven't got an equivalent in New Zealand -nothing so popular or so lovely.  But here's a New Zealand folk song, Down the Hall on Saturday Night.  The swagman is dead but the dance at the local hall probably still exists in some form.

 

I got a new brown sports-coat,
I got a new pair of grey strides,
I got a real Kiwi haircut,
A bit off the top, an' short back and sides.

Soon as I've tied up me guri,
Soon as I've swept out the yard,
Soon as I've hosed down me gumboots,
I'll be living it high and hitting it hard.
 
I'm gonna climb onto me tractor,
Gonna belt 'er out of the gate,
'Cause there's a hop on down at the hall, and
She starts sharp somewhere 'bout 1/2 past 8.

Look at the sheilas cutting the supper
Look at the kids sliding over the floor
An' look at the great big bunch of jokers
Hanging 'round the door.
 
. . . .

Yeah, it's great being out with the jokers
When the jokers are sparking and bright,
And it's great giving cheek to the sheilas
Down the hall on Saturday night

God, listen to that and I'm in the memorial hall - a white weatherboard building with a pitched red corrugated iron roof, I'm one of the kids sliding on the french chalked floor, my Dad, who was a good dancer, is waltzing and fox-trotting.  The entry was Ladies a plate (pavlova, sandwiches, sausage rolls, asparagus rolls), men 2/6.  The boys who had left school would be round the back drinking beer and snogging some of the girls in the car park.

The video is shot in Taranaki with Mount Egmont, looking like Mount Fuji in the background - you expect in the foreground there should be an exquisite Japanese ancient culture, not the cheerful rough-and-readiness of pioneers.

Earthquake in Christchurch

There is nothing much I can say about this earthquake in my homeland except be thankful that no-one was killed.   Australians joke about the shaky island, and when I lived in Wellington at the bottom of the North Island we used to discuss how bad an earthquake would be when it finally happened.  The city is built on steep hills and so half the houses would fall down in landslides and there are only a couple of exit roads to the north and they would be easily blocked.

Christchurch is flat, but it still looks terribly damaged.  It’s a pleasant, agreeable city, with views of the Southern Alps, beaches with good swimming and some handsome colonial architecture.  In the 1930s and 40s it gave Karl Popper shelter.  In the 1954 two schoolgirls murdered the mother of one of them which made world news and was astonishingly anomalous in a peaceful and sedate city .  Peter Jackson’s based his excellent film Heavenly Creatures on that event.

A country that has a good infrastructure, a government that is not corrupt and a people who pride themselves on their practical skills and self-reliance can recover from this kind of thing better than most, I suppose, and hope. 

Update

A New Zealand builder friend sent me this:-

The building code requirements for earthquake are stronger in North Island zones, but NZ building style generally good for earthquakes. Most of what fell over looks like British type of construction, unreinforced masonry.

Further update:-

According to this scientist, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about when it comes to earthquakes:-

GNS senior scientist Dr Hamish Campbell told NZPA an earthquake disaster was inevitable in Christchurch.

"My colleagues and I have been saying for a long time that Christchurch, by virtue of the nature of the ground and its proximity to the Alpine fault, is inevitably going to be brought to its knees at some stage," Dr Campbell said.

He believed there would be a lot more awareness now, and lessons would be learnt.

"One brick house may have suffered no damage at all, and yet the one next to it suffered a lot of damage and I suspect that's all to do with the nature of the top metre of ground beneath the house.

"The extent to which seismic energy gets amplified is all about how strong the material is immediately beneath the house.

"For instance, a house might be built on an old river channel and the one next to it isn't. So that can make the difference," he said.

Christchurch was built on a plain comprising gravels, silts and peats, so it was "very unconsolidated". It was also low-lying but had a high water table.

"If you compare that with Wellington, everybody there is living on solid rock. It's a very different situation," Dr Campbell said.

The focus for rebuilding should be on the nature of the ground and the foundations, rather than the building materials, he said.