In a Land of Clouds and Giants
- sloaneliz
- Feb 13
- 7 min read
According to Maori legend, Lake Wakatipu was formed by the body of a fallen giant. Nestled in the Kawarau Mountains—what Anglos call The Remarkables—this thunderbolt-shaped finger lake is stunningly beautiful. It also mysteriously rises and falls five feet every 30 minutes. According to the legend, the giant made it a habit to kidnap maidens from a nearby village. One time, his target was the daughter of the chief, who immediately offered riches—and the hand of said daughter—to any warrior who could rescue her. One foolish young man after another charged in willy nilly and was summarily killed. One somewhat smarter warrior hung back and watched, waited til the giant slept, then crept forward to set the giant on fire and free the maiden. The giant burned up, leaving a deep depression that became the lake.
So the plan succeeded, the giant died, and the warrior got the girl. As for the mysterious change in water level? Scientists call this seiche, and say it comes from shifting atmospheric pressures. But the Maoris know the real reason. The giant’s beating heart was left behind, causing the water level to rise and fall, rhythmically, endlessly, to this day.
The Maori came to New Zealand in the 1200s—relative newcomers among the indigenous peoples of the world. They arrived by wooden canoe from Polynesia, and named this place Aotearoa, “land of the long white cloud.” We arrive by plane from Brisbane, traversing those clouds, flying over the sky-piercing Southern Alps, and dropping into Queenstown, on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. It is very beautiful, and very cold. We will need to find some fleece layers to make this part of the journey work.
Before the arrival of the Maori, Aotearoa was uninhabited. Breaking apart from Australia about 80 million years ago, it was left alone for thousands of years to develop an ecosystem without humans. Its plethora of birds were mostly flightless, because they had no predators. There were no snakes. The only mammal, for millennia, was a small bat.
The Maori believe in mauri--a life force that flows through all living and inanimate things. The ocean, the mountains, the forests, the storms—all these things have personhood, on par with human beings. Everywhere we go in this stark, dramatic land, we feel mauri. People live close to the land, and like the Aussies, there is a “go for it” mentality about trying things and enjoying life.
We land in Queenstown the last week of ski season. People walk the streets with snowboards and jam the bars at night. There’s an international resort feel; we meet more people from the UK, Scandinavia and Australia than native Kiwis. With a population of 5 million, give or take, New Zealand is eager to attract immigrants. There is a generous work-travel program aimed at young people all over the world. Its alumni get to jump the line in a rather lengthy immigration process, and we meet many of them working in the hospitality business. I ask our guide one day, the effervescent Callie from Scotland, how it feels to be on the other side of the world from her family. “I miss my mum for sure,” she says “But look around you. How can I not live here?” Mum, it turns out, is halfway talked into emigrating herself. It will be harder for her, of course, as she is at an age where she has less to contribute to this economy.
Ask any resident what the leading industry of Queenstown is, and they will answer not “tourism,” but “adventuring.” Every other storefront is a high-country outfitter, ready to sell you an adventure and the gear you need to do it. You can sample heli-skiing, sky diving, bungy jumping (invented just up the gorge from here), mountain climbing, multi-day hikes on one of New Zealand’s great “Tracks”, or jetboating (high-speed motorboats that do 360-degree spins on the water). A new craze is zorping: climbing inside a big clear inflatable ball and rolling down the mountainside. This activity, which sounds to me like a sure-fire invitation to barfing, is wildly popular.
Cal and I opt out of the crazier stuff, sticking to touring, hiking, winetasting. We do take a helicopter ride to a snow field on top of the Remarkables, which is glorious. We also book a “shark attack” on Lake Wakatipu. This is a half-submersible, half-jet ski kind of affair, which goes under water, flips side to side, and pops wheelies out of the lake. The kind of thing that young males seem to like. Why did I do this? Because the vehicle looked so funny. Because Cal was interested. Because I wanted to be able to tell Cooper that I did it. It was kind of interesting, and kind of nauseating. Not something I need to do again.
What was on the top of my list was Milford Sound. The Sound, which is actually a fiord, is 44 miles west of Queenstown as the crow flies. But it’s a 14-hour day, given the route you have to travel to get there. We set out at 6 am, driving south for hours through rolling green farmlands of the Southland Region. There are 25 million sheep in this country; I think we see most of them that morning. At Te Anau, a lake and village whose name means “cave of swirling waters,” we travel north for a ways before turning west into Fiordland National Park. As we drive over the Mt. Christina pass, it starts to snow, hard enough to concern our driver a bit. A few miles down the road, the temperature rises and we are in a lush green rain forest.
And then, the Sound. I had worried that this tourist destination might be so overrun with people as to degrade the experience. I worried for nothing. It is staggering. Sheer vertical mountains rising out of the fiord attest to multiple ice ages. On this day of mist and rain, hundreds of waterfalls have sprung up and tumble down the mountains to the sea. Dolphins, penguins, and seals frolic around our boat. Native birds fill the skies—the takahe, the forest-dwelling mohua, and the kea, a cheeky alpine parrot that is likely to hop onto your shoulder looking to share whatever you are eating. It is absolutely freezing, and I find my favorite spot—standing just inside the cockpit door where I can hear the pilot’s commentary and escape the worst of the cold. I drink in every moment, thinking you will never be back here.
Our most human-built experience was Christchurch, nicknamed the most English city outside England. We spend our days doing really English things: riding a 100-year-old trolley car around a town still badly damaged by its earthquake of 13 years ago. Punting on the Avon (yes, there really is an Avon River here in the city’s gorgeous botanical gardens, and you can ride around in little boats called punts). It was here, in an English pub called Bloody Mary’s, that I had the best meal of the trip—a delicious lamb in wine and cherry reduction sauce. As I savored it, my obnoxious vegan husband kept saying: B-a-a-a-h. think about the poor little lamb you killed to enjoy that. We probably saw his mother on the bus ride in here.
Most of my impressions of this country, however, are of the natural world. We hike the Hooker Valley Track at Mt Aoraki, amid swirling mists, craggy peaks, and startling turquoise lakes—an artifact of glacial origins and evidence of pulverized rock and minerals in the water. Some of Lord of the Rings was shot near here. The Maori name for this peak, Aoraki, means cloud piercer. The English call it Mt. Cook, which I think means supremacist colonizer.
We hike a part of the Routeburn Track, criss-crossing the Sugar Loaf River in a glorious forest of beech trees. We visit a high-country sheep station established by Scottish settlers 200 years ago. We hike a part of the Abel Tasman Track, taking off from Kaiteriteri and visiting Bark Bay, Tonga Quarry and Aorora. This gorgeous tropical place, with its deep blue waters and golden crescent beaches, could not be more different from snowy Mt. Christina or ghostly Milford Sound.
Left alone for centuries after landing in their canoes, before any Dutch and Englishman arrived, the first people of New Zealand built a vibrant, mystical world based on their relationship to the land. On balance, they seem to have done better than many indigenous people do after the white people come. Almost all signage in the country is bilingual—Maori first and English second. The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840, made New Zealand a British colony but granted some rights of self-determination to the Maoris. They have their own king. They have some of their own lands, although the settlers seized plenty of that. Differing interpretations of the Treaty have led to inequities over time. Recent attempts to alter it have prompted conflicts. How do the Maoris protest this? They march. Peacefully. Usually from one sacred place to another. It is their way.
Not surprising, I guess, that when these people face threats, what they do is walk. They get outside. They commune with the land. They tap into mauri, the life force that animates everything. They navigate the larger world not as masters, but as cohabitants. It hasn’t always saved them. But it makes me wonder: what would happen if more tribes worked this way?
As the crafty warrior discovered, sometimes it is better to watch, wait, and consider, rather than rushing in to fight. It can result in riches and in love. It can leave behind a place of transcendent beauty, and for all time, the beating heart of a giant.
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