Jenny’s Reviews > Kiwi Tracks > Status Update

"'The pakeha say there are no full-blooded Maoris [with respect to land rights]. Then why don't they admit that most prisoners [said to be 90% Maori] are half English, a lot are half Scottish or Irish or Dalmatian, instead of saying the jails are so full of bloody Maoris?'"

"As we pull into the sulphurous area of town, the distinct rotten-egg odour of the thermal springs infiltrates the bus. The driver tells us, undoubtedly repeating a standard gag: 'Rotorua is the only place in New Zealand where they thank you for farting.' I am beginning to regret the decision to do the tourist thing."

"I was disappointed ... Tongariro was swarming with close to a thousand trampers. It's hard to get a sense of the tapu and mana of the volcano when there are so many people around ... It is sad to see the park desecrated by chairlifts, dynamited slopes and sculpted ski lifts. There's no sense of sacredness, or power.'"

"'The iwi [local tribe] are fed up with DOC, outfitters, lodges and air-charter companies sucking as much money as they can from the Tongariro National Park. It was deeded over as a gift, not to make money out of it. Everyone charges for everything, but the local iwi get nothing ... The elders mostly want to close the springs and make it tapu, sacred, like it was in the old days."

"'And so, on 23 September 1887, Te Heuheu formally offered the mountains to the crown as a national park, the first of its kind in New Zealand [and the fourth in the world].'"

"'Why not make them [the mountains] a tapu place of the Crown? A sacred place under the mana of the Queen. The only possible way to preserve them forever is to give them to the government as a reserve and park, to be the property of all the people of New Zealand, in memory of Te Heuheu and his Tribe.'"

"All official Government signs and documents are in both English and Maori, but in the South Island it seemed a made-up language; I never heard anyone use it."

"Tongariro National Park is comprised of three volcanoes, including Mount Ruapehu, the highest mountain in the North Island. All three volcanoes have erupted recently ... Here hundreds of trampers set off, most of them walking the Tongariro Crossing, enticed by DOC marketing. While the Milford Track is advertised as the finest walk in the world, [this] is billed as the finest one-day walk in New Zealand."

"'Adventure tourism is the wrong kind of tourism for New Zealand. It's a fad. You can bungee jump anywhere in the world. Unspoiled nature is what we have that is unique.'"

Australian brushtail possums: "'Ironically, they're protected in Australia but here [in NZ], without natural enemies and lots of food, they've multiplied so successfully that there's some seventy million of them covering about 90 per cent of New Zealand.' 'That's the same number as the sheep you've got.' 'Exactly. That's why we have to get rid of them. Bloody useless. At least we can eat the sheep.'"