Saturday and have spent a very enjoyable few days in the nation's
capital. After a couple of weeks in the countryside its been a nice
change to be in a big city again.
We've continued our tour of the world's government buildings with a
visit to the NZ parliament, which is made up of a mixture of classical
and modern architectural styles, the latter embodied in the famous
'bee-hive' building. There are lots of similarities to the UK and
Australian parliaments, except that the kiwis did away with the upper
house in the fifties as it didn't add much value and cost too much to
run!
We've also been to a few museums, including the excellent Te Papa, and
popped into the National Archives which house the Waitangi Treaty,
which was signed between the British and the Maoris in 1840.
Apparently there have been long disputes about how the Treaty was
implemented, but overall there seems to be a lot more integration here
than with the Aborigines in Australia. Before this trip we assumed
that the Maoris and the Aborigines were more or less the same, but
that is far from the case. The Maoris arrived in NZ about 800 years
ago, but the Aborigines have been in Oz for 50,000 years and were
pretty much cut off from the rest of the world for most of that time.
That lengthy isolation may have something to do with their desire to
maintain their traditional way of life.
Anyway, that's enough history lessons for one blog! We're managing to
have some fun as well, and have enjoyed eating and drinking our way
round the city. Tomorrow I'm off on another LOTR trip, while June gets
her hair cut and no doubt enjoys a few hours peace and quiet!
1 comment:
LOTR !!!
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