New Zealand Warmly Welcomes World to Travel
‘What would be the most desirable thing for tourists to want to come to New Zealand for?’ a fairly attractive Channel 3 anchorwoman then asked.
Expecting some ad hoc contrivance to come out of my mouth, I instead began to sincerely comment on all the hospitality I had encountered upon arrival: from the lovely Air New Zealand stewardesses who took care of me in cushy Business Class fashion to the limousine driver at the Nelson airport who had the uncanny knack of picking me out of the crowd pouring from the terminal without having to use a sign with my name on it. My hosts for the WOW show on the South Island were no exception either. They gave us a tour of the facility, the staff and the artfully thriving community of Nelson in such a relaxed, generous and unassuming kind of way. It is no wonder that the town and WOW itself are now receiving international acclaim, considering that the same kind of clockwork yet creative choreography I found in airports, hotels and other places as well was also evident there during my stay. Go to: www.worldofwearableart.com and check out this most desirable bit of fashionable entertainment for yourself. Also check out: www.creativetourism.co.nz for even more incentive to go there.
After departing Nelson and driving to Karamea for an overnight coastal hike, I started to get a bit suspicious, wondering if all the so called warmth and consideration I waxed enthusiastic about for the media would be found elsewhere in New Zealand. It started looking like some well thought out, store front fabrication designed to impress me. After all, they wanted me to write a good travel story when I got back to the U.S. It felt kind of like the movie ‘The Truman Show’, where I was caught up in a totally fabricated world and Tourism New Zealand was in the control room watching my every move.
Fortunately, most of my paranoid suspicions were abated when I met Sean Jameson, a most down to earth and bitingly honest chap. After checking me out (he knew that I would be his keep before I even got out of the car he told me) he invited me aboard his beat up but mechanically intact 1957 Land Rover. We ambled our way, roughly speaking, to the start of the trail on the lushly rugged, West Coast on the Tasman Sea. I really couldn’t have asked for a better trek guide, considering that he didn’t have the usual over adrenalized, Outward Bound mentality that most wilderness guides do. As a result, the land started to reveal some of its prehistoric as well as tropically poetic secrets to me. I got to experience something quite rare, as if I had been there all by myself. Sean’s trek ego never once got in my way (he conducts tours to Tibet I later learned). The next day, my guide could have gone back home when we returned to town. However, he insisted on taking me out into a genuine old growth rainforest where ferns as tall as trees lorded it over the wondrously twisted trails. I’m glad that I didn’t decline his kind offer as it turned out to be one of the most pristine places I have ever toured, fortunately all under the protection of National Park jurisdiction now. If you are inspired to go to such a wondrous environ yourself, then check out: www.karameainfo.co.nz
Much to my surprise, I encountered some out of the box, governmental honesty amidst the tacky tourist Mecca of Rotorua on the North Island a day later. At the Rotorua Museum I got to partake of an exhibit called Samoa and Black Saturday, a compelling installation done by the artist Fatu Feu’u and which had an actual apology from Prime Minister Helen Clark to the Samoan people. In 1918 some colonial ineptitude led to an influenza outbreak and eventual murder of Samoan leaders. Some rather inhuman sounding quotes from New Zealanders, who openly considered the Samoans to be mere animals at the time, were also displayed. As I toured this moving but painful exhibit I started to wonder if there were any museums in America that were offering sincere and graphic apologies to the Native Americans from the United States government and George W. Bush. Nothing at all came to mind. Go to: www.rotoruamuseum.co.nz and bookmark this place as something worth checking out in the flesh during your down under foray.
The morning after this much welcome political inspiration, I arrived in peninsular Coromandel, where Vida, a holistic retreat center tucked away in Coroglen awaited. Michele and Jamie Hollingshead welcomed me to their seventy acres of mountain enshrouded Hedonia. Solar and hydro powered, they have completely removed themselves off the corporate energy grid. Everything but the gasoline in their cars was organic and free roam it seemed. Thoughtfully designed places to do yoga, meditation, artwork and various other deep and introspective things in prevailed. Inviting trails offered walks to spring fed waterfalls, medicine wheels, flower gardens and other like places of geo-mantic inspiration. Vida turned out to be more than a mere off -the- map escape haven. Spiritually the place was most wonderful and very rejuvenating to a psychically sensitive type like myself. The hosts gave me some ‘Tears of Amber’ a Rainbow Essence homeopathic, to purge some astral negativity I picked up in Rotorua and it actually worked! After a massage and authentic Finnish wood burning sauna, I experienced one of the most wonderful dinners later that evening, cooked with fresh herbs hand picked from the premises. I wish I could have shared this meal with the Channel 3 crew back in Nelson as it would have answered their question more effectively than I was able to at the time. Please check out: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/vida/ and book your inevitably sublime stay at Vida.
Now already at the end of my reluctantly abbreviated travelogue, I must confess something a bit strange that I did during the impulsive T.V. interview in Nelson. Defying an astrologer’s advice not talk about weird things during my trip, I proceeded to share a dream I had about seeing migrating Snow Geese prior to leaving for New Zealand and some Maori shaman who alerted me to their visionary significance. I discovered later on that seeing such birds, at least in the Native American tradition, is a sign of positive and transformative travel experiences to come. I certainly had my share of them in New Zealand. I really believe this dream vision actually occurred in some benign dimension accessed prior to the trip but then suddenly remembered at the time of the interview. As I now reflect, I think that the full import of the dream came back to me when I slept on a picnic bench on the Karamea coastal trail, opening my eyes throughout the chilly night and looking up at the Southern Cross. Regardless of when or where, judging from how wide the anchorwoman’s eyes got during my re-telling of the migratory pre-cognition, I realized that such a realm would be most desirable to go to for the aspiring tourist looking for multi-dimensional inspiration and deserves just as much broadcast exposure as all the physical places I’ve just described above. Going to New Zealand may very well put you in touch with such wondrous and healing worlds. But you’ll have to dream yourselves into reality and actually go there for it to happen!
