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Showing posts from December, 2013

Were the Maoris native Indians?

As in from the erstwhile Indus Valley?  Not the kind found in recent North America.  I say this after many an encounter  with road signs announcing the arrival of villages like Hari Hari, or Rama Rama. Then there are the language and sound similarities like warewa...or haka which is a war boat with similar sound to onwards ho used by bullock or horse cart drivers in Indian villages. Another tongue twister was a west coast village on the South Island called Punakaiki.  Like the aunt from Poona - modern day Pune.  There are probably some old aunts in there but the attraction was the amazing limestone rock formations., some look like stack of pancakes and some are large bridge like structures formed by wind and water erosion of the rock surface hugging the Tasman Sea.

1 frame per kilometer

3,000 of them.  Approx distance covered and pics we took of places we went.  The NZ trip was the most photographed trip in terms of how much there was to capture through the lens much to he dismay of my family.  They thought I'd lost it (again) as they often could not locate me on long walks.  I might have been enraptured by some bird or a funny sign along the road we travelled. Losing oneself physically and mentally can come easily whilst meandering throughout NZ.  Beginning the journey in the city of sails - Auckland - them traveling all the way south beyond the 45th parallel to experience the roaring forties...latitudes with high wind..then back up through glacier country and the western spine of the southern alps we arrived back to Ack for the final flights home. I ran into quite a few new migrants that have made this country their home - some from Pune, India, some from other parts of India as well..students, learning to cook to manage resorts to others that are here to te

Eyes half shut - New Zealand diaries

This is the path our travels took us on.  Auckland to  Rotorua to Taupo (largest lake in NZ) to Wellington to Picton to Christchurch to Queenstown to Franz Josef (the alpine glacier) to Nelson close to Marlborough country - no relation to the smokes -  to Picton again for the ferry crossing into the north island and Wellington.  Then onward through some scenic villages to Auckland for the flight home. So 10 towns in 20 days and you can imagine sleep is a rare commodity.  Also one can always sleep later when there is humdrum of regular life to deal with. So with that sort of half awake and excitable state helped with local cappuccinos we flavored and sampled the isles of NZ.  Reminded me of the Ajit line - to paraphrase - scenery usee sone nahin degi aur thakann usee Jagne nahin degi (the nature scenes overload will not let him sleep while the same sensory exhaustion will not keep him awake). Tremendous tectonic and volcanic activity over eons has left the landscape amazingly dive

Grinding plates and learning kiwi

Since Abel Tasman ventured out three centuries or so ago and found the islands where the Maoris lived New Zealand  has been forming and norming.  Sitting on the Pacific plate it's been grinding its way under the Australian plate causing all sorts of tectonic upheaval recently witnessed as the Feb 2011 quake in Christchurch.   Decimated city center which now after 3 years is like a Hollywood set of a WW II city hit by the Luftwaffe.  We walked to get a bite from one of the restaurants that operates out of a shipping container - there is a whole mall built out of these.  Surreal yet somehow in a odd way a testament to human resilience. On our journey into the islands which officially began in Auckland on the northern of two main islands, took us through some mild but delicately perfumed Rotorua - home to the famous geo-thermal valley of Wakarewarewa.  I bet some Sufi passed through at some point exclaiming praise for what he must have seen...or smelt..sulfur in the air....wa re wa.

Travelogue - New Zealand - journey to middle earth

One Dutch sailor whilst on a voyage of discovery few centuries ago stumbled on these islands in the South Pacific and as it reminded him of his native Zealand the name New Zealand came to be.  Or so says some tale.  To us it was a respite from the go go work year and a chance to unwind. So this winter holiday we decided to spend three summer weeks in NZ.  Our flight took us from San Francisco to Auckland which is the largest city in this country of around 4 million people. Some immediate differences that become apparent - it has very few people per square mile..compared to even some parts in the US, especially Silicon Valley which seems outright congested in comparison. Second - the place is green to the point that I am proposing a theory that states - NZ supplies oxygen to the rest of the planet.  It has a cornucopia of evergreen and tropical plantation all at the same time along with acres of rolling green hills and fields with berries and corn.  Frankly it felt like we were dr