Magnificent New Zealand [antikvár]

Introduction Peoples of all countries have their particular heritage, and for most New Zealanders, this lies in the beauty of their coasts, countryside and natural wilderness. This is something for them to treasure and pass on, something which possesses a very real spirit. In prehistoric times New Zealand was part of a single great land mass — the Gondwanaland continent — and, lying along the Pacific rim fault, the country was subjected to continual upheaval and shaping by pressures from under the earth's crust. Its separation from other land masses occurred before the arrival of predatory or browsing animals and, isolated by the sea, there evolved over the millenia a unique fauna and flora. Ancient species of trees and plants which had died out in the other larger lands continued to flourish in New Zealand, and many of the bird species began to fill the ecological niches that would otherwise have been occupied by mammals. Free from predators, some birds became flightless and took to grazing the open tussocklands. It was a land that time forgot. Luxuriant, primeval forests covered the hills, volcanoes erupted ash and steam, and the flora and fauna continued their specialist evolution. To this place first came the Maori. Arriving direct from other Pacific Islands they called home, they were able to assimilate themselves easily into the New Zealand environment, unlike the later Europeans. It has taken the latter more than 150 years to appreciate the uniqueness and sheer force of this land, how much greater it is than the sum of its inhabitants. New Zealand author John Mulgan wrote on this 'only-the-land-endures' theme in the introduction to his book Rejxirt on Experience: For New Zealand is a good country. It has the feeling of being a very old country, though not at all in the European sense where countries are old with the marks of humanity. A country like England is smooth and rounded with the passing of unnumbered generations. It bears the lines of long-forgotten ploughing, old stones and buildings, and the neglected tracks of men. Along the misty valleys lies coldly the reminder that all is ashes under LJricon. New Zealand is very old, much older than any of this, and quite untouched by men. Its rocks and mountains are worn smooth by south Pacific winds. They are very cold to touch and very clean. The country, with its sharp hills, gives you the same feeling as the clear salt of the sea. The country is, in fact, so old in itself that none of us has dreamed to touch it; we have only just begun to live there. The Maori who came before us moved among the dark heavy trees like ghosts and could have sailed away at any time and never left a mark. We could leave it ourselves now. In a few years the red-roofed wooden bungalows would rot with borer and crumble into the earth. Fem would cover the grassland and, after fem, small trees would come and in time the dark, rich, matted bush again. Other men might come in a hundred years and nothing that we had left would worry them, but they could draw strength as we have done from the sharp, fierce lines of the hills and the streams always running and the wide sea on every side. . . . There is nothing soft about New Zealand, the country. It is very hard and sinewy, and will outlast many of those who try to alter it. New Zealand's two main islands span 1600 kilometres between the latitudes of 34° and 47° South and the traveller can, within a short span of time and distance, experience a remarkable diversity of scene and climate, from the lush