Daphne the Duck is Dead

We were sitting in the Departure Lounge at Sydney airport having spent all but three of our Australian dollars. Just enough to buy a Sunday paper. The Australian is OK, and good on foreign news. In general Australians tend to be outward looking, they have to be, and coverage of SE Asia in particular is good. So we read about the likely impact of George Bush's second term, the landslide victory of the Thai Prime Minister, rumblings from Pyongyang, the state of the Hong Kong dollar, progress towards reform in China. But what about New Zealand? Culturally Oz's nearest neigbour and our next destination. After a lot of searching we found one reference to NZ.

In preparation for a big golf tournament in Christchurch, a cull had been made of ducks living on the course. An accidental victim had been Daphne, a duck beloved of local school children. Everyone was very sad. That is the news from New Zealand.

The emotional relationship between Australia and NZ is a complex one. It sometimes seems as if Oz is the big brother; noisey, brash and generally making fun of his much smaller sibling. NZ is the small quiet child who takes teasing in good part, either because he really believes he is a silly kid or maybe because, secretly, he feels he's smarter. There is in a great deal of NZ life an understatedness which sometimes seems likes shyness, sometimes modesty, sometimes just a wish to be left alone.

One example came within 20 minutes of picking up our camper van. We tried to follow the map to the campsite but got lost and stopped at a petrol station to ask the way. The assistant said not a word in reply but reached under the desk and silently handed us a photocopied map with the route from there to the campsite marked in high lighter. We apologised for bothering him. "Happens about four times a day" he said without discernable emotion.

The suburb in which we camped that night was like a slightly scruffy part of Folkstone or Bexhill-on-Sea. Streets of mostly brick, occasionally wood, bungalows. In England you'd call them retirement cottages. Each set in a small square of garden, each with a lawn, each with a border of chrysanthemums, dahlias, roses and red hot pokers. Alliums are only at the posher houses, they've only just started to reach NZ. The current national flower appears to be the red-hot poker. It appears everywhere, in gardens and bush, as does pampas grass. It is really difficult to tell what is native NZ and what is imported. However, here is a yellowy red-hot poker.

Christchurch is on a very flat plain which isn't typical of NZ. Most of the country reminds us of Scotland. Outside the mountains themselves (which are twice as tall as the Scottish ones), farmland is very like the borders. Rolling hills, soft, green and rounded, always with a wall of mountains somewhere towards the horizon.

As we set off we saw the first stock: a field of alpaca. In the course of one day we saw sheep (of course, more sheep than people etc), cattle (about as many as people), deer (next in numbers after cattle and mostly the big American sort, some smaller but one signpost said 'Elk Farm'). Rather less expected other than the alpaca were llamas and ostriches. New Zealanders will farm anything if they get the chance. At least the big animals have done less damage than the smaller ones, rabbits (fur and meat) and possums (fur!) were both a bad mistake.

When the rabbits escaped and became a pest an 'ecological' solution was attempted. Stoats, weasels and ferrets were imported to control them. Unfortunately nobody told the rodents they shouldn't eat eggs and NZ's bird population was devastated. One recent attempt at solution has been to de-vermin islands in the hope bird populations can be strengthened there. There seems little prospect of a wide scale re-colonisation by birds however and some woodland seems ominously quiet.

The possums have destroyed large areas of forest (as have escaped deer). Dogs and cats haven't helped. Cats look decidedly shifty and nervous - at least the three we have seen in ten days do - as if they fear their days may be numbered. Rats escape from cargo boats, we've even seen hedgehogs. A farmer we met said a hedgehog had made it's home under her chickens' nest box. It took some time to discover why the hens didn't seem to be laying so well.

Before this gets too depressing, I'll leave you for now with some wildlife that isn't upsetting anyone. A couple of sealions that didn't want to share a beach with us and a not very good picture of of dolphins playing catch.