Dangers in New Zealand

For a nation whose population spends much of its time jumping off cliffs with parachutes, bungy jumping from high bridges, free-falling from the Sky Tower, and so on with numerous variations on adrenaline-rousing pastimes, it seems positively perverse to discourage adventurous New Zealanders from jumping onto the ferry. But New Zealand is full of warning signs of one sort or another, everything from the universal 'may be slippery when wet' to warning about how many people may stand on a bridge (though that last one has a tragic history involving the deaths of some children when a bridge collapsed.) Here follow just a few notices we encountered--not all exactly warnings.

Oops--that photo was meant for another post. But note the slash through the O.

This is not a warning notice, but it intrigued us. When you go fishing here, you probably need to bring a lawyer along with you to interpret these fishing rules. This was taken near Raglan.

A few yards away from this notice at Lake Rotorua a woman sat in a car while her small son was showering the black swans with pop-corn. The swans became frantic, and we envisaged getting a photo in the local paper, "Boy Savaged by Black Swans." No such luck. He soon became bored with the swans and started chasing a group of geese. His mother continued to smoke her cigarette. Should we do that hike? Or have we had the pants scared off us? We did it and outfaced the bullocks who surrounded us, and we did have to step very carefully over the stiles to avoid the electric fences. But the biggest hazard, for which there was no warning, was sticking our boots into large dollops of cowsh.

Self explanatory...watch that mud. But I do not understand the prohibitions on caravans, campers, and tents: who would want to take those into the mud anyway?

This was a notice we encountered near Raglan. It points to a slice of New Zealand history that is still a matter of great controversy--who has rights to the seashore? The Treaty of Waitanga is the founding document of New Zealand as a British colony, signed by the British 'governor,' Hobson, and a group of Maori chiefs. It has been a source of continual controversy ever since, not least because the Maori translation of the English text was certainly defective. And--though I won't go into it--the whole question of the relative positions of Maoris and caucasian New Zealanders is a delicate subject: and historically there are great similarities with the native American experience in the USA. Enormous amounts of PC are observed everywhere in dealing with this subject. For example, the Maori Wars--the title of numerous books--are now The New Zealand Wars.

This is a warning--very discreet, and a bit mysterious--about possible "offensive behaviour" that you might encounter at Ladies Bay and Gentlemens Bay in St. Heliers. You will have to use your imaginations as to what that is all about. For old Plymouth readers--think 'Lions'Den.'

You may need to click on the picture to read the small print through the graffiti. If you do, remember that, when you have deciphered the small print, you click on an arrow in the top right hand corner that says 'back to blog.'

I seem to have lost photos warning one of being engulfed by boiling mud, or scalded by hot springs. Dire warnings indeed--stick to the path or the thermal dangers will almost certainly kill you.

On our first hike in New Zealand we came across this notice, which are everywhere in New Zealand. Various explanations were given to us as regards possums, but we certainly learnt that they are a pesky pest, introduced from Australia. There are about 30 million possums in New Zealand - that's about 7 per person! So says Wikepedia, but ask a New Zealander and the answers you will get vary from 30 million to 90 million. Depends who did the counting, I suppose. Apparently, possums will munch through around 21,000 tonnes of leaves, berries and fruit every night. Of course, if there really are 90 million of them, it will be three times that amount.
The first possums were brought to New Zealand in 1837 from Australia.
Possums are native to Australia and are protected there.
Many trees in Australia have possum defences such as spines, prickles or poisonous leaves –but New Zealand trees and shrubs don't.
In New Zealand possums have no natural enemies. That is why possum numbers increased so fast. The possum is not protected in New Zealand, it is a pest, and it is doing a lot of damage to the native plants, animals and birds.

But there is controversy about the use of the chemical 1080, and often one saw signs decrying the use of the chemical and claiming that it was poisoning a lot more than possums.

Posted by David on February 5 2010