Now before anyone startes calling me names, this is an honest question.

I know our friends Down Under's ancestors were hand picked by British judges, but have absolutely no idea how the whites managed to get to New Zealand.

Some whites used to get flogged pretty often in Australia so they left and went over there for the quite life. Left the bloody Bledisloe Cup behind, and have been bitching to get their hands on it permently ever since!

What you are saying is, the Aussies, who have been rejected by Queen and Country, decided that some of them are not fit to live on Australia.

So you, in turn, rejected them?

Hi Saeed

To compress the history of NZ into a few sentences:

The Maori people came to NZ from the Pacific islands about 1000 years ago. (in canoes � BIG ones)

Before 1840, there weren�t many Europeans here � just a few traders, sealers, and whalers. No Pom convicts � they were sent to Australia.

In the late 1830s, an Englishman named Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his brothers set up a private company � The New Zealand Company - to colonise NZ. The first of these settlers arrived in early 1840. About the same time, the British government got worried that the French might have their eyes on NZ as a colony, and that the NZ Company was going to rip-off the Maori. They sent a delegation to strike a deal with the Maori, which was formalised by the Treaty of Waitangi. The �guts� of the treaty was that NZ became a British country, with Queen Victoria as the head of state, the Maori became British subjects, and they were only allowed to sell land through the Crown (i.e. the government) so that they didn�t get fleeced by unscrupulous settlers.

That sounds all nice and cosy, but it didn�t work out quite so well in practice. Though it wasn�t too bad compared with how most of the western super-powers of the last few centuries �colonised� other parts of the world. English settlers went to various parts of the country in the latter half of the 19th century. A number of Scottish settlers went to the lower part of the South Island � it used to be the saying that the city of Dunedin was more Scottish than Scotland. More Scots went to the northern part of the North Island, as did some Dalmatians. (people, not spotted dogs!) A lot of Dutch people emigrated here after WWII.

Before the Europeans arrived, the only mammals in the country were a species of dog and a species of rat. The early settlers brought in sheep, cattle, pigs, goats, various species of deer, Himalayan tahr, European chamois, hares, rabbits, and possums and wallabies from Australia. They didn�t realise what a snowball they were rolling - red deer, goats, rabbits and possums in particular found the country very much to their liking, and proliferated in plague proportions.

There�s a LOT more I could write, but it�s getting late, so I�ll stop here � hope this gives you a tiny insight to the history of the country. I�ll be happy to tell you more, later, if you are interested.

Red

I watched a doco on DNA testing the Maori people and the boffens reckon that they can trace back their origins to the people of Taiwan, well at least the women. The males DNA showed links to Papua New Guinea.

My forebears arrived in a sailing ship .
The DNA results for the Maori certainly do show a link to hill tribes in Taiwan , as I expect they do for all Polynesian people . As a personal generalisation Maori , Cook Islanders and Hawaiians are all from the same basic origins as Polynesians , probably a few other nationalities as well . I dont beleive the great Maori migration all came from the same island in the Pacific , rather a selection of islands , hence the variation in human shape that you find amongst todays Maori people.
The Kiwi bird , on the other hand , evolved over time due to a lack of need to fly in a predator free land with no people or mammals to eat it .

RedRover;

Thanks for the brief history lesson.

In all of my travels the most enjoyable people as a whole I have ever met were Aussies and Kiwis. Funloving, out going, good sense of humor, and real down to earth generous.

I just hope I get to see both Oz and NZ before it is time to punch my ticket out of this Zoo called earth.

Cheers and Good shooting
seafire

Get on a plane Seafire,BA will put you up in his gunroom.