Hello, North Island

Sunday, January 29, 2012

About 1.3 million people live in Auckland and surrounding suburbs. That's about 1/3 of the country. Another 1/3 of the people live on the North Island. That leaves 1/3 of the country's people living on the South Island. So we knew we would see more activity, more traffic, more towns and cities as we continued to the North Island.

We flew out of Queenstown on Friday morning, arriving in Auckland about two hours later. The evidence of more people was readily apparent as we waited for the rental car van to pick us up. We missed it the first time around and waited another half hour as he came around again. Then we waited another hour to finalize arrangements for our car. In Queenstown, the whole process took about 10 minutes. Driving out of the airport, we were greeted by a freeway leading south to Hamilton. Another evidence of a big city was heavy traffic, police pullovers, and big trucks. I think we experienced one freeway on the South Island just outside of Dunedin.

The North Island is greener and from Hamilton south we saw lush dairy and horse farms. We're still wondering where and how the farmers milk their cows. There are no big barns, but I suppose modern milking operations don't need big areas. We were told that many of them operate lazy Susan style.

Our destination on Friday was Turangi which is in the center of the North Island and about four hours driving time from Auckland. Turangi sits on the south end of Lake Taupo which is the crater of a major volcanic eruption dating back to 186 AD. It was so major that ash was distributed as far away as China.   Lake Taupo is the largest in New Zealand. We caught a glimpse of it off in the distance as we drove down from the west. We'll probably see more of it when we leave here in a week.

Turangi was more populated in the past when construction of a hydro power plant was in the works. Since it was completed, the town has shrunk in size, down to 3900 or so today. It proclaims itself as the "trout fishing capital of the world." Since I don't do much fishing, I'm not sure where all the activity is, but there are many nearby rivers feeding the big lake. We met a man named Ian, who for a fee, will take you out somewhere and get you started fishing. We met someone else in church this morning who asked if we were here to fish. He reported that "there are some other Americans out at the lake fishing."

Church was a different experience. There are only three of them listed for the town. One is Catholic, another is a combination of Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist, and the third is the Turangi Evangelical Church. We chose it but had a few reservations when we noted only two cars in the lot five minutes before the service was to begin at 10:45 this morning. We went anyway and were not disappointed. The pastor, John Campbell, greeted us and gave us the bulletin. His wife was playing the piano. There were maybe a dozen others in attendance. The service was a mix of easy traditional hymns, a Scripture reading, a couple of prayers, a 45-minute sermon and some warm welcomes at the end.

There were more visitors than members. We learned that there are only about 5 families in membership which is down considerable from the 60 or so at one time. This is probably a reflection on the times and the downturn in the size of the community. The Gospel was certainly preached and we as Lutherans appreciated that. I had a great conversation with a couple of friendly guys after the service, one of whom was a pastor from Wellington here for a holiday. A further evidence of friendliness came from the pastor's wife who invited us over to lunch. We politely declined, knowing that we have food that needs to be consumed before we hit the road on Friday.

This afternoon we took a walk along a local "track" that took us over the Tongariro River and up the opposited side to a highway bridge. We are getting ready for a major hike on Wednesday. More about that later. Suffice it to say that we have some work to do in preparation.