North & South, New Zealand

Today’s speaker was Goeff Budd whose talk was called North & South New Zealand. With the help of pictures Geoff had taken himself he took us on a journey starting at the tip of the North Island in a place called Russell which the first settlers inhabited and finishing in Christchurch on the East coast of the South Island. In 1840 Auckland was made the capitol of New Zealand before it was later moved to Wellington. The British settlers discovered that the Hardwood trees were great for building with until it got out of hand and was banned in1870. The North Island has many volcanos some of which still erupt from time to time and the energy from bubbling hot mud is used for power stations to provide electricity for homes.

Crossing to the South Island where most of New Zealand’s wine is made Geoff found the landscape very reminiscent of the Fiords in Norway. The mountain range is called the Southern Alps and is great for Winter sports. Invercargill is on the southern most tip of the South Island and like Dunedin has a great Scottish feel about the architecture. Geoff finished in Christchurch which suffered an earthquake in 2011 which killed 185 people and is gradually being rebuilt.