Original map courtesy of 'Free World Maps' - http://www.freeworldmaps.net/  We ended up (or down!) in New Zealand due to the fortitude of some adventurous British, Irish and Manx ancestors. Some of these people themselves were descendants of Scandinavian or European migrants many centuries earlier but this north to southern hemisphere migration was like no other. Just looking at this map and the huge amount of water makes one appreciate what a massive undertaking it must have been to up sticks and sail in a wooden bucket to a literally unknown country at the "bottom of the world" (see The Longest Journey). Could they swim? I wonder if they ever thought about it? What were our ancestors expecting to find when they finally got here after a three or four month journey? There were no palaces and no parliament. No schools, shopping centres, housing estates or paved roads. No Kiwi accent! Cities, townships and restaurants didn't exist. What would they eat, from where would they get food, where would they live? What foods grew in this southern hemisphere? What strange animals prowled the land? And what about the long-time inhabitants of the country, the fierce Maori people? Would they be friendly? Were they cannibals? Would they kill them in their beds as they slept? It was a heck of a long way to go back if you didn't like it. Kiwis have wanderlust; it's in our genes. Why is that? Is it because we come from "immigrant stock", because our forebears sailed into the great unknown? Literally as soon as we can, we do the "Big OE" and leave this little piece of Paradise to go see the bright lights of Europe and the Americas. Our ancestors got here the hard way and built up this country to make a good life for us, their descendants. We leave to go find our roots in the "mother country", even if we're several generations removed from it. Will we ever stop being the Kiwis that fly?  |
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World map: Countries of our ancestors |