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“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the coveted Most Improved Country award goes to — the envelope, please — why, why…it’s New Zealand!” It’s true. If you haven't visited New Zealand in the past decade, you'll have trouble recognizing the place. And virtually every change you see — or taste — is for the better. I know. I lived in New Zealand for 14 years and just returned from a three-week tour. From Queenstown in the South Island to Auckland in the North, my litany became, “I can't believe how much it’s changed!” Here's how it’s changed. 1. Monoculture to Bi-culture Just as New Zealand wine (details below) is described as fruit-driven, so is tourism now Maori-driven. This is a change of astonishing dimension. In the 70s and 80s, if you were to look at government tourism literature and slides, you'd conclude that with the exception of Rotorua — the officially designated Maori World — New Zealand was inhabited only by smiling blondes. Maori were invisible. If you took a tour, the only reference to Maori was something like, “The name means ‘shining waters’ in Maury.” Today, government pamphlets speak of Maori history, promote Maori cultural tours, even list handy Maori phrases. On the Dart River Safari, Bridget, the cheeky young guide, pronounces Maori names with graceful ease. On the Marlborough Wine Walk, Southern Wilderness guide Julie Jordan does the same. And, to my amazement, the sign outside Queenstown’s Church of England says, “Haere Mai.” That’s “Welcome.” And welcome. Everywhere, the change is evident. High-end lodges are no longer named Glen Something but long, multi-syllabic Maori words: Punatapu Lodge, Whare Kea Lodge, Wharekauhau Country Estate. At Logan Brown, a high-end restaurant in Wellington, the meal doesn't begin with an amuse-bouche, it begins with a koha. Both words mean gift; koha says it in Maori. And Maori have become guides to their own culture. In Napier, the Art Deco North Island city, Toro Waaka and his family have converted the old prison into a backpacker hostel and cultural tour, kind of a Kiwi Alcatraz. Beside Lake Taupo, chef Charles Royal prepares guests a wilderness meal, much of it gathered by Go Bush, a guide service owned and run by brothers, Kelvin and Danny Hemopo. Atop Te Mata Peak in Hawkes Bay, visitors can experience a powhiri, the traditional Maori greeting. Oh, and one more thing. At the historic Terraces Hotel in Taupo, they routinely answer the phone with the traditional Maori greeting, “Kia ora.” When I lived in New Zealand, a government telephone operator was fired for saying, “Kia ora.” 2. Eating In to Eating Out The changes in New Zealand restaurant food are nothing short of startling. When I lived in the South Island city of Dunedin, if, on your way through Central Otago you got hungry in Arrowtown, the most you could hope for was fish & chips. It was cheap and worth cheap. If, during the season, you managed to find whitebait, the “delicacy” would be so heavily battered, there wasn't a taste of whitebait left in whitebait fritters. Today, Arrowtown has restaurants as sophisticated as any, anywhere. One of the best — and definitely not cheap — is Saffron, where whitebait comes both sautéed and tempura-fried, each enhancing the flavour of the delicate little fish. At the northern end of the South Island, Bay of Many Coves Resort looks like the kind of place I'd have warned visitors, “Stick with the basics; they're gonna butcher anything fancy or foreign.” But today, this remote spot on the Marlborough Sounds — getting there requires a 45–minute boat ride — serves a delicately spiced Indonesian chicken curry with banana lime salsa and a menu filled with the exotic and delicious. It would be tempting to say, sure, the top end of the food chain has improved, but the tucker for the ordinary bloke or sheila is still the same. Only, it’s not. Consider the very icon of everyday Kiwi food, the meat pie. When I lived in Dunedin, pies were essentially fat, gristle, gravy and crust. But now, on Waiheke Island, I sampled Jen’s Pies. One was a spicy Chicken Thai pie; the other — even more of a contrast to the original — a veggie pie. Yes, a meatless meat pie. Very tasty they were, too. And each under three dollars. 3. Beer to Wine “In my day,” said Brian Schwass, lifetime Marlborough resident, “the town closed up tight at five, Monday through Thursday. On Friday night, the shops in Blenheim stayed open till nine, and the streets were filled with country folk. They had a meal and a beer, then everything was shut down till Monday morning.” And now? “Now, you can get a drink or a coffee or something to eat any day of the week, up to 11 o’clock and beyond.” The difference between then and now is the grape. When Brian was a kid, Blenheim was a farm town: sheep, cattle, some garlic, apples and cherries. No more. When you fly in, all you can see is one crop: wine grapes. And just as the grape has replaced the sheep in Marlborough, wine has replaced beer as the quintessential New Zealand drink. To hear Kiwis go on about the complexity of Pinot Noir or the fruit-driven wine that comes from growing grapes in a diurnal climate makes me doubt my ears. When I got here in ’72, the wines, a.ka. plonk, were barely drinkable. The red wines were undrinkable. Literally undrinkable, so laden with tannin that women developed instant headaches. On my trip, nobody said two words about New Zealand’s old favorite quaff. The land of Rugby, Racing and Beer has become a southern Sideways. And there is no doubt that switching to a wine culture has made New Zealand a more elegant and sophisticated place. All you need do is dine (“eat” sounds much too coarse for the experience) in the Swiss-Kiwi ambience of Herzog in Marlborough or lunch in Carrick or wander through the outdoor sculpture garden at Olssens vineyard or gape at the bold design of Peregrine cellars — all in Central Otago— and you know how broad and deep this change has been. 4. Tea to Coffee When I lived in Dunedin, coffee was weak, insipid and nasty. It came in one (1) variety, with an occasional variant in even weaker, nastier decaf. My, how things have changed. In Blenheim, Cruzies — a strictly local coffee shop, nee tea shoppe — offers flat white, tall black, Mocachinno, Viennese and more. In bigger or more touristified centres, that list is merely the beginning. You can read a lot into this simple beverage change. Is New Zealand shedding the English mantle, replacing it with a North American or European identification? Is it a stronger link with Australia, which has undergone its own tea-to-coffee transformation? Or maybe, it’s just the call of the new…. and in this case, better. Whatever the cause, the side effect is strong and positive. New Zealand is suddenly awash in nice little cafes, often with outdoor tables adding vibrancy to the street scene. And, man — that coffee is good. So. Four major changes, each one improving the visitor’s experience. If, like me, you're returning to New Zealand after a long absence, see if you can spot more changes on your own. Here's a start: movies. SIDEBAR If You Go For a hand in planning your trip, go to the extremely helpful www.newzealand.com. For other attractions: |
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