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INTRODUCTION

In the beginning, according to Māori creation myths, Papatuanuku the earth mother and Ranginui the sky father were lovers lying together in a tight embrace. But the many children who lay trapped between them craved light and freedom until eventually the strongest of them, Tane Mahuta, managed to push his parents apart. Tane then took pity on his naked mother and clothed the earth with trees and plants and thus became the father of all living things. Today Rangi’s tears of sadness still fall on Papa’s curved body, while her own sighing of grief forms the morning dew. Much later in legendary time one of Tane’s offspring, the demi-god Maui, hauled a giant fish up from the ocean. This fish became the North Island of Aotearoa, or New Zealand, while the seat of Maui’s canoe and his anchor stone formed the South Island and Rakiura/Stewart Island.

In broad outline, the story of Maui’s fish coincides with modern geological explanations, which confirm that New Zealand was raised out of the sea far back in the mists of time. The recent theory of plate tectonics also tells us that throughout the last 85 million or so years New Zealand has been isolated from other land areas in the South Pacific, gradually becoming a living museum, where ancient forests and unique animals have been able to survive in a more primitive and unchanged form than anywhere else in the world. Today, the closest large land areas are Australia and Antarctica, both well over 2000 kilometres away. In fact, so isolated is New Zealand that it was the last substantial land area anywhere in the world outside the polar regions to be inhabited by human beings. This happened about 800 years

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ago when voyagers from East Polynesia, after journeys that would have kept them at sea for months at a time, grounded their ocean-going canoes on the vacant shores of these forested and mountainous islands.

These Polynesian seafarers named their new home Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud. In the time following their arrival, a distinctive indigenous Māori culture evolved, until long sea journeys of a different kind saw the first Europeans arrive on the shores of Aotearoa. In 1642 Dutch explorer Abel Tasman encountered these islands, and the Dutch name of Nova Zeelandia stuck. But it was not until 1769 that the English navigator James Cook made the first of three voyages of discovery to New Zealand, producing the first detailed maps to be taken back to the northern hemisphere. Thereafter, sealers and whalers started to visit, and with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between the indigenous Māori and the British Crown, the flood of settlers from Europe began to arrive. They soon imposed their culture and language on Aotearoa’s Māori inhabitants, and set about changing much of the face and character of the land itself.

Consisting of two main islands and many scattered smaller islands offshore, New Zealand’s total land area is about the same as that of Japan or the British Isles. Shaped like a thin and much-indented wedge, it is about 1600 kilometres from end to end and 450 kilometres across at its widest point, although often the east and west coasts are less than 200 kilometres apart. Despite its modest size, New Zealand has one of the longest coastlines in the world, its innumerable estuaries and natural harbours providing over 10,000 kilometres of interaction of land and sea. From these sea-washed edges the land rises, with three-quarters of the country being above the 200-metre contour. In the North Island, the ranges are generally lower and the mountains are noteworthy mainly for the presence of a number of striking volcanic summits, some of which are still active. In the South Island, a great snow-covered chain of mountains, the Southern Alps, divides the entire island into very distinct eastern and western sectors.

With so much of the topography rugged and mountainous, the majority

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Queenstown is world-renowned for the quality of

its adventure tourism.

ABOVE Paragliding on a summer evening above

Queenstown.

RIGHT & PREVIOUS PAGE AJ Hackett is a

New Zealander who founded the world’s first

commercial bungy operation in 1988, which is still

going strong at the original site off the historic

Kawarau Gorge suspension bridge.

OPPOSITE The Shotover Jet provides a thrilling,

high-speed ride in the narrow Shotover River

Canyon, and is one of Queenstown’s most famous

attractions.

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ABOVE Mitre Peak, Milford Sound.

LEFT Returning from a journey on Milford Sound.

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OPPOSITE ChristChurch Cathedral was one of

the most prominent Gothic Revivial buildings in

Christchurch, seen here before 2011.

ABOVE In Feburary 2011 the cathedral was

severely damaged by a major earthquake and

remains in ruins as its future is debated.

LEFT The Transitional ‘Cardboard’ Cathedral

was opened in 2013. Designed by Japanese

architect Shigeru Ban, giant cardboard tubes

hold up the structure.

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RIGHT Split Apple Rock, Tasman Bay.

BELOW Kayaks at Te Pukatea Bay, Abel Tasman

National Park.

OPPOSITE Golden sand and Tonga Island, Abel

Tasman National Park.

PREVIOUS PAGE The headland at Little

Kaiteriteri, Tasman Bay.

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ABOVE The Pakoka River drops 55 metres over

the Bridal Veil Falls, near Raglan in the Waikato.

RIGHT & OPPOSITE Hobbiton is a significant

tourist attraction near Matamata in the Waikato.

It was the set used to create the Shire in The Lord

of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.

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ABOVE A small island off New Chums Beach,

reached via a track from Whangapoua on the

Coromandel Peninsula.

LEFT Visitors to Hot Water Beach in Mercury Bay

on the Coromandel Peninsula can create hot pools

for soaking in by digging into the sand between

high and low tides.

OPPOSITE Overlooking Cathedral Cove, near

Hahei on the Coromandel Peninsula.

PREVIOUS PAGE Sunrise at Cathedral Cove, near

Hahei on the Coromandel Peninsula.

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