We had a bad day driving up the coast to Paihia - the Bay of Islands. First, I found that I'd left my shower gel in the shower room at the hostel overnight and someone had nicked it. Grrr!
I wanted to be home. I hate sharing a hostel with a bunch of bloody theives. To be fair only a small minority of travellers are theives, but that's all you need. We're all on tight budgets here, so there's no excuse. We've not done too badly I suppose. Since leaving Sydney in May we've had the following items nicked from communal kitchens:
- one Tim Tam
- two lots of milk
- four Toffeepops
- some jam
The single Tim Tam is especially odd, since the thief left three others in the packet. Anne and I both suspect that I accidentally ate the Tim Tam myself and then forgot I'd done it.
Anyway, we drove for six hours, past Auckland and up to the Bay of Islands in holiday traffic, Anne with a bad back from the mattress in the hostel, and we were both in bad moods. Not with each other, just not happy. Grrr.
It didn't help when we arrived and didn't like the hostel we'd booked. We debated whether to go on a boat trip the following day. It's what you should do at the Bay of Islands, but we decided against it. We thought we'd do some history, then spend the day at the beach. However, it rained a lot that day so the beach was out.
Pay attention - History Bit
We did do our history bit though. New Zealand's only real history to speak of is the Treaty of Waitangi, and we went to Waitangi where the treaty was signed in 1840. This treaty was between the British Crown and the Maori tribes. It guaranteed their rights to their property, and gave them protection of the Crown. It's quite an amazing thing really, especially when you compare the Maoris' fate to that of the Australian Aborigines. The Maoris were actually recognised as the occupiers of the land - largely because they were warlike people and fought for it.
The treaty is now a controversial document. The Maori translation is said to be lacking, and it's said the Maoris didn't get what they thought they'd signed up to. In recent times a committee has been set up to deal with Maori grievances arising from the treaty in a practical way.
The Maori culture has a pretty big presence here in New Zealand (also called Aotearoa). Maori is an official language (hence the alternative name) and many signs are in Maori. The current (Labour) government are quite open minded, though this leads to many (white) citizens getting annoyed about Maoris (who, like Aussie Aborigines, are still an underclass) and writing in to newspapers. They also write a lot of angry things about Asian immigrants.
However, unlike in Australia, this Xenophobia is not encouraged and fueled by the bigoted government, so it's a bit nicer here.
(NB: Whilst the Kiwis get annoyed by all the Asians here, especially all the Chinese students around Auckland, they get a bit horrified when they hear that Chinese student numbers will be down in 2004 - meaning less money coming into the country!)
UK TV
Joy - we had another opportunity to see a bit of UK TV that night. This is good since all NZ TV is rubbish (at 4 million they don't have the population to warrant providing a decent TV service, it seems). Unfortunately the UK TV was World Idol. We dutifully sat through it and criticised the UK entrant Will Young's song. He sang a cover of The Doors song "Light My Fire". Brilliantly, whenever he sang the title line, fires lit up next to him. Very literal.
I bet he was thankful he wasn't singing a cover of Ian Dury's "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick".
Movies!
The only films we've seen in the North Island have been the first two Lord of the Rings movies. However, we did get to see two on TV during the crap weather in Paihia. First was The Gift. This was an interesting supernatural thriller with Cate Blanchett as a fortune teller. I figured out who the killer was, because I am brilliant, and have seen too many movies. Three and a half stars.
Next up was an Aussie film starring Billy Connelly, The Man Who Sues God. The Scot stars as a fisherman who sues God when the insurance won't pay out after an event they deem an act of said deity. It has its moments but I found it a bit sloppy and disappointing. Two stars.
Books!
Anne recommended I read a book she'd just finished, Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It's a very self-aware autobiographical work that is often very funny. The bizarre style, where characters criticise the author's treatment of them in his writing, for the most part works. However, I found the second half a bit tiring.
Next up, I read Robert Kaplan's The Nothing That Is. This is a history of the number zero. I thought it'd be very interesting, but I was disappointing. A few of the more mathematical chapters were very good, but when he goes into history I found myself bored by the author's writing.
More better was Pompeii by Robert Harris - a bit of a departure for him, not involving WWII history. It was a good read, a slightly low-brow airport book really but pretty good fun. What made it more interesting for me is that Anne and I were there in 2002.