Subtle differences
Nowadays, the safety announcement on airplanes, in order to get you listening, starts with the statement, "Subtly every plane is different ..." The same is true of Anglophone counties, which have so much in common. America still insists that an 'entree' is a main course; the British think that potato chips put in a bread roll is somehow food. Australia and New Zealand are much more alike than they are different, and the differences between them are sometimes very subtle indeed. Cath and I discovered this in March when we were able to spend a week in NZ. This came about because my Press Council decided to go to Wellington to meet with its NZ counterpart. Taking advantage of this, Cath and I went over a few days early and, taking the advice of an NZer mate, went to the west coast of the South Island to check out for ourselves the glaciers to be found there.
Accordingly we landed in Christchurch (on the east coast) on a Saturday afternoon and got into a hired car to drive over the mountains, through Arthur's Pass, to the west coast. On this trip we encountered the first of those subtle differences. The use of one-lane bridges - which accommodate neither passing nor overtaking - is an occasional feature of the Australian outback, but there are few of them and both sides give way. In the roads west of Chch (as the locals seem to abbreviate the capital of the Canterbury region) and on the west coast, one-lane bridges were replete and often quite long. In every case, road signs designated which direction had right of way. The fun ones were those where one or both ends were at the end of a curve or a crest and so not really visible to t'other until quite late in the piece, and the couple south of Greymouth, which combined one-lane road bridges with railway tracks as well, so that there existed the possibility of both cars and trains in either direction all trying to pass over the same piece of narrow bridge. During daylight hours these railway-road bridges seemed to have guards directing traffic - but not in the evening when we first encountered one.
Another difference we noted, from the first, was the paucity of decent roadside amenities, of both petrol stations and of food stores. Many of the small communities featured 'taverns', a combination bar/cafe, but no other retail outlet. We found only one store in the 100 kilometers between Chch and the mountains, and very little thereafter, until the west coast. There were more facilities on the road on the west coast but not nearly as many as you'd expect in Auz. Nor, given the number of grazing sheep and cattle, were there many farmhouses within sight of the road. Maybe all the animals were being agisted or the homes were somewhere behind the hills.
There are known differences in language, particularly in pronunciation, with the Kiwi clipped vowels being the most obvious example. But what surprised me was the occasional usage that I hadn't expected. I never quite got the way that the word 'Maori' is pronounced in Aotearoa, even by Pakeha. The differences in hotels and restaurants were noticeable as well, even though I was surprised at the presence of many spicy flavors, especially Cajun, in the eateries. The fusion of Asian flavors with western ingredients and styles (what's called 'modern Australian' cuisine) hasn't arrived. Generally, however, the hotels and eateries were very familiar, if a few years behind the times. It seemed that no matter how posh the place, or where it was situated, the cost of mains was pretty much in the $25-$35 range. From my limited experience in supermarkets and convenience stores, it appears that NZers get a lesser range of fresh fruit and veg, and at a greater cost, than in Auz. There were whinges in the local press about the rate at which food prices had been rising but, given the general fecundity of the land, and the smaller transport costs involved, it was a bit of a shock to see how little was on offer and at what cost. It suggested that Kiwi restaurants generally have a much smaller mark-up (on both food and wine) than their Auz equivalents.
Walking in the Kiwi outback was also a little strange: most of the bush we walked in was sub-tropical rainforest, just like home, but the absence of bird and insect sounds was quite eerie, after the noise and profusion of the Australian ecology. Many of the native animals, the few birds and reptiles that survived the mammalian invasion brought by humanity, especially the Pakeha, are naturally quiet. But we saw very few of them in any case and did not seem to be bothered by any insects at all, except for the occasional sandfly, which seems to be an ubiquitous pest. As we found out when we got to explore a wildlife sanctuary near Wellington, it is not just the absence of snakes that made NZ bush subtly different.
And there were other differences that I didn't notice until we returned - and they struck me as I left the terminal at the Kingsford Smith Airport. The humidity of Sydney contrasted with the general lack of humidity in the NZ cities, towns and country-sides we'd visited; and the brightness of the Sydney (and Australian generally) sunlight contrasted with the duller shades in NZ. Even at the top of a glacier near the summit of Mount Tasman, the glare was not half as bad as a normal Sydney autumn day.
Climb every glacier
We'd travelled to the west coast largely to suss out the glaciers before they disappeared, only to discover that, despite a general retreat over the last two centuries, the main glaciers coming out of the southern alps have actually advanced a few meters over the last decade. (This contrasts with the latest UN report that says that, worldwide, glaciers are retreating in the face of rising temperatures and lessened snowfalls.) I was struck again by the fact that no New Zealand site was on the list of places visited/to visit that originated in the US and which Claire published a number of issues ago. I'm not even sure if the list, which did include a number of largely US-based National Park sites, contained any glaciers among the shortlist of places on the agenda. My reaction to our visit to the Fox Glacier (with a side trip to see the Franz Josef Glacier) is that it should be on everyone's list. Certainly NZ tourist bodies recognise the unique qualities of their southern alpine glaciers. They are not very distant from major population centres, are very close to other tourist sites, and are well-serviced. And the glaciers are well-worth the visit.
Sadly we didn't have the time to take a full foot-based exploration of the glaciers, but we were able to get very close to the terminal face of Fox and then, in an extravagant gesture to pure tourism, took a helicopter flight up the Franz Josef Glacier and down Fox, with a stop on the névé of the latter. (The névé is the area at the top of the glacier where the ice and snow gathers, before it becomes a part of the ice-flow that is the glacier, per se.)
There are few words that can describe the valley carved out by the glacier over the last few centuries, the steadily running water emerging from the melting base of the glacier, or the combination of ice-wall over rock base that is the glacier itself. Driving up to the Fox Glacier car park, we passed the sign that denoted the 1750 terminal wall - about 5 km down the valley from its current position. 
The walk up the valley over the rock-strewn and river-crossed undulations of the valley floor, with wooded hills rising up on both sides, towards the terminal face is an aweful (a word used deliberately for its archaic, and now largely now unused, connotation) experience. While many tourists came, saw and went, we spent a couple of hours just sitting there and taking in the sights and sounds of the valley floor. It was then that we determined to take the helicopter flight, if one were available the next day.
We stayed in a motel nearer to Lake Matheson than to the Fox Glacier township. This was chosen because the vista from our bedroom was far enough back from the mountains rising east of Fox Glacier township to be able to see the peaks of Mount Tasman and its bigger neighbour, Aoraki (Mount Cook). 
On the day we arrived, and walked up the glacier valley, these mountain giants were unsighted because of clouds hanging around their summits. Similarly the views of them, reflected in Lake Matheson, one of the sights recommended as a 'must' by NZ tourism, would have been similarly marred. In fact, there was little, or no, reflection available because of the 15 knot winds blowing across the lake, marring its mirror-like qualities. None of which augured well for our hit-and-run tourist visit to the area.
It was fortuitous then that the next day dawned clear and still. There, out the bedroom's picture window, immediately to our east rose the mountains, the view of which had been promised. 
The lack of wind meant that a revisit to the lake produced the reflections that were postcard-perfect.
And it also meant that the copters were flying, so we were able to hook up for a flight up and over the scenery. That all made for a truly brilliant morning and early afternoon and compensated to an extent for the fact that, at Franz Josef Glacier, the track to the terminal wall was closed at some great distance - because of a change in the course of the waterway emerging from the glacier. 
That didn't stop a number of foolhardy adventurers from crossing the line of demarkation between safe and not-safe, but it did stop us.
I'm in Greymouth and I must scream
While we stayed one night on Lake Matheson (or pretty close to it), we spent the night before and the night after in the seaport of Greymouth, which has only a little to recommend it, including the river and port area, but I mention it solely for the pun in the subhead. Coming back from the glaciers, we had dinner in Hokitika, where we had just missed a wild foods festival - fortunately by all reports from the town's shopkeepers.
Pancakes and the Truman show
Our other major tourist stop on the west coast was at Punakaiki, about 40 km north of Greymouth. The road along the coast, around some rugged seaside hills and cliff-faces, and past a number of Apostle-like rocks, reminded me in some ways of Pacific Coast Highway 1 from LA to San Francisco; in others of the Pacific Highway from Stanwell Park to Wollongong; and, to an extent, of the Great Ocean Road from Bells Beach to Warrnambool. So we'll call it the Deja Vu Road, even though the locals call it State Highway 6. In Punakaiki the main attraction is the Pancake Rocks, a series of interesting, and heavily eroded, limestone formations, accessible from the main road by a well-maintained track. The rocks form various chasms and openings where the ocean has carved out pools and blowholes and left a number of orphaned off-shore remnants. You can but marvel at the weird look of the multi-layered rock formations that dominate the landscape in the area. The pancake layering of the limestone (created, it is said in the brochures, by immense pressure on alternating hard and soft layers of marine creatures and plant sediments) creates a number of interesting color and sound effects. Geology is something that I would like to have a better grasp of, so that I could understand the forces that have gone into the creation of such outré rockiness. Apart from eating the obligatory plate of pancakes at the nearby roadside cafe, the other stop here was at the Truman Track, a brief bush walk just north of the collection of tourist stops that make up the locality. 
This track takes you through the typical sub-tropical rainforest flora of the region (again fauna seemed strangely absent or silent) down to a beautiful pebbly beach, with sandstone caverns and overhangs. It was a very peaceful end to our brief exploration of the west coast, whither we will return.
The Tribe of Dan
We didn't quite return the way we'd come. Instead of going back through Greymouth and Kumara and into the mountains by the main road, we took a more picturesque inland road past Lake Brunner and thence up into Arthur's Pass and back down, past all the snowfields of the area, to Chch. Once again we found the rain in the mountains and fine weather on either side. Once we had made contact with Dan McCarthy, who had driven up from Dunedin for a couple of days, in part to meet with us, we did some exploration of the city - which is in reality a big country town. The drive out to the ocean at New Brighton was more interesting, particularly the discovery of the pier at New Brighton. Unlike the UK's Brighton Pier, this is pretty much an unadorned structure. 
They have built a library on the sea shore, and a 300 meter concrete pier straight out into the ocean. There were a few brave fisherpeople using the end of the pier on an autumn weekday evening (although fishing is banned on weekends during daylight) but, with the library closed, there were only a small number of pedestrians using the pier. Perhaps it needs the gaming machines that populate the UK equivalent, or the sort of food culture that you find on Manly wharf in Sydney, to give it a raison d'etre. We returned to the city to meet Dan in the Cathedral Square, a very successful public space in the midst of the Chch, and adjourned to an enjoyable dinner in a nearby seafood eatery. (Well it was seafood for me; Dan ate the (aquatic) venison on the menu.) It was good to meet Dan and have a relaxed conversation over a convivial beer or two.
Press Councils
The ostensible reason for the trip to NZ was the inaugural joint meeting of the Australian and NZ Press Councils in Wellington, the capital city that is situated on the North Island. Wellington, which we flew to from Chch, is my kind of city. Although renowned for its persistent blustery weather (it shared with Chicago the application of the epithet "Windy"), we found it most accommodating. Built around a commodious harbor, Wellington is constructed basically on hillsides. So a series of terraces rise to the west, immediately behind the few streets that ring the quay area. There is a cable car that plies the hill, stopping at four separate levels on the way up to Kelton, at the top, where the botanical gardens and an observatory are situated. In that area are a number of lovely wooden houses, mostly two storeys, which reminded me of the housing in another harbor city, San Francisco. Cath and I also did a drive around the large bay that borders the harbor, out to Breaker Bay, where the waterway joins Cook Strait, and the inter-island ferries ply their trade. On the quayside, the Wellingtonians have reused the old waterfront warehouses as theatres and restaurants, creating an interesting ambience and a good place for a stroll, all the way around to Te Papa, the catch-all national museum, that combines natural history, science, cultural and historical museums, with something of an art gallery, over its six fascinating floors. I could have done without quite so many stuffed animals, but its treasure of Maori memorabilia, its rooms devoted to the various Pacific Islander cultures and its collection of colonial and post-colonial objects made it a good museum experience.
Outside the press council meetings, and an observation that the arts editor for the Dominion Post, the local daily, was named "Tom Cardy", the other bit of tourism that Cath and I committed in Wellington was a visit to the Karori Sanctuary. Prior to the arrival of the Maori about 800 years ago, there were virtually no mammals in NZ. A couple of bat species were the only exceptions. The native fauna consisted of birds, many of the flightless, some reptiles (frogs and the lizard-like tuatara) and some impressive insects, especially several species of weta. The arrival of mammals, especially those that came with the Pakeha (including one particularly nasty marsupial), spelled the end for many of the native species. Now a large number of those that somehow survive do so on islands separated from the mainland and from the mammalian invaders. The aim of the Karori Sanctuary is to create a mammal-free zone on the mainland. In the hilly scrub a few kilometers west of the city, they have fenced off a large area to be a sanctuary for native animals, free of imported predators. It has taken some time to design and perfect the fencing system to keep out rats, possums and other creatures capable of scaling an ordinary fence. They now have an area where birds can nest. They have reintroduced tuatara, kiwis and weta, among other natives to the mainland. The tour we took started about 30 minutes before sunset and took us through several sections of the Sanctuary. The tuatara didn't come out to play that night but we saw weta at work, although not a giant weta, and plenty of birds, especially a number of brown teal, tui and kaka (a native parrot). Not to mention a profusion of glow worms. We were told that only about one in five NZers have seen a kiwi in the wild. One of the reasons for doing the night tour was so that we could see the native symbolic animal in its natural habitat. The species we saw was the little spotted kiwi, waddling away from us in the bush. The chance to see the start of such a project, manned by enthusiastic and knowledgeable animal lovers, and to experience the splendor of the bush at night, and to hear the calls of creatures like the morepork (a native owl), was a great experience and one I'd recommend.
By the way, the press council meetings went well, including a full-house public meeting in Wellington on the question of the media and the public's right to know and how it is handled in Australia and New Zealand. As they note nowadays on airplanes, even when it comes to the application of free speech principles, subtly every country is different.
First written: April 2008
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