Unsweet Spirits. Manuka, Leptospermum scoparium, and Northern Capes, North Island, New Zealand
The weather was awfully glum with mists and low clouds and spatterings of rain. Now and then a bit of less gray. But there I was anyway on the very northern coasts of New Zealand's North Island. It's a really remote area and wild with steep inclines, sheer cliffs, long sandy beaches. And wild vegetation among which lots of Manuka, Leptospermum scoparium. Usually the flowers are white, but occasionally they're pink, such as this one.
Interestingly, Manuka honey - now so much on the tongue of health-food junkies - was not much eaten by the Maoris. But they did use Manuka shrubs and plants for various other purposes. Manuka honey didn't become a sought after agricultural product until European Honeybees were introduced here in the early nineteenth century.
Both insets were taken more or less from the same vantage point.
The righthand inset shows the lighthouse of Cape Reinga - Te Rerenga Wairu. It's one of the Maori's most revered places because this is where human spirits are thought to return to their Traditional Homeland. Much in the way and terminology of - say - the natives of the Cook Islands and other Polynesians as well. See my earlier www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/40645429071/in/photoli....
On the left is another northern cape of New Zealand. First European to sight it was of course Abel Tasman (1603-1659). He named it after that indefatigable woman Maria van Aelst (?-1674), wife of Tasman's patron, the governor of the Dutch East Indies, Antonio van Diemen (1593-1645). She was a force to be reckoned with and remade the governor's mansions at Batavia (now Jakarta) and Bogor (Buitenzorg) in a grand style. Moreover she had a way with men - she was widowed several times and happily remarried. No doubt our Abel had also been mightily impressed by her. Hence Cape Maria van Diemen.
Unsweet Spirits. Manuka, Leptospermum scoparium, and Northern Capes, North Island, New Zealand
The weather was awfully glum with mists and low clouds and spatterings of rain. Now and then a bit of less gray. But there I was anyway on the very northern coasts of New Zealand's North Island. It's a really remote area and wild with steep inclines, sheer cliffs, long sandy beaches. And wild vegetation among which lots of Manuka, Leptospermum scoparium. Usually the flowers are white, but occasionally they're pink, such as this one.
Interestingly, Manuka honey - now so much on the tongue of health-food junkies - was not much eaten by the Maoris. But they did use Manuka shrubs and plants for various other purposes. Manuka honey didn't become a sought after agricultural product until European Honeybees were introduced here in the early nineteenth century.
Both insets were taken more or less from the same vantage point.
The righthand inset shows the lighthouse of Cape Reinga - Te Rerenga Wairu. It's one of the Maori's most revered places because this is where human spirits are thought to return to their Traditional Homeland. Much in the way and terminology of - say - the natives of the Cook Islands and other Polynesians as well. See my earlier www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/40645429071/in/photoli....
On the left is another northern cape of New Zealand. First European to sight it was of course Abel Tasman (1603-1659). He named it after that indefatigable woman Maria van Aelst (?-1674), wife of Tasman's patron, the governor of the Dutch East Indies, Antonio van Diemen (1593-1645). She was a force to be reckoned with and remade the governor's mansions at Batavia (now Jakarta) and Bogor (Buitenzorg) in a grand style. Moreover she had a way with men - she was widowed several times and happily remarried. No doubt our Abel had also been mightily impressed by her. Hence Cape Maria van Diemen.