Maybe Nature Has Accepted Us as Part of Itself...

Gail Varga
Mar 17, 2018
4 min read

Having spent quite a lot of time in New Zealand over a few years now, I can only say that it gets more interesting to me the more I see of it and the more I understand about it. Although I may spend somewhat less time in my bikini in these higher latitudes, the tropics has got nothing on NZ for outstanding beauty. Without having anything but a casual connection to the country, I still manage to feel a nostalgia for the old pioneering spirit which ´made´ the country (in the Maori and European sense) and the pre-existing vibrant natural world, both of which still have a strong, palpable presence. By this I mean that NZ has not entirely lost its happy, outdoorsy citizenry to the pursuit of money, and nor has it been swallowed wholesale by environmental destruction (in similar pursuit), but that both of these have noticeably changed for the worse during the time that I have been visiting. It brings waves of painful feelings over me, feelings born in British Tory capitalist dreams-come-true, to see green land given over to development and house prices rocket (leaving many clever and tenacious people with wholesome values behind, unless they happen to be clever and tenacious with the gathering and growing of money more than the growing and gathering of the fruits of the green land).

It must be hard for nature to accept us humans as part of itself when we go around violating so much of the basic goodness of the world, but, call me an old romantic, I sense the relief and hush of armistice on NZ´s Department of Conservation (DOC) paths that wend through the native bush, balance along ridges,

seek waterfalls upstream

or dip and dive the rugged coastal meanderings.

Whilst these are very much ´made´ paths with nothing surreptitious about their presence, they are sensitively well-made and non-disruptive, allowing me to enter and behold what ´is´ more than to penetrate nature with the poisonous baggage of human ways. I again enjoyed a lot of superb hiking this season, big hikes and small ones. Even when we were at the marina in Whangarei for an extended time, I was able to walk out from the boat and daily climb the 250m Parihaka hill, span the dawn, breathe in the new day across the hills, down-river and out to sea and still be back for breakfast. The ever-poetic Bernard Moitessier´s words come to mind: ´Maybe nature has accepted us as part of itself, like a bird or a fish´. Sorry humans, I love you, but the magical connection I feel in nature really is the top kind of unfettered beauty I know, and only when we become natural as well do I see our full beauty too (I did get outdoors with some of the loveliest people...).

Around its tramping trails, DOC are not lily-livered about deciding who New Zealand landscapes belong to: pest control is evident everywhere and obviously working.

Possums and stoats may be cute and furry and rather too much like ourselves for comfort, but have, and continue to decimate native wildlife populations which simply never evolved to deal with mammals of any kind whatsoever. As well as killing off the introduced ´baddies´, many moves are afoot to re-introduce native wildlife into areas where it has been pushed out. One such program in the Bay of Islands is called ´Island Song´ and brings native bird-stock in from surviving colonies elsewhere to these conservation islands. Click here for a whole blog about just this later, which I have posted because its success is so inspiringly, bird-sing-songily worthwhile...

One of my short morning walks surprised me with the discovery of a fledgling Morepork (small NZ owl) in need of my help! Attended at a short distance by a parent bird who was softly calling encouragement, this ball of fuzzy youth had got into an uncompromising position under a tree fern on a failed first flying lesson. I called the local bird sanctuary (where I had formerly met Sparky the kiwi bird) to ask advice and was guided into placing my fluffy friend on a steady bough for another shot at flying. This was not without compromise to the integrity of my hands: even such a young owl has vigorous use of its talons and beak!

I left the two of them, still softly chatting, to hopefully work out the flying thing a bit better.

And, happily, I also got up to the sanctuary to see beautiful Sparky again as well!

If it hasn´t been impressed upon me enough already, another couple of fine weather visits to the Poor Knights Islands marine and terrestrial conservation reserve clearly demonstrated that human activities are unquestionably destroying our environment and all the life it holds. Having been a reserve since the 80´s, the Poor Knights are pretty well established and thriving with life. Hundreds of thousands of Bullers shearwaters roost there and the waters are thick with fish.

My second visit luckily coincided with a grand visitation of hoards of rays, some of whom were very curious about me.

So, in a privileged and picky way, I was able to roam in some of the most gorgeous and often remote parts of North Island NZ, both watery and earthy. Gorgeous anchorages

led to heavenly beaches

and terrific paddling around exciting coastline,

often run through with magical tunnels

and caves,

and the terrestrial flora and fauna was a constant delight upon my senses.

Of course I am aware that NZ has cities and problems and dissatisfactions and conflicts and so on as well. I haven´t focussed on those things here and, given the downturn in optimism in the west these days, I´d like to leave you with a possibly optimistic view of the political landscape of NZ: Deliciously framed in the context of Trump-era world politics, around the time of my departure New Zealand voted in a Left/Green coalition headed up by a thirty-eight year old woman living in a civil partnership who promptly announced that she was pregnant, stating that her partner would be the main care-giving parent. Whoah!!! As she succinctly pointed out, women have been having babies and getting on with life at the same time for quite a while already. One could call all this ´progressive´, or alternatively, ´simply stating the obvious´.

Thanks to Dean for the picture of me on the beach and the one of me with Sparky, not to mention standing by for our moreporkian friend. Click below for larger versions of the above photos and several bonus extras: