“Bullshit!” I said aloud, almost spluttering my Diet Root Beer onto the pages of the guide book.
Here’s the very first line of this glossy, picture filled book on New Zealand. I’m naming names – looking at you Eyewitness Travel New Zealand.
“New Zealand is one of the most isolated countries in the world” it states with confidence.
WTF?
Isolated? Let’s talk about Fiordland, in the far south of the country, with its challenging geography of mountains and valleys and fiords and coastline, lightly populated. Here’s how to get there. Go to the airport, in my case Vancouver, get on a plane to Auckland, 12 hours later get off the plane, transfer to another plane for an hour-ish flight to Queenstown, rent a car and go. The roads are paved, there’s internet, the locals even speak English and most of the time you can understand what they are saying.
Far from isolated, it is very accessible. And there lies the other side of the coin.
I went to New Zealand last fall to be far away – eager to be away from the raucous political noise of the northern hemisphere. I wanted to explore more of a country I had so thoroughly enjoyed on my first visit. I looked forward to a change of scenery, and I wanted it to be breathtaking.
I found all that and more. But guess what? I’m not the only one, and I had the definite feeling that far from being in exploring mode, and not in the slightest bit feeling “isolated” instead I was following a very well-beaten tourist track.
New Zealand is one of the easiest countries I’ve traveled to. Once in Fiordland, you can drive around, take a boat ride on the fiords, hike for days through the well maintained system of tramping tracks, rent a helicopter or plane for a tour above all this gorgeousness or even, if all of that is too much, visit the movie theater in Te Anau where during the day, every hour on the hour they screen a beautiful movie made of the awesome Fiordland scenery, filmed mostly from helicopter.
Check out this 4 minute trailer for a taste of what this beautiful landscape looks like…
A Real Most Isolated Place on Earth
I’m reading a book right now about a place called Pemako, in eastern Tibet and a man’s quest over a number of years and 8 separate expeditions to reach its most innermost gorges and legendary waterfalls that no Western explorer had yet to find – a place of tales and rumours that inspired the story of Shanghri La.
Previous explorers – English military officers on geographical surveys to map the far reaches of the British empire, plant hunters and curious adventure seekers as well as Tibetan lamas on pilgrimage had been turned back in their quests to reach this innermost gorge. The seekers climbed up and down mountain cliffs, hacked through thick, tangled vegetation, faced torrential rains, hail, lightning, river rapids, landslides, poisonous snakes, gnats, and coped with masses of leeches. One of the travelers woke up one night to find a leech in his mouth, firmly attached and sucking blood.
In addition to these considerable obstacles, there are human problems as well. 19th/early 20th century explorers had to contend with tribes who took great exception to their desire to cross this land, sometimes attacking and murdering those who passed through. Porters sometimes abandoned them mid-journey and nowadays there was the Chinese military presence to deal with, or avoid. Not only is this Tibet, occupied by China, it is also in the place of the disputed border lands between India and China.
Through his expeditions to this area Ian Baker, studies the accounts of the earlier attempts as well as the Tibetan Buddhist mythology surrounding this landscape that is considered a sacred place. No one was able to tell him precisely how to get where he wanted to be and those Tibetan early accounts of pilgrimage to this region were often deliberately vague in directions while at the same time framing the geographical landmarks in mystical meaning. The author, who lives in Kathmandu, is a scholar of Buddhism and speaks Tibetan, was ultimately able to connect the dots between the geographic and spiritual accounts of earlier voyages to guide him to find what he seeks. Each trip to the region lasted many weeks and in addition to all the geographical challenges making their way through the terrain they also faced illness on the trail, dwindling food supplies and accidental falls. What settlements they came upon were very small, just a few dwellings and many days’ hike away from any kind of larger center. They were on their own.
This sounds more like “isolated” to me.
“They are nice falls aren’t they. I’ve always hoped someone would discover them.”
On the last trip the team was successful and were able to find the hidden falls in this deepest gorge on the planet, confirming that the tales of this sacred place so central to Tibetan Buddhism were true and it really did exist. The discovery was announced by National Geographic and heralded as a great achievement of geographical exploration. But in the end, our hero is ambivalent about it and questions the wisdom of the outside world knowing about this. At the time of that last excursion, they crossed paths with a very large Chinese expedition looking for the same thing. This Chinese group was unsuccessful but part of what they were there for was to scope out the feasibility of creating a huge hydroelectric dam that would be larger than Three Gorges, that would mean flooding and destroying this entire area so sacred to the Tibetan people to divert water and power elsewhere in China. Gotta fuel the machine. For now the goddesses and spirits that rule this place have kept them away. For now.
Postscript New Zealand
Would I go back to New Zealand? Absolutely I would. Will I? Stay tuned. I have a couple of other things on my very short list of foreign destinations.
But one thing I came back with, after overdosing on all that gorgeous scenery of Fiordland, was a very strong desire to further explore my own beautiful adopted province of British Columbia. So off to do just that this summer.