Buckle in for a three-day trip you'll never forget and one that traces the steps of indigenous moa across the South Island landscape. Photo / 123rf
Buckle in for a three-day trip you'll never forget and one that traces the steps of indigenous moa across the South Island landscape. Photo / 123rf
Ever thought about a themed trip of New Zealand?
... That's a ridiculous idea, you protest!
Really? Have you seen The Masked Singer? Even the people making it thought it was nuts. So, what could our NZ-themed trip for travellers be - squid? Hmmm, that game sounds dangerous. Orca? Too elusive. Let's keep it indigenous and go moa.
Welcome to "Flightless Tours", a completely fanciful tour group, imagined in ode to our largest flightless bird. Buckle in for a three-day trip you'll never forget. It's completely self-led and you'll have to provide your own commentary, but if it's moa you're after, it's moa you'll get.
First off, load a few cases of Moa beer into the boot, grab a copy of Quinn Berentson's superb book 'Moa: The Life and Death of New Zealand's Legendary Bird', chuck some Moana and the Moa Hunters on the car stereo and hit the highway.
Day one: Dunedin - Omakau
You'll kick your journey off in Dunedin and head straight to the wonderful Otago Museum. There you'll find a comprehensive collection of articulated moa skeletons and brush up on your moa facts: there were nine moa species and they ranged in height from about 1.5m to 3.6m. The smallest, the bush moa, was about the size of a turkey. Some moa laid eggs the size of rugby balls, which seems apt.
You'll find a comprehensive collection of articulated moa skeletons at Otago Museum. Photo / DunedinNZ
You'll also learn that moa remains and souvenirs were a commodity in early New Zealand; Māori traded bones for cash and Julius von Haast traded skeletons for exotics like giraffes and elephants. Of course, Haast also gave his name to the moa's only natural predator (before humans got stuck in), the ginormous Haast's eagle (pouākai).
Otago Museum also has the only moa footprints ever discovered in the South Island. Six prints were dug out of the Kyeburn River in the Maniototo. (If you're feeling adventurous - and the river's running low - you could add it to the itinerary to see if you can spot the one they left behind.)
For tonight's wind-down, it's off to your first night's accommodation at the historic Ōmakau Commercial Hotel at Moa Creek.
As you drift into slumber, reflect on the fact that way before moa roamed these valleys, there were crocodiles up to 3m long also hanging about, though we are going back 16 to 19 million years.
Before beer and bros, Moa roamed the valleys that surround Omakau Commercial Hotel. Photo / Tourism Central Otago / James Jubb
Day two: Cromwell - Arthur's Pass
There's ground to cover today, starting with a 40-minute drive to Cromwell.
The Cromwell Museum has a fine collection of moa bones to inspect. Following that, we'd usually suggest a visit to Gunn's Camp, near Milford Sound too, but some bugger broke in and stole their moa bones recently. Guess you could say he took flight with the goods. (The Government has legislation in the pipeline to outlaw the trade in extinct species like the moa, so this kind of ratbaggery will hopefully be disincentivised in future).
With Gunn's off the tour, it's up the West Coast for drinks at The Moa Bar at Franz Josef (keep an eye out for the twin moa statues there), followed by a scenic drive into Arthur's Pass and dinner at The Crafty Moa Eatery. The topic at dinner tonight? De-extinction, good or bad? Should we try and bring back the moa? Scientists believe it will be possible. A team at Harvard University has assembled the first nearly complete genome of the little bush moa, using a toe bone. They say it's not a matter of if, but when. Which will also solve the puzzle of what came first, the moa or the egg. In this case, it will be the DNA.
This subject is prompted by the fact your dining room is actually in the famous Bealey Hotel (established 1865). In 1993 the proprietor of this very hotel claimed he'd spotted a moa running around in the Craigieburn Range. The chap's name was Paddy Freaney and he swore on a glass of Guinness it wasn't a hoax - and whoever accused an Irishman of a tall story? The experts weren't so sure. They reckon there hasn't been a moa on the hoof - er, claw - in Aotearoa since about 1550.
Day three: Arthurs Pass - Christchurch
Before we call this a wrap, we recommend you end your moa pilgrimage in Christchurch. A two-hour drive southwest from Arthur's Pass.
Take a ride on the Christchurch Gondola and check out their Time Tunnel ride, featuring Hine-Moa the moa. Then, it's on to Canterbury Museum. There, in the depths of its exhibits, an old poet will emerge to read his words:
"The skeleton of the moa on iron crutches Broods over no great waste; a private swamp Was where this tree grew feathers once, that hatches Its dusty clutch, and guards them from the damp … "
His voice fades but then the last few lines echo through the galleries: "Not I, some child born in a marvellous year will learn the trick of standing upright here."
The poem is by Allen Curnow and called, appropriately enough, "The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch".
Canterbury Museum features a poem by Allen Curnow called "The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch". Photo / ChristchurchNZ
Perhaps, he wonders, we can learn something from the demise of the moa: the trick of how we exist together on this land, to adapt, to cast off the old irons of colonialism and learn to survive as one people.
See, and you thought this was just a frivolous, lightweight lark around the countryside. No, wherever we go in this beautiful land, we should remember the lessons of the moa and carry them forward into the future.
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