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

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

A portrait of Noda Asajiro, one of the newly added photographs in the DNZB

While the main focus of our work at Te Ara is on producing new material for the Te Ara website, there is a small group of us who also work on the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB) which, a year ago, was incorporated into Te Ara.

We celebrated the event with ‘the publication of 11 new biographies of some of the movers and shakers of this country in the last half century,’ as we announced on our blog at the time, and a number of new biographies are on their way.

Alongside this, we regularly receive images of people already in the DNZB, some of whom we have found images for, but most of whom don’t have images at all.

We have just updated 13 biographies with new images. These folk cover the gamut from early settler to aviator.

They are not all movers and shakers, but all do have interesting tales. Like world champion pedestrianist Joe Scott, who wasn’t able to escape bankruptcy even after pawning his championship belt. Or Horowhenua midwife and centenarian Hannah Retter.

Others include pioneer aerial photographer and surveyor Piet van Asch, who started the New Zealand Aerial Mapping company, and marine biologist and reviver of the Portobello Marine Laboratory, Betty Batham.

Then there’s the story of Noda Asajiro, a Japanese national whose wedding to a Ngāti Mahuta woman is said to have been presided over by the Māori king, Te Rata Mahuta Pōtatau Te Wherowhero.

As someone with an interest in the history of photography it has also been interesting to see the changes in portrait photography over the years from whaler James Jackson to architect George Allen to choirmaster Robert Parker to broadcaster Herb Mullon.

If you have photos or paintings or illustrations of anyone in the DNZB, whether they’ve already got an image or not, do please send them through because it not only improves the biographies, it makes for a fascinating time for me too.

Carmen with former MP Georgina Beyer at Parliament in 2006

At Te Ara we were saddened to hear of the passing of Carmen Rupe in Sydney. The irrepressible, flamboyant Carmen (Ngāti Maniapoto) was a ground-breaker in so many ways. In the resolutely conservative Wellington of the 1960s and 1970s she was openly and proudly transsexual – and incredibly glamorous to boot. As an entrepreneur she provided the city with a series of glittering businesses, many of them involving commercial sex. Her unswerving insistence on being exactly who she was has been an inspiration to many – especially in New Zealand’s then-fledgling transgender community.

Carmen was a loved and respected kuia of the Australian and New Zealand queer communities, spending the last 32 years in Sydney, where in recent years she was the caretaker of a community centre attached to a block of flats in Surry Hills. However, she had been ill on and off for a number of months after a fall and hip surgery, and died from kidney failure on the morning of 15 December, aged 75.

Carmen was born Trevor Rupe, one of a family of 13 from Taumarunui. After a stint in the army (where, with characteristic confidence, she lip-synched in drag at a farewell concert), she moved to Sydney, working in the sex industry and as a drag performer – including performances with a live snake. Returning to Wellington in 1967, she rented a former clothing factory in Vivian Street and opened Carmen’s International Coffee Lounge, fancifully decorated and staffed by glamorous transgender hostesses who served tea, coffee, toasted sandwiches and pastries – as well as various sexual services, which customers requested through an ingenious system of positioning their cups and saucers. ‘All my girls were boys, or had been boys at some time,’ Carmen wrote in her 1988 memoir Carmen: my life. ‘They had to be beautiful … Dress in high fashion was de rigueur.’

Her other business ventures included striptease club The Balcony, an Egyptian tearoom in Cuba Street (’I had the walls sprayed with golden sand which sparkled … a large wooden elephant from Egypt stood by the doorway’), a curio shop, a massage parlour, and a brothel in a big old house in Hataitai. Her unsuccessful 1977 bid for the Wellington mayoralty – backed by businessman Bob Jones, under the slogan ‘Get in behind’ – saw her shoot to national prominence. In 1979 Carmen returned to Sydney, where she spent the rest of her life. Last year the Sydney Morning Herald featured her in this affectionate photographic tribute and interview, where she discusses the need for facilities for the transgendered elderly.

Carmen will be much missed by her many friends and admirers. The hundreds of tributes that have appeared online in the last day describe her as a ‘transgender goddess’, a ‘legend’, ‘the showgirl of all showgirls’ and a ‘GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] icon’. One thing is for sure: she was a pioneer and a role model for many. Moe mai ra e te kahurangi, moe mai ra.

Ōhura's main street, 2011

Te Ara’s new entry on the King Country is the last of the major regional entries to be published – only Stewart Island and the off-shore islands remain. Te Ara’s encyclopedic map of the North and South islands is now complete.

It seems fitting that the King Country should be the last: it’s off the well-beaten track of State Highway 1, has no cities and no official regional identity, being part of the Waikato and Manawatū-Whanganui regional councils. It’s also popularly associated with Taranaki in the west. However, as the entry attempts to assert, the King Country musters a good argument for regional independence and a cultural and historical identity distinct from these places.

Te Rohe Pōtae (King country) boundaries, 1880s

The English name ‘King Country’ refers to the period in which the Māori King Tāwhiao lived in Ngāti Maniapoto territory after the Waikato wars and land confiscations. He lived in various places within region from 1864 until not long before his death in 1894. Māori referred to the area as Te Rohe Pōtae – the area of the hat. The story goes that King Tāwhiao threw his hat onto a map of the North Island to mark independent Māori territory. Because of this, you could make the argument that Waikato is the true ‘King Country’.

Te Rohe Pōtae hat monument

When I told someone I was writing about the King Country and relayed the story behind its name, they told me they’d always believed it referred to the British king. I don’t know how common this belief is, but I hope Te Ara’s King Country entry will help to reinstate King Tāwhiao in the minds of those who hold this mistaken belief! You can read more about this topic here.

I think the King Country’s 19th century history is what makes the region so fascinating and distinct, but the entry is about more than Māori-European relations in that period. It covers the natural environment – landforms, plants and animals – major elements of the regional economy and its arts, culture and heritage, among other things. The section on the places of the King Country takes readers on a virtual tour of the region, from the beautiful west coast right down to National Park in the volcanic zone, including the region’s three major towns, Ōtorohanga, Te Kūiti and Taumarunui. As I discovered, the mining township of Benneydale is sadly neglected in the published and on-line literature, so it has been great to add a little information about this place.

If you haven’t before, I suggest you take a left or right off State Highway 1 next time you’re driving up the North Island and travel through the King Country instead – hopefully having read the entry first!