Aotearoa

As a break from reporting on our adventures, I thought I'd place an educational interlude in. I hope you don't mind!

You're probably aware that the natives of New Zealand are the Maoris. The Maoris are a Polynesian people and the Maori name for NZ is Aotearoa. NZ is the southwest corner of what is called the Polynesian Triangle, which is all of the lands founded and settled by the Polynesians over many centuries.





If you look at the two pictures you can see that the area includes thousands of kilometers of open ocean. It still boggles the mind how Polynesian sailors covered these vast distances without even knowing what they would find after their long journeys.

But the main thing that fascinates me is that, of all these tiny islands spread all across the Pacific, New Zealand was the LAST part to be discovered. This amazes me for two big reasons: first, NZ is clearly the biggest island(s) in the area (I'm not certain, but I would venture that it's bigger than all the rest of the Polynesian islands put together); second, it's actually relatively close to where the Polynesians began their migrations thousands of years ago.

To think that the Polynesians went and discovered the Hawaiian Islands and, even more amazingly, Easter Island (Rapa Nui) hundreds of years before they discovered NZ is astonishing. NZ wasn't discovered until between 800 and 1100 AD, so it's only been populated for around a thousand years. Also bear in mind that Easter Island is the MOST remote place on the planet, with nothing around it for over 1,500 miles in every direction.

After New Zealand, we are heading back to Tahiti, where we went for honeymoon in 2004. After that it's onto Easter Island. To get to these places, we have to take flights that last 4-6 hours each from NZ to Tahiti to Easter Island to Chile. And to think that these intrepid Polynesian explorers covered all this sea in open boats centuries ago is truly impressive.