Fire, Flood, Pestilence ~

Wednesday 4 March 2020

Backbenchers

http://backbencher.co.nz/about/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Benches

Our last full day in Wellington was finally upon us.

We were not looking forward to this day at all, not only because we would soon be leaving beautiful Wellington but we would also be saying goodbye to our daughter and her partner not knowing when we would be seeing them again.

But we decided not to allow those thoughts to marr our final 24 hours together, especially as 4 March 2020 was a very special day indeed.

This was the day that we would be watching Jacinda Arden at Prime Minister's Question in the debating chamber at Parliament House.

We were due to arrive at The House at 1:30 pm so we thought we would make a day of it and book an early lunch at Backbenchers, Wellington's political gastro pub located just across the road from the Parliament buildings

Backbencher's is an amazing place, "it is located in one of Wellington’s oldest masonry buildings".

"After two devastating fires, the pub reopened in February 2013, keeping in line with the building’s historical significance and unique personality".

The pub's "beautiful design layout features a 1000 wine glass display, separate lounge and dining areas, and a sports bar area".

But what renders this pub really special is its satirical political decor.

Mounted on walls all around the drinking and eating spaces are "contemporary politician puppets, displayed as individual works of satirical art, as well as displays of satirical drawings by Tom Scott", a New Zealand cartoonist who won New Zealand Cartoonist of the Year six times in the 1990s and again in 2009".

We had never seen anything like it anywhere; it was amazing.

It was The Clarence meets Spitting Image. Such a great idea.

"The Backbencher has been adorned by satirical political and sporting puppets over many years".

"With previous puppets such as a ‘Joan of Arc’ Helen Clark, ‘Batman and Robin’ John Key and Bill English, it has mirrored the halls of New Zealand's Parliament over the years in the most tasteful humorous way possible".

"The puppets began as 3D cartoons drawn by Murray Webb, a prominent New Zealand caricature artist and a former New Zealand Test cricketer and then transformed into physical sculptures by the talented hands of Bryce Curtis from WETA Workshop".

Even the menu was politically themed.

I liked the look of menu 49 - The Jacinda Effect : 'Well-being Cuisine'

J.A. Genter's prawn salad was my particular favourite but in the end I shared a vegan option with my daughter which was ok but certainly not as tasty as my husband's fish and chips which I also ended up sharing.

It should be noted that "New Zealand's political interview show Back Benches, presented by Wallace Chapman and Damian Christie, was primarily filmed at the Backbencher pub until the show was cancelled on TVNZ 7 in July 2012 when the station was shut down".

"The final three episodes of that show were filmed at the Shepherd's Arms Hotel instead after an after-hours kitchen fire at the Backbencher pub rendered it unusable".

This really is a great place to go and eat if you're ever in Wellington; the political atmosphere is electrifying; but as it is the 'go to' watering hole for politicians, civil servants and tourists alike, you definitely need to book in advance.

We were joined by our Civil Servant friend who had booked for us all the previous evening which was perfect but we did see people being turned away at the door when we were there which was disappointing for them but not surprising as it really is that popular.

A perfect prequel to Prime Ministers Questions at the House.

Backbenchers, Wellington

Jacinda as never seen before

Lunch at Backbenchers

Perusing the interesting menu

Quirky ‘political’ menu at Backbenchers

Weta Workshop Political Sculptures at Backbenchers in Wellington

Jacinda, Weta Workshop style at Backbenchers

The House

We couldn't take any pictures at all when we were escorted to the public gallery in readiness for Question Time.

In actual fact, we had to go through intensive security scrutiny prior to even being allowed in and were issued crates for all our belongings: handbags, cameras, mobile phones even the contents of our pockets, but we were given a map of the New Zealand Parliament complex, with a detailed key on the back page explaining exactly what each building was called and what its purpose was in the grand scheme of things.

Definitely a useful thing to have considering the quite complicated, windy journey to the public gallery that we then had to embark upon.

The Map of New Zealand’s Parliament Buildings

Prime Minister's Questions Wellington

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/danz/dv/0329_08/0329_08en.pdf

All visitors in the Public Gallery were seated before the MPs and the Prime Minister entered the House.

As we watched the ministers arriving we noticed that Maori culture was very much a part of Wellington's political proceedings.

Several members were in traditional Maori dress and Jacinda Arden herself was wearing a very striking colourful Maori necklace.

After the Speaker arrived in the House at 2 pm precisely, "he read the Maori prayer for the day and it is only at that point that Petitions, papers and select committee reports were able to be announced in the house".

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS

"Written and oral questions are two of the ways the New Zealand unicameral Parliament holds the Executive to account".

Oral Questions

"Oral questions are dealt with as the first substantive item of business transacted by the House each day during Question Time, which is held shortly after 2pm on every sitting day".

There are 12 questions for oral answer during Question Time.

"The questions are allocated to all parties including the government based on the proportional party membership in the House and are directed to Ministers".

"For a question to a Minister to be admissible, there must be ministerial responsibility for the subject matter of the question".

"The vetting of questions is managed by the Office of the Clerk".

"The 12 primary questions are given on notice, which means the Minister is told what the question will be prior to Question Time".

"Oral questions must be lodged with the Deputy Clerk of the House by 10.30am on a House sitting day and notice is sent to Ministers offices by 11am".

"During Question Time, once a Minister has replied to the primary oral question, members then have the opportunity to ask a supplementary question".

"Supplementary questions are not questions on notice, which means that the Minister does not have advance knowledge of the content of the question".

"Supplementaries must be relevant to the subject of the original question asked".

"The Speaker allows each party a ‘quota’ of supplementaries, again, based on their proportional membership within the House, a member does not have to ask a primary question in order to ask a supplementary, however the first supplementary question is allocated to the Member who asked the primary question".

We realised soon after the session started, that we were there on a particularly significant day as most of the 12 questions and almost all of the supplementary ones were on the topic of Coronavirus.

From what I can recall, the main order of business on that afternoon centred around how New Zealand would respond to what was happening in Europe in particular to the situation in Italy which now appeared to be even worse than when I researched it online a few days earlier.

We heard that four people had tested positive for Covid 19 in Auckland that week.

All four had recently returned from abroad.

Two people had returned from a skiing holiday in Italy and two from Iran who had either been on holiday there themselves or were Iranian Nationals visiting family in Auckland.

Strategies on how to prevent mass community transmission of the virus were discussed.

The House was told that all four of those infected people were in quarantine at home or in a hotel and everyone they had come into contact with since arriving in New Zealand had been contacted and tested or due to be tested soon.

The House was also informed that everyone on the aircraft with the four infected passengers would also be tested as a matter of urgency so as to prevent as much exportation of the virus to other areas of the country as possible.

It was agreed that efficient and regular testing would be the way that the spread of this extremely contagious virus would be controlled.

But that alone would not be enough.

David Clark, NZ Health Minister at that time, advised that immediate social distancing recommendations should be implemented all over the country at least until they knew what they were dealing with.

It was also suggested that New Zealand's borders should be closed as soon as possible so as to keep further contamination to a minimum.

Of course all this was very shocking to us.

We knew the situation was bad in Europe and we were aware that Malaysian borders had been closed a few days earlier but to see a modern, global economy like New Zealand reacting to this situation with such austerity and immediacy was actually quite frightening.

At one point in response to a question about the economy, Ms Arden herself said something like "we are not so poor that we can't nip this in the bud; even if just one New Zealander dies of it, it's one too many" or words to that effect.

The idea was that they would throw all they had at it from the start as advised by doctors and scientists in Italy who had issued warnings to the rest of the world, urging them not to repeat errors they made when it first hit Italy hard.

We know now that New Zealand managed the virus extremely well and only lost 26 people to it.

Many say that it was much easier for them to do that due to their isolated position in the Southern Hemisphere and their relatively small population compared to other more densely populated nations such as Italy and the UK.

I dare say there is some truth to that but having witnessed ourselves their unfaltering, determination to keep their people safe from the very start, it is not at all surprising that their battle against Covid was as successful as the world now knows it to have been.

I was disappointed to read later, however, that David Clark had to stand down from his position as health minister when he broke National Lockdown rules twice once when he embarked upon a cycling expedition quite a long drive from his home and then on another occasion when he took himself and his family on a long beach walk 20 km from their home in Dunedin.

Considering how eloquently he spoke that day in Parliament about testing and tracking, closing borders and generally doing all that was possible to keep mortality rates low, I was disappointed as much as surprised that he would break his own social distancing laws.

"I expect better and so does New Zealand", said Ms Arden after these two incidents became public.

But he is not alone among ministers and political advisors all over the world who implemented social distancing laws for others and did not manage to honour them themselves.

But on that afternoon on 4 March 2020, everything changed for us,

Our eyes had been opened to the horrific reality of this virus and to the fact that we were thousands of miles away from home at a time when spending many hours in an aircraft or sitting in a crowded airport could be extremely dangerous, especially for older travellers.

It was clear that we needed to make immediate changes in how we proceeded with our voyage from then on and how we could return safely to the UK, if indeed, we should return at all.

New Zealand Parliament, Wellington

Parliamentary Library which is part of the Parliamentary Complex, Wellington

Demonstrators outside the Parliament building

Demonstrators outside the Beehive

IS IT SAFE?

After our momentous Question Time experience was over, we said goodbye to our delightful Wellingtonian friend and returned to Bats Theatre.

We still had almost an hour before our daughter's partner's evening show was due to start, so we had a drink together in the foyer bar and talked about what we had just heard in Parliament.

Social distancing was mentioned a lot that afternoon so we wondered whether we should be doing this ourselves from now on.

Our daughter and her partner rightly stated that for them social distancing would only be possible if they stopped their shows.

Comedy festivals by their very nature are crowded events; they need to be if the artist is to earn a living from it and increase his / her fan base.

Our daughter and her partner had already been considering spending an extended period of time in New Zealand from later that year, but that now depended on how long borders would remain closed which at that time we still hoped would only be for a few weeks.

As for ourselves, we would need to face the fact that at some point over the course of the next few weeks we would need to embark upon a 24 to 27 hour journey on two or more aircraft with long periods spent in several airports in both hemispheres.

Would we be safe? What could we do to reduce our chances of catching this virus at any point during our travels?

We still had almost a week left in New Zealand travelling in North Island after our daughter and her partner left for Adelaide the following day.

We would be spending our final day and night in Auckland where by then the virus may have spread further especially as we had heard earlier that it was not proving as easy as originally expected to locate everyone on the three flights that the four infected passengers had flown to Auckland on.

These were issues that we needed to consider very carefully.

What we did decide to do immediately is observe the social distancing recommendations made in the House as much as we could from that moment onwards.

We couldn't avoid airports and air travel due to our particular situation but avoiding contact with others as much as possible before then, would now be necessary.

All four of us seriously toyed with the idea of staying longer in New Zealand at that point and possibly even returning to South Island but only if the Adelaide fringe festival would be cancelled, which our daughter and her partner tried to research online.

We soon realised that there were no easy answers to any of the questions we were asking and we certainly were not alone in asking them.

We would email our travel insurance providers immediately and see what they advised with regard to the continuation of our voyage and safe repatriation back to the UK if that, indeed, was the best thing for us to do.

"Hello Darlings" - with Pamela Hancock

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.eventfinda.co.nz/2019/hello-darlings-with-pamela-hancock/wellington.amp

http://www.artmurmurs.nz/theatre/hello-darlings-with-pamela-hancock#

We had pre-booked ourselves into a very popular New Zealand fringe favourite for our last night in Wellington.

It was meant to be our pièce de resistance event followed by one final meal in town with our daughter and her partner.

However, we seriously considered staying away from all crowded fringe venues from that point onwards.

We decided in the end to walk to the venue and see how crowded it actually was.

On arrival we were pleased to see that there were very few people at this event so we were happy to stay though we did find seats near a wide opened door.

It can sometimes happen during festivals of this kind, that there are so many events on at the same time, that no one show is completely full; this is particularly true during weekday evenings when people are working during the day.

But on this occasion we couldn't have been more wrong.

The reason the venue was relatively empty was that we had arrived half an hour early.

This artist enjoys almost cult status in Wellington and by the time the show started, the venue was so packed that there were as many people outside as there were inside.

Not a good start to our determination to stay away from large groups of people.

The show itself was excellent.

Even more hilarious that we expected it to be.

This review written on 5/3/2020 by Lizzie Murray for 'Art Murmurs' is pretty spot on.

"She has the wardrobe of Mrs Doubtfire, a heart of gold and the frightening energy of Suzanne Paul".

For us the very broad New Zealand accent was an additional draw.

"She is Pamela Hancock, proudly brought to you from the vibrant city of Bulls".

"It is Aunty Pam’s ruby wedding anniversary".

"But instead of a romantic evening celebrating forty years of wedded bliss, she sits in her quaint living room pining for her Hubby".

"Meanwhile, her husband Trevor is gambling and drinking down at Bulls’ watering hole - the Rathole".

"Throughout the evening, the audience, now guests in Pam’s living room become privy to her wild fantasies".

"Pamela shares her greatest ambitions and regrets in dynamic musical numbers".

"Where would Pamela from Bulls be if she left? A spy? A tennis star? An x-factor contestant?"

As Lizzie Murray said "I was impressed to discover there was so much live singing in this drag show".

"At times, the blaring audio from Pam’s telly was distorted a little too much, and the audience needed to strain their ears to follow along".

"This didn't detract from Mrs Hancock's glowing charisma".

"The 70s-patterned sofa, prized but unfortunately-timed wedding photo and well-loved bible worked perfectly to emulate a quirky 63 year old’s living room".

"Maybe a more interesting backdrop rather than the ghastly greeny-blue brick wall of Ivy’s stage would have worked better".

"But then again, ghastly might just work with the granny-aesthetic look she was presenting".

"The lighting was simple but effective in the intimate space provided".

"Pamela basks in a sepia glow as she drifts into her wedding day flash back".

"A red filter highlights her 007 fantasy as she introduces herself as Pammy Galore!

"Pamela’s rhetoric is consistently punctuated with malapropisms, or phrases in which she hilariously uses the wrong words like “confidential breakfast”.

"Her comedic timing is totally on point at all times".

"Pam does well to juggle the various gags attached to her many props like the embarrassing wad of lotto tickets or the fly swatter turned tennis racket".

"Cole Hampton, the man behind Pamela Hancock is an exceptional character performer and story-teller".

I think what renders this show as popular as it is, is the fact that every New Zealander will know or have met a Pamela Hancock.

"She’s the small town, kooky aunt who makes the whole room laugh by accident".

"Hampton stays in character to ask the sound technician to turn up the volume".

"After a clumsy mishap with landline props, Hampton brushes off a gasp from the audience, shooting a quick “opening night!” over her shoulder".

"I am eager to see more moments of Pamela interacting with her huddle of little darlings".

"Hampton captures life in Bulls wonderfully".

"Pam’s wonder at the simplest creature comforts is endearing, and sometimes a little sad".

"The balance Cole strikes in the creation and delivery of this character, makes Pamela feel not only relatable, but real".

The show was spectacular, glitzy, funny - entertaining on so many different levels, not least as it gave us as Brits, a veritable insight into New Zealand village life.

Defintely worth seeing if you can but maybe not during the Covid era as it is phenomenally popular and is likely to be very, very crowded

Photo courtesy of: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.eventfinda.co.nz/2019/hello-darlings-with-pamela-hancock/wellington.amp

“Hello Darlings! With Pamela Hancock”

Cole Hampton as Pamela Hancock : photo courtesy of: http://www.artmurmurs.nz/theatre/hello-darlings-with-pamela-hancock#

Thursday 5 March 2020

Te Whare Pirimia

After our excellent but very packed show at the Ivy Theatre the previous evening, we decided not to join our daughter and her partner for dinner as previously discussed.

It was their last evening in Wellington and the only one where they didn't have shows, interviews or tech issues to sort out, so we thought they should have a farewell drink with their friends at Bats Theatre then a nice meal together somewhere in town.

Their Wellington schedule had been so intense that they had had very little time to socialise at all whilst there, so at least on this their last evening in Wellington they should do just that.

I cannot deny that there was also a little voice inside reminding me of what we had heard earlier that day

What did they mean by enforced social distancing, local lockdowns and self isolation?

We were not at all clear yet on the implications of all of this for any of us, but we did feel that an evening out, Wellington style, would not do our two young people any harm, though we did suggest that they should sit outside if they could.

They returned by taxi at around 2:00 am but as this was check-out day, a late morning was not really possible.

We had to vacate our accommodation on that cold, rainy morning by 11:00 am and get them to the airport by 12:30 pm.

We packed our bags, cleared and checked the flat, said goodbye to our landlords and set off.

We discovered as we were driving down that hill on that last morning in Wellington that our accommodation was located on the same street as Premier House, the official residence of the Prime Minister of New Zealand; so without realising it we had been Premier Jacinda Arden's neighbours for that entire week.

Now that really was a turn up for the book.

Farewell beautiful Wadestown

Wadestown Rainforest Accommodation

Wadestown

The official residence of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, located at the other end of our road in Wellington

Premier House Wellington

Haere rā Taiohi

We had our final brunch together at Panhead then we drove the two young people to Wellington Airport where they would be setting off for Adelaide back in Australia.

Saying goodbye to them on this occasion was so much more difficult than I thought it would be.

It felt different from before; the world didn't feel like a safe place anymore, especially out of New Zealand.

We told them to take no chances at all on their health and that if they felt that the much larger Adelaide fringe was overcrowded, unsafe and a viral spreading ground, they should not stay.

We urged them to remember the words we had heard first hand in the New Zealand Parliament the previous day and to keep their distance from others as much as possible.

They were worried about us too and they advised us to seriously consider staying in New Zealand if we felt that to be the safer option.

At that point we still thought it was just a matter of a weeks or a couple of months at the most, then the danger would pass.

At any rate we should stay in touch and let each other know what we were planning to do.

On that note we said Haere rā Taiohi then they walked through security and were gone.

I cannot really describe how I felt at that moment.

It is always sad saying goodbye to family and friends at the end of a wonderful holiday period together.

We were sad when we had to say goodbye to both our daughters and our daughter's partner in January when they left us in Sydney and flew off to Perth.

We were also a little sad when we said goodbye to our friend in Sydney after all our wonderful travels together.

But this was different.

This time, with a deadly virus spreading at the rate we had witnessed so far, we feared for all our safety.

We did not know when we would see our young people again and whether they would be safe in a crowded Arts Festival with this virus on the rampage.

We did not know whether we should try and stay in New Zealand or risk air travel and return home.

As much as we had cherished every moment we had spent in beautiful New Zealand and in Australia beforehand, we now needed to focus on our safety and our survival.

How to do that whilst travelling on the other side of the world would be our biggest challenge to date

Haere rā Taiohi

Wonderful Weta Workshop model at Wellington Airport

Kaka parrot as seen in Wadestown and in Zealandia

Zealandia

https://www.visitzealandia.com/About

We felt deflated and downcast when we left the airport that day and returned to our car.

Our plan for that afternoon was to visit Zealandia, a 500 acre urban eco sanctuary not too far away from where we had been staying in Wadestown.

We were sure that on a plot of 500 acres, keeping our distance from others would not be too much of a challenge.

Besides, birds from Zealandia had visited us in our rain forest location every day since our arrival so it was high time that we now visited them.

By the time we arrived and had parked our car in one of the official car parks, the rain had cleared, most of the clouds had vanished and it had turned into another sunny afternoon.

That certainly brightened our mood considerably.

The Sanctuary Zealandia is an extraordinary place.

"It is the world’s first fully-fenced urban ecosanctuary, with an extraordinary 500-year vision to restore a Wellington valley’s forest and freshwater ecosystems as closely as possible to their pre-human state".

"The 225 hectare (500+ acre) ecosanctuary is a groundbreaking conservation project that has reintroduced 18 species of native wildlife back into the area, some of which were previously absent from mainland New Zealand for over 100 years".

"Set around a picturesque reservoir, ZEALANDIA is home to some of New Zealand's most rare and extraordinary wildlife - all thriving wild in a world-first protected sanctuary".

We spent the entire afternoon and early evening in Zealandia and we hiked for hours taking in sights and sounds which we did not think we would ever see or hear.

If you are a good walker then the steeper more isolated trails are perfect as you run into very few people and you encounter more wildlife.

It was the perfect start to what we called at the time 'isolation tourism'.

The lower trails are good too and we did see a very lively and active Kaka colony on the lower trails as well as Tuatara and Takahe but the large guided cruise tours tend to focus on those trails so they can be a little more crowded though on the day we were there, only one guided tour was in evidence on the lower slopes and no one at all on the upper slopes.

A booklet we were given with our tickets explained that "prior to the arrival of humans, Aotearoa (New Zealand) was isolated and unique".

"Without any mammalian predators an ecosystem of remarkable flora and fauna had evolved; the likes of which could be found nowhere else in the world".

"Sadly, over the last 700 years, that paradise was almost destroyed by the arrival of humans and the mammals they introduced with them".

"These introduced predators decimated New Zealand's native and endemic species, who had evolved without needing defence from mammals for millions of years".

It appears that "since human arrival, at least 51 bird species, three frog species, three lizard species, one freshwater fish species, one bat species, four plant species, and a number of invertebrate species have become extinct".

What is remarkable about Zelandia, is that it "has a vision to restore that valley to the way it was before the arrival of humans and other predators".

"With its 8.6km fence keeping out introduced mammals, birds such as the tūī, kākā and kererū, once extremely rare in the region, are all now common sights around central Wellington".

We can certainly vouch for that; we saw and heard Tui birds, Kaka parrots, probably Kereru and certainly Mollymawks everywhere, even on our window sill in Wadestown from 6:30 every morning.

Zealandia really was like stepping into a time capsule and seeing the world how it was thousands of years ago.

"Other vulnerable native species such as tīeke, hihi, little spotted kiwi, and tuatara remain thriving safely in the sanctuary".

"In the early 1990's, when Wellington was in a biologically poor state with more and more native flora and fauna in danger of local extinction and very little happening on the ground other than small-scale planting schemes".

"Drastic measures needed to be taken to ensure the survival of those native species that still remained".

"New Zealand's landmass, as it is seen today, originated from a marginal sliver of the Southern Hemisphere supercontinent Gondwana".

"The first rifts in this supercontinent occurred when Africa detached from it about 170 million years ago".

"Forty million years later India (with Madagascar) broke away and the Atlantic Ocean opened up, separating Africa from South America".

"Eighty million years ago, the landmass that was to become New Zealand, broke away from Gondwana, splitting away from Australia and Antarctica as the Tasman Sea opened up".

"Tectonic separation is usually an ‘unzipping’ process and, in terms of today’s maps, the pre-New Zealand rift extended northward from Tasmania through to North Queensland and south along the edge of Antarctica to Marie Byrd Land".

"This split off an area about ten times the size of present-day New Zealand - a continental fragment called Zealandia".

"Full separation took over 20 million years with the Tasman Sea reaching its present width of 2,000 km around 60 million years ago".

"This strange land differed from every other large land-mass on earth because of its long isolation and at the time of the first human arrival, it would have bustled with the strangest life forms all uniquely adapted to life in a mammalian-predator free environment".

"The largest predator was the magnificent Haast’s eagle, hunting from the air using sight, not smell".

"Birds such as kākāpō flourished by evolving to avoid avian predators, by becoming active during the night, camouflaged and pausing motionless when sensing danger".

"A range of moa species browsed vegetation using beaks instead of teeth, wētā filled a mouse-like niche in the ecosystem, tuatara, kiwi and many other remarkable and endemic species found nowhere else on the planet adapted over millions of years to survive in New Zealand’s mammal-free habitats".

"But then, humans from Polynesia settled in New Zealand and started hunting birds such as moa and huia as well as seals".

"They began to deplete some of the species around them (eventually bringing about the extinction of moa) while the establishment of the Polynesian rat, kiore (Ratus exulans), saw several native species facing extinction".

"European sailing ships later brought with them the Norway rat and the terribly successful ship rat and began to clear vast tracts of land".

"A multitude of pests were introduced, the worst of all being stoats and possums".

The aim of eco-sanctuaries such as Zealandia (and I believe there are several now in New Zealand), is to keep out the 'foreign' pests and return these valleys to their natural state as much as possible.

Our long hike in Zealandia that day was truly wonderful.

One of the single, most extraordinary things that we have ever done in our entire lives.

The predator free environment, means that the birds are bold, friendly and loud.

On several occasions little birds came out of hiding to greet us and on one of our trails a sweet little New Zealand Robin actually followed us for a good few minutes.

If somewhere like Zealandia could be so extraordinary in just a few short years of its existence, I could only imagine how incredible this land would have been around 800 years ago at the time of the first human arrival.

If ever we would have liked to have been transported back in time, even if just for five minutes, it was that day in Zealandia.

To be able to see that valley, the way the first Polynesian settlers would have seen and heard it, would have been truly amazing.