The Dead Possums Society, and other Napier stories

[major_clanger]

bugshaw and I are now in Napier, taking a brief respite from geothermal bubblings to admire Art Deco extravagance instead. [This is what happens when an earthquake flattens your town in 1931 and you decide to rebuild completely in the design vogue of the day. Good job it wasn't 1971, B notes.]

Weirdest thing seen today: Possum World. This is a museum-cum-shop dedicated to the Opossum, or more accurately the New Zealand campaign to exterminate the little blighters. Possums were imported from Australia a century ago in a misguided effort to create a fur trade, and now constitute NZ's worst pest problem. There are something like 70 million of them now, eating tens of thousands of tons of foliage a week, and devastating the local ecology. As a result, even the most mild-mannered, tree-hugging vegan New Zealander's reaction to seeing a possum is to run screaming at it with the nearest blunt implement. More bizarrely still, to our sensibilities, possum fur is actually seen as politically correct, as every item made from it equates to several dead possums. Possum World milks this theme to the full, with little dioramas (of stuffed possums!) showing their breeding cycle, their habit of eating anything and everything, and Fifteen Fun Ways To Kill One. After walking round this shrine to possum genocide, you emerge into a shop full of possum skins, possum fur hats, possum fur slippers, possum fur antistatic monitor wipes (yes, really) and, um, basically possum fur everything. B and I emerged with our heads rather warped from the whole experience. No, we didn't buy anything, but I'll do my bit for the NZ environment by trying to run over any possums I see...

Spent the rest of the day in the Napier museum (lots of good stuff on the 1931 quake and Art Deco, and a fascinating exhibition by NZ painter Don Binney. Then to the NZ National Aquarium, with a wide variety of local marine fauna, plus a distinctly non-marine (but very NZ) kiwi. Gosh, they're a lot bigger than you expect... and very messy eaters. Then out for a nice meal in a local tapas bar, finished off with a stunning double rainbow over Hawke's Bay.

More soon, hopefully with pictures.

Belated Season's Greetings

MC

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

It's worth taking out the stoats, too...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Hope you're not affected by the recent earthquakes? News is still a little sketchy about the extent of the damage around the Indo-Australian plate region. We fear, geographically, that A C Clarke's home may have been engulfed... :-(

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

...and on further thinking, as you seem to be going to places we didn't, maybe a shared photo session when you get back?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Well, it's the domimant story in the news, but no actual effect where we are (we have much of the SE Asia archipelago in the way, and are on the east-facing coast of NZ right now). But yes, a bit scary, seeing as how much we have seen of earthquake and volcanic destruction around here!

MC

[headgardener.livejournal.com]

Glad you're having a good time in Middle Earth. But the Australasian possums are not 'opossums' -- opossums are the American marsupial tree-rats. Cheers.