Land of the Long White Cloud

The Maoris call New Zealand Aotearoa, which can be translated in English to Land of the Long White Cloud. It's a beautiful image really. We really didn't know what it meant until we'd already been here for a few weeks. In Dunedin, the clouds are everywhere. Like a constantly changing and unpredictable dimension to the city, they gather everywhere, form quickly, hide parts of the city, change shape, break up, and then disappear again. It's as if the city is evolving and changing all the time. Maps are useless here.

This photo is taken from our house, looking across the Wakari valley toward Dunedin. Do you see the thick white band of cloud?




Sometimes we drive from bright sunlight into a thick rolling bank of clouds. I hold my breath.

Half the time, clouds hide the top of Mount Cargill, which rises into the sky north of Dunedin like a bright green cone. It disappears. In fact, when we first flew in over Dunedin, the only thing we could see (although we didn't know then what we were looking at) was the top of Mount Cargill, its television transmitter sticking up mysteriously through the carpet of clouds below it.

Sometimes, in the afternoons, when the temperatures start to drop, clouds move in from the sea and fill all the valleys, marching into the mouth of the harbor, slipping over the city. It happens so quickly, you can sit and watch the clouds advancing, across roads, swallowing up cars, houses, and schools full of dirty foul-mouthed little feral children (it's true). It's like a bad 1950s B-movie: Attack of the Killer Clouds!!

Last Wednesday, we walked across Logan Park by the university to our second wine appreciation class (French, Italian, and Spanish: It was a frenzy). Between one part of town and another was a huge white solid-looking wedge of cloud. Immovable. It was like a building.



I've watched the clouds gather a couple of times now, filling the cooling valleys that sit between the sunny hills, and it always reminds me of scenery clouds being brought on stage, sliding smoothly into place on well-lubricated pulleys. Yesterday, we sat in our living room and watched a thunderstorm pass across the Wakari valley. Afterward, the sun came out, and between the trees on the hill below us, just behind our backyard, the clouds were rolling and churning and moving so quickly that they looked more like smoke. Ten minutes later, they were gone.

I suspect witchcraft of some kind. Maybe the neighbors, who seem to watch the TV 20-hours a day. Emeline thinks, perhaps, Hobbits are responsible. (ck)