Dark Carnival

Excess on the South Island

After nearly three weeks of traveling around New Zealand, Jennifer and I were asking each other: “Where's the dark side?”

Everywhere we went, most of the New Zealanders we saw seemed happy and satisfied. Most looked you in the eye, and when they wished you good day, they seemed to mean it.

And how could you not have a pretty good day, every day, in a country with so much space, so many resources, so much natural beauty, and a progressive-minded people who fund parks and libraries and public toilets in every city and little town?

But every body politic must have its own less attractive features. Where is New Zealand's arsehole?

We seemed to have stumbled across it on our way back home.

It's Queenstown—a horrid little burg, made all the more horrid by contrast with its spectacular setting and the with the charming remnants of its history.

Queenstown has a claim to fame as the original home of bungee-jumping. That may seem a harmless, simple-minded cheap thrill—but carnival-style advertisements for such cheap thrills pervade every block of the city's centre.

So we found when we drove in on a breezy Monday afternoon. Honking traffic was backed up everywhere, amidst a lung-burning miasma of petrol and diesel. Tour buses and concrete trucks groaned loudly on their way up the surrounding hills. We stepped out of the car and walked around a few blocks.

“It's kind of like Coney Island in New York,” I said, looking at the ubiquitous signs advertising thrill rides and lowbrow entertainment.

Then I noticed how the KFC and the McDonald's and the Pizza Hut—which would stand out like sore thumbs in many other places in New Zealand—fit right in with architecture and signage here. I tried out another comparison.

“Or like that street in London, you know the unbelievably tacky...”

“Carnaby Street.” Jennifer finished the thought for me.

Then I remembered the low-quality residential construction we saw on the ride in—spreading, with no evidence of planning or foresight, up the hillsides all the way around town. Now I was looking up at it through the putrid air.

Or like the less tony parts of L.A., I thought.

We walked past some old, charming houses, remnants of what must have once been a tidy, well-kept little lakeside town. We went to the city park and watched a few elderly hangers-on at the lawn bowling club.

Then we walked across town, passing the cemetery—now apparently the back nine for a miniature golf course—and a sideshow promising tours of a “Maori hunting village.” We came to the gondola ride.

A few minutes and NZ $34 later, we were sitting in the mountaintop bar. It was a nice place to sip an NZ $12 martini. A rainbow arced above the Remarkable Mountains. (They are.) Nearer by, we looked down at dry, as-yet unspoiled slopes on the opposite shore of the lake. We began to relax a little and to dope out what had happened here.

The ski promoters must have come first. Then, to keep things moving in the off-season, they added attractions like whitewater rafting and jetboating to supplement the lake tours. Pretty soon the place became a thrill-seekers mecca, and with the bungee-jumping and helicopter rides, things began to spin out of control.

Then the real-estate development boom took off, and now the town's economy is based on growth as much as tourism. The folks who put the “queenslandproperties.com” advertisements on the side of every city bus are mining the developable land in much the same way as timber might be cut down, or silver dug out of the ground: No one expects it will eventually run out, and when it does, the boom days will be over. The speculators will cash out and leave the new residents to clean up the mess.

We took the gondola back down and walked back across town along the lakefront. The sunset (around 9:15 pm here at this time of year) was reflected in the crystal clear water. We took a chance on a Japanese restaurant. A table of loudmouthed middle-aged American drunks (on holiday from San Francisco, we soon heard) finally staggered off into the night. Then we were the only non-Japanese in the place, and we had a delightful meal.

In many ways, New Zealand retains an innocence that reminds me of 1960s America: an innocence expressed in the idea that there will always be enough space, enough so that progress can continue unplanned and unabated, with the consequences to be dealt with later.

Back home in the Bay Area, “later” has already arrived, and those who care about our landscape and our towns now strive to save the last remnants of charm and civility—and perhaps to create a new, more livable landscape out of the sprawl and aging infrastructure.

It's a challenge I like. In fact, I'd rather work with the palette of an already-urbanized landscape.

But here in Queenstown, looking at what might of been, and what is rapidly being lost forever, I can't help but grieve.

Text, images, design, CSS all by Dan Cloak. Comments? email me!