Kiwi Tracks: A New Zealand Journey

by Andrew Stevenson

Release Date: September, 1999

Edition: Paperback

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funny, insightful, a really good read

After reading his previous book, Annapurna Circuit, I was curious to read what the author would write about New Zealand. Having been to NZ nine times myself, I was almost reluctant to read this book, thinking it would be a disappointment. I mean, how could it live up to my own experiences in New Zealand? It was better than my expectations. Kiwi Tracks is a travelogue based on four months trekking. Lovely descriptive passages of tramping through the rainforest, some funny scenes where you laugh out loud, and some personal insights that keep you turning the pages. So many of his experiences I could relate to. Although there are criticims he makes, he captures the country and people with insight. I loved his Annapurna Circuit and this book is definitely not a disappointment.

Where is New Zealand heading?

I very much recommend Andrew Stevenson's "Kiwi Tracks," equally well for those who do and do not know personally New Zealand's natural and cultural landscape and her Great Walks. I myself fall somewhat in between these categories - having explored the South Island only, during some six visits in the last 20 years, always tramping, always in awe.

He tells well how the Great Walks (the term had not existed in my early tramps) have turned from a few persons in lonely huts to nearly hundreds of packed-in campers on solo or guided tours -in just a few short decades. Also his South Island walks were unusually impaired by a massive snow storm and so come across a bit off-putting.

Stevenson gave me the best-yet view of what I have been missing in the North Island ("away from the Mainland," as he quips).

Overall, his book is a beautiful, honest, and detailed travel narrative (thank goodness for someone taking the time to name by name the many fauna and flora experienced). But it is markedly canted by his own ah, delicate emotional state during the journey. The book's dust jacket warns us: "... whatever you have in your rucksack, the heaviest baggage is what you carry inside." Stevenson's emotional center of mass during his trip clearly is located a bit outside himself and he is prone to tip over emotionally during the journey. His honesty about this both hurts and helps the narrative - it does give the reader a reference point: The author is working hard to discover that which is truly important to himself in his journey, as well as puzzling over that same question for New Zealand - the colonist vs. native Maori views of national politics, natural heritage, and future directions.

While relating the pristine and inutterably amazing natural beauty of this land, not the least being the almost inconceivable human innocence and generosity of its citizens, he gives us a tutorial in NZ's basic dilemma. When he asks a fellow tramper to quote the best and worst of his travels: [I paraphrase] "The worst is to see the landscape so corrupted by commercialism so quickly." (You can guess - the bus tours, helicopters, jet boats, egregious mountain re-landscaping.) "The best is that New Zealand is still so unbelievable beautiful." This echoed within me, watching once-quiet towns transformed at the snap of a dollar into teaming Disneylands.

Stevenson shows us, by example(s), of how New Zealand transforms and helps its visitors. A German therapist suggests that tramping holds more value than health insurance premiums. I am inclined to agree.

Of the highest value to me in the book is that Stevenson gives us some great insight into the NZ national values debate (still-ongoing) contrasting (via his hitchhiker's car-cabin testimonies) the views of the progeny of the more recent Western, rough-hewn pioneers against the natural spiritualism of
Maoris, who also gave him rides, and to whom he related more. He shows us that the people of New Zealand must finally listen to the Maori, and strive to preserve their naturalist vision (in the face of adventure bungee-jumping tourism). Between the lines, he shows us that the dialog must go both ways,
especially when facing the World's money, foreign buyers and the touristic denizens of the new millennium.