Nicholas
Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to
literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree
or disagree with him.
ENTERING ANOTHER COUNTRY
Recently on this blog, I wrote two think pieces, one called The Auckland I Used to Know, in which I recalled how the city of Auckland had changed in my lifetime ; and the other called My Favourite Places in New Zealand, in the latter of which I came to think that I was beginning to sound like an over-eager tourist agent – after all, there are also unpleasant places in New Zealand as there are in every country. Regular readers of this blog might have noticed that I usually post every fortnight - but what you are now reading came later than usual. The reason was that my wife and I flew down to Nelson and spent three weeks driving around the South Island in a rented car – spending three or four nights in each of Nelson, Kumara, Haast, Alexandra, Dunedin [or rather a rural environ thereof] and finally Christchurch, whence we flew back to Auckland. The weather was fine for nearly all the time we were in the South Island with the one exception being Haast [sorry Haast] where it rained for all three days we were there. This was the back-end of the cyclone that had battered Auckland. Also the rain was setting in when we flew out from Christchurch
Don’t misunderstand me on these things. We were not exactly aliens to the South Island. When we were much younger, and with our older children when they were just tots, we did a long journey through much of the South Island. We have stayed at various times with friends who live in the South Island. 31 years ago, my wife and I went tramping along the Kepler Track with my good friend the late Bill Sewell and his wife. 25-plus years ago I went tramping with my then 16-year-old son along the Heaphy Track and the next year we did the Richmond Crossing (where we got caught in the snow storm). At different times I have gone to Dunedin and Christchurch to look into archives when I have been doing research for my non-fiction books, as well as staying the best part of a year lecturing at the University of Otago and taking a good look at Invercargill and Bluff. So I’m not exactly ignorant of the South Island.
But in recent years, we’ve spent more time visiting Europe and Australia than going down south – so we decided it was high time to take another good look at the other island. We drove taking turns at the wheel. At which point I could give you a bland travelogue of all we saw – going to the Abel Tasman Park where we climbed up and down a steep hill [or mountain] and sloshed across a very wide sandbank; loving the market and the serene Brook Waimaramara Sanctuary in Nelson wherein a piwakawaka diligently chased us ; dropping in on Murchison for historical purposes; the “Pancake Stones” on the West Coast, outdoing anywhere where there are waves crashing against rocks ; taking the tree-top walks just south of Kumara; the magnificence of the Alps as they appeared; the sorrow at seeing how the Frantz Joseph Glacier and the Fox Glacier had retreated so far up into the mountains [there was much more glacier when we last saw them] ; the vastness of Central Otago as we crossed it and the many old houses and churches we examined, not to mention the wineries where we bought a few bottles of the best; dropping in on Arrowtown, interesting in many ways but choked with tourists [like us]; having a very good look at the old gold-and-coal mining settlement of St. Bathans… and on to Alexandra and Dunedin and the long drive back up to Christchurch. All of which means I’ve just given you a travelogue after all.
Alas I have ignored the main things I wanted to say. So let’s get down to brass tacks. The South Island offers much variety and it isn’t exactly a mono-culture. Nelson is very different from Dunedin, Dunedin is different from Christchurch etc. etc. But as a North Islander, I still think I am entering another country whenever I plant my foot on the South Island. The people down there [excluding passing people like me] tend to have very different attitudes from North Islanders. Though it’s beginning to change, there are proportionately far fewer varied ethnicities (Chinese, Filipinos, Pasifika) in South Island cities than there are in the North. The same is true of Maori. Making a big generalisation, people tend to cling to part of their English or Irish or Scottish ancestors’ mores. You still sometimes get South Island old-timers referring proudly to their island as The Mainland, perhaps somewhat defensively. Sure, the South Island is geographically larger than the North Island, but what with climate and the fact that the Southern Alps take up much of the South Island, only one third of New Zealanders live in the South Island. The other two thirds live on the North Island (and one third of New Zealand’s whole population lives in Auckland and its environs). There is the memory of how, in the 19th century, Dunedin with its Scottish influence was the largest city in New Zealand and the first real university was established there. Despite its recent earthquakes, much of Christchurch still admires its 19th century Anglican footprint – even if few now go to church. And of course Nelson is ready to point out that geographically it is the centre of New Zealand – twice in my life I have climbed up the hill which tells us so.
On our recent trip, we met some unexpected things. Item: when I have the chance, I like looking in on second-hand bookshops. All four that we visited on this trip were owned and run by North Americans – one Canadian in Alexandra, two Americans in Dunedin, and an American in Christchurch, all of them chatty and well informed. [Picky as we are, we go only into second-hand bookshops that are selling classic books while my wife looks for sheet music.] Of course this was happenstance – I am well aware that Dunedin, Nelson and Christchurch all have a thriving culture of book-selling by Kiwis. This is only a minor matter however. The main thing that seems to make the South Island different to me is its own form of conservatism.
I am used to a city (Auckland) where buildings are demolished and replaced regularly, especially in the central business area. Around Queen Street there are now only a handful of buildings that are older than 50 years or more, apart from the road going up to Karangahape . Central Auckland is now dominated by high-rise buildings, some aspiring to be skyscrapers, some not bad, some godawful. Christchurch has valiantly tried to modernise over the years, but its tragic earthquakes have led to many buildings either collapsing or having to be pulled down. As we walked around Christchurch, admiring its great park, being grateful that the Court Theatre is still there, going to the very good art gallery and the very informative exhibition called Earthquake City, we were painfully aware of all the old buildings that were either about to be demolished or have yet to be strengthened, not to mention all the car-parks there are that were once the sites of buildings. Hard to make comment on this. Yet the cult of the Anglican cathedral is still there, now looking forlorn in its half-broken state and even more forlorn because the funds have run out that could have repaired it. (The even more majestic Catholic cathedral, often called the Basilica, has been completely demolished.)
And Dunedin? Ah, that is where we are in another world altogether. First, let me make it clear that I like the place very much. Second, in both city and nearer suburbs, it is very, very old fashioned. The greater part of houses and buildings were built in the 19th or early 20th centuries, so that we are going back in time. It is almost quaint. In my almost-year that I lived there, I enjoyed spending Sundays hanging about in the cafés near the Octagon, looking at the statue of Robby Burns and later looking at the plaques in the pavement that surrounded him, honouring New Zealand Otago novelists and poets [some worth remembering, some not]. Or going to a one-man show version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray at the very small Globe Theatre. Or haunting the art gallery, the library or the second-hand bookshops. Oh well, we couldn’t do all those things in the journey that we had this year, but nostalgia really hit me. And there was one major thing that really made me think how different Dunedin is from the North Island and especially Auckland. I made for the building in the University of Otago – the Burns Building - where I had worked years ago, and looked at the board telling me who was now on the staff – professors, lecturers etc. I was amazed to find that many whom I knew years ago were still working there. History, Literature, Foreign Languages, Philosophy, Theology were still major courses and still with their own departments. This is very different from the University of Auckland which, though it is much larger and scores highly with Law, Medicine, Engineering and Commerce, its Humanities departments have virtually collapsed – many European languages are no longer taught there and what was once a very large department of English Literature alone, there is now apparently only one academic teaching such a course… although there are many teaching writing. SO being one who is deeply into the Humanities, I was delighted , in the University of Otago, to go in and knock on a number of doors and enjoy conversations with professors whom I had known when I was last there. More nostalgia hit me, and for me one of the high points of our journey.
So Dunedin and the whole of the South Island are another country to me, much as I like it. But I remain a dedicated Aucklander.
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