Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Canadians have a strange obsession with dirt and worms, a lot of people received smartphones for Christmas and, on average, people spent 6 milliseconds longer on each page of Te Ara in 2011 than in 2010.

A typical retrospective would look at everything that Te Ara accomplished in 2011, such as publishing 121 new stories. Instead I thought I’d look at our site statistics and see what our millions of users looked at in 2011.

New Zealand

New Zealanders’ three favourite stories were Historic earthquakes, Earthquakes and Active faults, all obviously influenced by the earthquakes in Christchurch, and probably the Japanese earthquake as well. Similarly, two of the top three images were also related to earthquakes:a map of fault lines and a photo of the extinct volcanoes that formed Banks Peninsula. Possibly a sign of the recession: the third most viewed image was a job advertisement used as an example of rural language.

If New Zealanders were looking at those stories and images, what about the rest of the world? (Or at least the five countries that view Te Ara the most.) I’ll leave it to you to consider why these particular stories and images were of interest to visitors from those countries.

United States of America

Favourite stories: Estuaries, Deep-sea creatures and Geothermal energy

Favourite images:

The blobfish

Photosynthesis and chemosynthesis

Estuary food web

Australia

Favourite stories: Historic earthquakes, Tsunamis and Farm dogs

Favourite images:

Active faults

The blobfish

A day at the races

United Kingdom

Favourite stories: Earthquakes, Coastal fish and Sandflies and mosquitoes

Favourite images:

Active faults

Plate boundary

Comparative sizes of whales

Canada

Favourite stories: Papatūānuku – the land, Soils and Earthworms

Favourite images:

Earthworm life cycle

Comparative sizes of whales

Arrow, giant and colossal squid

India

Favourite stories: Earthquakes, Dairying and dairy products, and Conservation – a history.

Favourite images:

The brain drain

Earthworm life cycle

Earthquake-resistant building

Other traffic

It’s always interesting looking at Te Ara’s traffic for the year. You can clearly see events such as the Christchurch earthquake in February, school holidays and the redesign in October.

Overall traffic

Despite our overall traffic going down over December (see above) due largely to school holidays, traffic from mobile devices (smart-phones and tablets) increased (see below).

Traffic from mobile devices

Mobile traffic started increasing dramatically after Christmas. Were a lot of mobile gadgets under the Christmas tree? In 2010 mobile devices only accounted for 1% of Te Ara’s traffic, in 2011 it raised to 3% but since Christmas it’s grown to 8.6%.

Coming up in 2012

Hopefully in 2012 we’ll see fewer natural disasters, so New Zealanders can read less dramatic stories such as Pets, Childhood and our story on our favourite not-that-creepy crawly the Peripatus. Perhaps some of this year’s most popular stories will come from the new stories being added to the Government and Nation theme. Stories on the Second World War, money, the royal family, Kingitanga and New Zealand’s identity will surely spark people’s interest.

Ben Hana/Blanket Man

All cities (and some towns) have their share of people who live their lives, day and night, out on the streets, whether by circumstance or choice. Most remain nameless to those who pass them by, but some become well known enough to gain unofficial names, often based on their appearance. One of those people was Wellington’s Ben Hana – aka Blanket Man – who passed away on Sunday.

It’s probably fair to say that Hana surpassed the fame of those who came before him, such as Robert Jones (Bucket Man) who traversed the streets of Wellington with a bucket in hand for 20 years and was the inspiration for a character in Maurice Gee’s novel Blindsight. Hana is the subject of a Wikipedia entry, a Facebook page, a documentary (which can be viewed online) and an academic conference paper. He featured in Pip Desmond’s 2009 book Trust: a true story of women & gangs. One year a group of people dressed as Blanket Man for the Sevens rugby tournament in Wellington. There will be many more lesser-known instances of Hana’s cultural influence.

While not all supported Hana’s lifestyle, street presence and behaviour, there is little doubt that he was a true and striking character, recognised and known throughout Wellington and beyond. Aside from the periods in which he was carted off to prison or hospital, he was a fixture on the streets – someone we expected to see, either huddled in his blanket or sunbathing on top of it, sometimes abusive but usually smiling and swaying to music. He literally left his mark on the places he inhabited – his dreadlocks left a black smudge on the wall of the Courtenay Place building he sat in front of most recently. A shrine has been erected at this spot.

I didn’t ever really know Hana, but I did come to understand that there was more to him than a printed blanket and a loin cloth when he turned up to a community garden working bee in Te Aro in 2001. The ground was stony and difficult to work, but he wielded his pick-axe with strength and dexterity, blanket flying, throughout the day. The garden was an act of protest against the inner-city bypass road, and Hana also attended marches and meetings about this – I remember seeing a large blanket hanging off the gallery at the town hall during one such meeting, which signalled that he and his comrades were in attendance. You can learn more about his political beliefs and ideas by checking out that documentary mentioned above.

In those days I used to wear a red coat and he always called me Red Riding Hood. Over time the red coat went by the wayside, but we continued to exchange nods. I passed the legend of Blanket Man down to my son, who dressed up as him one day without prompting.

Amos as Blanket Man

Farewell Ben Hana/Blanket Man. You earned your place as a true man of the streets and a Wellington icon. I wonder how the city will recognise your life and contribution to its street culture?

The first arrivals in the New Zealand Company settlements at Wellington, Whanganui, New Plymouth and Nelson in the early 1840s were soon aware of earthquakes. They found them alarming, and started to describe their new home as the Shaky Isles. There were complaints that the New Zealand Company had ignored this distinctive feature of New Zealand life in their glowing publicity about life in a new colony. To start with the earthquakes were simply an odd phenomenon, but on 16 October 1848 a large earthquake shook central New Zealand, causing widespread damage in the town of Wellington.

Cover of The visitation

A recently published book, The visitation: the earthquakes of 1848 and the destruction of Wellington by Rodney Grapes (Victoria University Press, 2011), gives a detailed account of the earthquake and its human impact, based largely on diaries and contemporary accounts.

The 1848 earthquake was the first demonstration to British settlers of the damaging power of earthquakes. Wellington had a population of only about 3,500, but already there were a number of public buildings – churches, a hospital and a gaol. Most of those constructed of brick and mud were damaged, and three people were killed. However, most wooden buildings survived with little damage. The lesson was not lost on the settlers, and is the reason why much of 19th-century Wellington was built of wood.

Not surprisingly, some of the settlers wanted to escape. A week later the sailing ship Subraon set off for Sydney with 60 passengers. But the Subraon didn’t make it out of the harbour, being one of the first wrecks on Barrett Reef. No lives were lost, but over the next few days the passengers struggled back to Wellington. Prominent citizens such as William Fitzherbert (who later became provincial superintendent) were taunted for cowardice in deserting the damaged town.

But Wellington recovered from the earthquake quite rapidly. The British immigrants were not going to be deterred after travelling halfway round the world – and for most there was little to go home to.

The Awatere Fault

Although Wellington was badly damaged, the earthquake was actually centred in the Awatere valley in Marlborough, where few people lived. The visitation explains how the relationship between faults and earthquakes was worked out by geologist Alexander McKay in the 1880s. Although the 1848 rupture along the Awatere Fault is one of the most obvious fault lines in New Zealand, it was not until a century later that there was general acceptance that this was the source of the 1848 earthquake through detailed historical and geological analysis by Grapes, the author of The visitation, and his colleagues.

Doesn’t ‘normal’ seem so 2011? Perhaps it’s time for something different? Well, check out Street View Stereographic created by Ryan Alexander. It takes Google’s Street View and projects it onto a sphere.

Normal Street View (Kororāreka Bay, Russell)

Sphere View

By distorting the normal view this way, it creates little globes. Buildings stretch out into the sky…

Power lines turn into a fascinating web…

Tunnels become quite trippy…

Auckland Harbour Bridge’s plain curves create an interesting pattern…

Signs hang off precariously…

Roads and rail lines wrap across them…

Here’s some more I couldn’t help sharing, but please comment below and share the best views in New Zealand that you find.

A Wellington intersection

Paritutu Rock and fuel tanks, New Plymouth

Worser Bay, Wellington

A lone house, Worser Bay, Wellington

Heading onto the Auckland Harbour Bridge

Auckland Harbour Bridge (heading the other way)

McKenzie Cove, Northland

Some trees on a back road. Can you see the face?

Queens Parade, Auckland

Plaque unveiled at the opening of Te Araroa

A couple of weeks ago I attended the official opening of Te Araroa – The Long Pathway – a 3,000–kilometre walking trail along the length of New Zealand, from Cape Rēinga to Bluff. After the speeches at Island Bay, close to the mid-point of the trail, Governor General Sir Jerry Mataparae declared it open and led a short walk to the viewing point above Island Bay.

Like all the speakers, Sir Jerry acknowledged the vision and dedication of Geoff Chapple, who has spent the last two decades turning a bold idea into reality.

Geoff Chapple and Sir Jerry Mataparae on the viewpoint above Island Bay

The idea of a track along the length of New Zealand is not new. In the 1950s Sir Alfred Reed walked the length (and breadth) of New Zealand, and it was one of the aims of the short-lived Walkways Commission in the 1970s. But nothing happened until Geoff Chapple wrote an article in the Sunday Star-Times newspaper in 1994 outlining his vision for a national walking trail. To get things moving, Geoff and others formed the Te Araroa Trust, and developed this into a network of regional committees who were able to recruit volunteers who gave time and effort to developing sections of the trail.

Only part of the work was physical. A huge amount of effort went into negotiating access, sorting out legal problems over land ownership, and obtaining agreements to link existing tracks controlled by local authorities and the Department of Conservation. New Zealand walking tracks have been developed piecemeal, and it required a complete change of approach to start linking them together.

In 1998 Geoff walked the whole route to test it, and posted a progress account of his travels on the internet – one of New Zealand’s earliest blogs. Gradually a crazy idea was becoming accepted, and funding followed from a variety of sources. There was never enough money, but there is now a complete, signposted route. Walking the whole trail takes three to four months, but a trickle of walkers (many from overseas) have started tackling the whole route, and numbers are growing all the time.

Te Araroa now has its own website, which includes route maps, and Geoff has compiled a handbook, A walking guide to New Zealand’s long trail, Te Araroa.

Cover of Geoff Chapple’s guidebook

Some parts of the trail are less than ideal. Property negotiation can take years, and is ongoing. In order to get the trail open, the trust board has used temporary road bypasses that connect to the next trailhead. The long-term aim, however, is to have a track that is entirely off-road. So over the next decade it is planned to continually upgrade and improve sections of the route.

Opening the Te Araroa Trail is a huge achievement. We salute Geoff Chapple and everyone who has been involved in its development.

The route of Te Araroa, the long trail