The music to come out of the small island country of New Zealand is as eclectic, varied and unique as the people themselves. Influenced by rock, pop, jazz, blues, hip-hop and the Maori people, New Zealand’s music inevitably gets its own creative kiwi interpretation.

Here are ten tracks, some well-known, others not so much, to give some insight into what musicians in the antipodean nation have produced.

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10 Keith Urban “Blue Ain’t Your Color”

“Blue looks good on the sky
Looks good on that neon buzzin’ on the wall
But darling, it don’t match your eyes
I’m tellin’ you
You don’t need that guy
It’s so black and white
He’s stealin’ your thunder
Baby, blue ain’t your color”

Keith Urban is a New Zealand born country singer who released his self-titled debut album in Australia in in 1991, before moving to the US the following year. First working as a session musician in Nashville, Urban formed a band, “The Ranch”, who released one album and charted two singles before breaking up.

Urban released his solo debut album in 1999. The second single “Your Everything” made him the first New Zealand male performer to reach the Top 10 in the American Country Musicchart.

At the 48th Grammy awards, he earned his first Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for the song “You’ll Think Of Me”. To date he has released 11 studio albums and has had 20 Number 1 singles on the US Billboard Country Chart , with over 40 tunes making it into the Top 10. .

“Blue Ain’t Your Color” was the fourth single off Urban’s eighth studio album “Ripcord” and has proved to be his biggest single to date. It spent 12 weeks at Number 1 on the Hot Country Chart and earned the country singer American Music Awards for Favorite Male Country Artist, Favorite Country Song and Favorite Country Album.

Urban is also known for his roles as a coach for one season on the Australian version of the singing competition “The Voice” and as a judge for four seasons on “American Idol”. The popularity of these shows increased his profile across a wider segment of the television audience.^[1]

9 Flight of the Conchords “Ladies of the World”

“Oh you sexy hermaphrodite lady-man-ladies
With your sexy lady bits
And your sexy man bits too
Even you must be in to you
All the ladies in the world
I wanna’ get next to you
Show you some gratitude”

Comedic Kiwi duo Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie formed The Flight of the Conchords after meeting at Victoria University in Wellington.

After doing the rounds of various comedy circuits and festivals, the BBC commissioned a six-part radio show starring the duo, which first aired on BBC Radio Two in Sept 2005. The series followed The Conchords in their capacity as “New Zealand’s fourth-best folk guitar-based jazz, techno, hip-hop duo”, trying to break into the music scene in England. Their manager, Brian (played by Rhys Darby), made regular calls to Neil Finn (see Crowded House and Split Enz) who played a patient mentor and advisor, giving advice on how to succeed in the music industry in England. Comedian Jimmy Carr also featured throughout in the series, playing a passionate fan called Kipper.

This was followed by the quirky HBO series, that ran for two seasons. Along the lines of the radio show, the plot revolved around a fictional version of the comedic duo as they try to achieve success as a two-piece folk band in New York City.

The popularity of both the radio show and the HBO series saw the band release their “The Distant Future” EP in2007. Rolling Stone magazine scathingly dismissed the EP as “a souvenir of the show” and being “hard to imagine wanting to play it over and over”. However, in Feb 2008, Flight of the Conchords became the first non-American act to win Comedy Grammy. This was an achievement that put them alongside legends of comedy such as The Smothers Brothers and National Lampoon.

For Bret McKenzie, more musical success came in 2012 when he won an Academy Award for the best original song in a film. The song ‘Man or Muppet’ was one of four he contributed to the 2011 feature film “The Muppets”. Amongst many other acting roles, Jemaine Clement went on to voice the psychopathic cockatoo Nigel in the hit movie ”Rio”, also writing and performing the awesome track “Pretty Bird”.^[2]

8 Hayley Westenra “Who Painted the Moon Black?”

Did you see how hard I’ve tried?
Not to show the pain inside
Just as you walked away from me
Who painted the moon black?
Just when you passed your love back
Who painted the moon black?

First reaching international attention as a teenager, classically trained singer Hayley Westenra released the cross-over album “Pure” in 2003. The album went on to be certified 12x platinum in New Zealand, double platinum in the UK and platinum in Australia. “Pure” went straight to Number 1 in the UK classical music chart, and entered the pop charts at a respectable number 8.

The album itself was an eclectic mix of classical, hymns, cheesy light Euro pop and re-worked traditional Maori songs.

Promoted by a somewhat cringeworthy video of the singer grooving uncomfortably in front of a green-screen, “Who Painted The Moon Black” appeared more like a New Zealand tourism commercial. Unflattering video aside, the album remains fastest selling classical debut album of all time.^[3]

7 OMC “How Bizarre”

“Destination unknown, as we pull in for some gas
Freshly pasted poster reveals a smile from the past
Elephants and acrobats, lions, snakes, monkey
Pele speaks “righteous, ” Sister Zina says “funky”
How bizarre
How bizarre, how bizarre”

Outside of New Zealand, OMC’s 1995 track “How Bizarre” is generally regarded as a one ‘hit wonder’. The infectious pop-rap single from OMC (in full the Otara Millionaire’s Club, a tongue-n-cheek reference to their humble beginnings in one of NZ’s poorest suburb) was featured on their debut album of the same name.

The song appeared on US Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart and went on to spend 36 weeks their Hot 100 airplay charts, peaking at number 4. It also featured in music charts in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland and throughout Europe. It reached number five in the UK, and it made the Top 10 in popular music charts everywhere from Portugal to Israel.

Record label owner, Simon Grigg, described OMC’s unique sound as being a fusion of the mishmash of sounds that New Zealanders are exposed to. It’s the classic Kiwi strum meets punk rock meets disco meets a South Pacific beach party meets classic soul meets reggae and everything in between.” It culminated in a song that “was everywhere. It was so huge. New Zealanders don’t realise how massive it was. It was such a ubiquitous radio record. It was the number one radio record in New York City that year – bigger than the Spice Girls.”

While OMC went on to find some further international success, they never stormed the charts to such an extent as “How Bizarre” had done, resulting in the song being listed as the 71st greatest one-hit wonder of all time by VH1. Sadly, charismatic frontman Pauly Fuemana died in 2010, aged just 40, due to complications from a rare neurological disorder.^[4]

6 Shihad “Comfort Me”

“Back up, evolution here
All the sick fucks being born to kill
They just need someone to tell them they’re safe again
They all need someone to tell them that somebody cares
What have we become
Could you comfort me, comfort me?
The whole world’s come undone
Could you comfort me, comfort me?“

For me personally, picking a favourite Shihad track is like picking a favourite bag of potato chips – many are favourites, most I genuinely like and only a rare few do I turn away from. Shihad put on a high energy, tight sounding, engaging show and have put out some very solid albums in their almost 30 years together.

Formed in the late-1980’s, Shihad were a well-established rock act throughout New Zealand and Australia. Through the festival circuit, they were also gaining a foothold in Europe. Off the back of their critically acclaimed fourth album “The General Electric”, many in the music industry felt that they were poised for commercial success in the lucrative Americal market, but then the Sept 11 terrorist attacks occurred. “Impeccable timing,” singer Jon Toogood later commented. “All the ducks were lined up. Then the war happened – in 2001 the name Shihad wasn’t going to fly.”

The band had chosen their name after seeing David Lynch’s 1984 cult classic film ‘Dune’, which repeatedly uses the Islamic term ‘Jihad’. Founding member and drummer, Tom Larkin, explains that “When we were 15, we were all into this sci-fi movie Dune. See, Dune uses all these Arabic words throughout the movie and the end battle is a Jihad. We were stupid and thought it’d be a great name for a band so we called ourselves Shihad ’cause we couldn’t even spell it.”

In the wake of the terror attacks, the band’s American record company and management pressured them to change their name and reluctantly, they became “Pacifier”. Unfortunately, in the tense and uncertain political climate, the timing was off and commercial success evaded the band. Two years later, they became Shihad once more.

In 2012, the band released a 102-minute long documentary “Beautiful Machine”. Described as “a wild ride from anonymity to being the next ‘It’ band, and into the present day, Shihad: Beautiful Machine is an unflinching look at the elusive reality of a true rock dream.”

Although they have yet to achieve the acclaim that many might have expected, after thirty years and nine solid albums, fans are hopeful that Shihad will keep on rocking, putting on their legendary shows for the next generation of fans. Who knows, with a little luck and better timing, they might just achieve the success and acclaim that they so rightfully deserve.^[5]

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5 Shona Laing “(Glad I’m) Not A Kennedy

“The family tree is felled
Bereavement worn so well
Giving up on certainty
Wilderness society

Wearing the fame like a loaded gun
Tied up with a rosary
I’m glad I’m not a Kennedy”

Songstress Shona Laing found fame in New Zealand as a teenager in the early 1970’s when she finished runner-up in a television talent show. Perhaps Laing’s most well known song “(Glad I’m) Not A Kennedy” was released twice, first from her 1985 album “Genre”, then re-mixed and re-released on her album “South” two years later.

The song itself was inspired by a television appearance, when Senator Ted Kennedy announced his intention to become a presidential candidate. His on screen presence did not make a favourable impression on Laing, who later explained “I actually just said those words out loud: ‘God, glad I’m not a Kennedy.’ And bells went off, whistles rang and I went straight out to the shed to write it, and it was done and dusted in half an hour. It poured out.”^[6]

4 Lorde “Royals”

“And we’ll never be royals
It don’t run in our blood
That kind of lux just ain’t for us
We crave a different kind of buzz”

Singer Lorde, aka Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, leapt to international stardom with the 2013 release of her critically acclaimed album “Pure Heroine”.

The song describes the lavish and decadent lifestyle of contemporary stars with a edgy sarcasm. “What really got me,” she explained “is this ridiculous, unrelatable, unattainable opulence that runs throughout. Lana Del Rey is always singing about being in the Hamptons or driving her Bugatti Veyron or whatever, and at the time, me and my friends were at some house party worrying how to get home because we couldn’t afford a cab. This is our reality!”

The song spent nine weeks at the top of U.S. Billboard 100, making the 16-year old Kiwi the youngest artist to do so since Tiffany in 1987. Her reaction to the achievement was that “It feels like a combination of my birthday, Christmas and washing my hair after a month of not doing so.”

It also topped the charts of New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, and the UK. To date, it has sold over 10 million copies globally. In 2014, the song won a Grammy for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.^[7]

3 Split Enz “Six Months In A Leaky Boat”

“Aotearoa
Rugged individual
Glisten like a pearl
At the bottom of the world
The tyranny of distance”

Released in 1982, “Six Months In A Leaky Boat” was the second single off their album “Time and Tide”. The song, written by band member Tim Finn, is usually interpreted as being a homage to the often perilous six month sea voyage that settlers took to come to New Zealand.

The single reached a dismal number 83 in the UK singles chart, largely due to the airplay ban by broadcasters at the BBC, who felt that the reference to “leaky boats” might have a negative impact on morale of the British Royal Navy while they were fighting the Falklands War against Argentina. They implied that the song was too provocative and was a thinly veiled criticism of the war, despite the fact that the song had in fact been written and recorded months earlier.

Split Enz members, brother Tim and Neil Finn have since confirmed that in addition to the theme of colonial settlement, the song also served as a metaphor for Tim’s relationship breakup and subsequent mental breakdown. “I was going through a lot of stuff. I had broken up after a long relationship and I was feeling a mixture of guilt and terror and sadness and whatever you go through. It was a hard time.” Tim later explained.

“Time & Tide” went on to become the band’s third number one album in both New Zealand and Australia, while eventually clawing its way to number 71 in the UK.^[8]

2 Mi-Sex “Computer Games”

“I fidget with the digit dots and cry an anxious tear
As the XU-1 connects the spot
But the matrix grid don’t care
Get a message to my mother
What number would she be
There’s a million angry citizens
Looking down their tubes at me”

How the heck can this track be forty years old???

“Computer Games” was the second release off their iconic debut album “Graffiti Crimes” (1979). The song peaked at number one in Australia, number two in Canada and number five in New Zealand. It also gained some traction in Europe and North America, although it was felt that their ‘risqué’ band name did not help them gain airplay in more conservative markets.

The video that accompanied the song was considered to be very cutting edge at the time. It starts with the band breaking into the data centre for then super-computer mainframe at Control Data in Sydney, Australia. As the band performs, the old school graphics projected behind them include a driving game and Star Wars-esque tie fighters, while data tapes spin and printers spew out a river of paper.

The synth-pop electro new wave band formed the year earlier, by frontman Ian Gilpin, keyboard player Murray Burns, Don Martin on bass, Kevin Stanton on lead guitar, and drummer Richard Hodgkinson.

Principal songwriter, Murry Burns later recalled that when Mi-Sex arrived in Australia in late 1978, bands were “still wearing white flares”. He added that “They were great but they hadn’t jumped into the edgy sound of the 80s. . . think we paved the way for a certain style of music, the likes of INXS and Icehouse . . . We got a great following very quickly.”

Following the tragic death of singer Ian Gilpin in January 1992 following a car crash, the band felt that they would never perform again, despite a nostalgic surge in popularity for 80’s pop music. But when faced with the opportunity to reunite for several gigs around Australasia, they went for it and “it’s really, really good fun”, confirms Burns.

“Computer Games” solidified their place in New Zealand music history. “It was unusual, one of those not-repeated songs . . . We got labelled with that song quite strongly, ” Burns says. The band’s unique sound, tight musicianship and futuristic imagery earned both the single and the album platinum status.

Advance one level on green!^[9]

1 Crowded House “Don’t Dream It’s Over”

“Now I’m towing my car, there’s a hole in the roof
My possessions are causing me suspicion but there’s no proof
In the paper today, tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the T.V. page
Hey now, hey now
Don’t dream it’s over”

Like the often bitter long-standing debate over the true origins of the humble pavlova, internationally acclaimed band Crowded House has been claimed by both New Zealand and Australia.

Fronted by former Split Enz member, New Zealand born Neil Finn (currently a member of Fleetwood Mac), who is vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter, clearly and unequivocally, this in my humble opinion is a New Zealand band!

Admittedly, Neil Finn told an Australian newspaper that Crowded House was a proud Australian band and most of its songs were inspired in Melbourne. Finn went on to state that Melbourne was the “birthplace of Crowded House and was always the town we chose to return to. It’s forever deeply ingrained in our collective psyche and was the backdrop for many of our best musical moments.” Sorry Neil, Crowded House is a Kiwi band and that’s that.

Their self-titled debut album, released in 1986, featured the single “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, which became an international hit, peaking at Number 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Band frontman Neil Finn has described the lyrics of this song as “on the one hand, feeling kind of lost and, on the other hand, sort of urging myself on”.^[10]

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No tribe could stand against the might of the colonial British Empire. In the era of colonialism, when the British Empire swept through every corner of the globe, no one could stop them. Few made them fight as hard, though, as the Maori of New Zealand.

The Maori, before colonialism, were brutal warriors. They were cannibals. They were head hunters and slavers. Above all, they believed in “utu”—that every kind and cruel deed should be repaid in kind. And, when the British colonialists took over New Zealand, they were ferocious enough to make sure they paid for it.

10First Contact with the Maori Ended in Four European Deaths

When the Maori met their first Europeans, they did not shake hands and welcome them in. Right from the very start, there was bloodshed.

First contact happened in 1642, when Abel Janszoon Tasman and his crew became the first Europeans to meet the Maori. The Maori, though, saw them first. As Tasman sailed into the Golden Bay, signal fires lit up along the shore. The Maori were letting one another know that a strange ship was approaching and to get ready for the worst.

On their first meeting, the Maori canoed out toward Tasman’s boats, blowing shell war trumpets and trying to scare the Europeans away. Tasman responded with cannons. The Maori fled—but now they had no doubts. These were definitely people to fear.

The next day, Maori canoes came out toward the boats again. Tasman’s men figured it was a friendly gesture, inviting them to come to shore—until the Maori started ramming their boats. One Maori clubbed a sailor in the back of the head with a pike and knocked him overboard. Then the others attacked—and killed four men before Tasman’s men could get away.

Tasman named the area “Murderers Bay”. This, he said, “must teach us to consider the inhabitants of the country as enemies.”

9A Tribe Cannibalized James Cook’s Crew

For the next hundred years, Europeans stayed away from New Zealand. The Maori were left alone—until James Cook arrived.

At first, Cook’s men had a rocky but relatively peaceful relationship with the Maori. They had some problems, though. One man, Jack Rowe, had angered some of the Maori when he tried to kidnap a few of their men—and the Maori, it seems, were getting ready for revenge.

On December 17, 1773, Jack Rowe led an expedition ashore to collect food. They never came back. The men waited for them, growing more and more worried as time passed. In the morning, a second group led by James Burney went ashore to find them.

Soon, they found a Maori canoe and the remains of what they hoped was a dog. When Burney came in for a closer look, though, he found a human hand among the torn flesh. It was tattooed “TH”—the initials of Thomas Hill, one of the men who had gone ashore.

Burney and his men ran for their lives. When they made it to the beach, hundreds of Maori ran out to taunt them. Burney looked back. The Maori were roasting the pieces of Rowe’s dismembered body over a fire. They were devouring the flesh of Rowe and his men and feeding their entrails to the dogs.

8The Boyd Massacre

Europeans started colonizing New Zealand, despite the threat the Maori posed. Soon the country had towns and ports filled with white faces. The encounters, here, became less hostile, and some Maori began to trade with the Europeans and even work on European ships.

One of those Maori was Te Ara. He boarded a ship called The Boyd, believing he would be treated with all the honors due to the son of a chief. The captain, though, did not care whose son he was. He expected Te Ara to work—and, when Te Ara refused, he had him flogged.

Te Ara told his tribe what happened, and they were furious. They waited until the captain went to shore, then jumped out on him and his party. They murdered every person there and cannibalized their bodies.

Then they put on their clothes and used them to get onto The Boyd. They killed nearly every person on board, murdering 66 people in all. Before they were allowed to die, many had to watch while the Maori dismembered their friends’ bodies. Only four people were spared: three children and a mother.

New Zealand, after that, got a new name—the “Cannibal Isles.” Travel guides across Europe listed it with a warning: “Avoid if at all possible”.

7Introducing Muskets to the Maori Led to More Than 18,000 Deaths

Not everyone avoided the Maori. Some people actually joined them. Runaway sailors and escaped convicts from Australia joined Maori tribes and married Maori women. They were known as the Pakeha Maori—white men living Maori lives.

With the help of the Pakeha Maori, the Maori were able to get muskets—a moment that changed their history ever. Maori tribes had fought one another for years, but muskets meant a total change in that balance of power.

The Ngapuhi tribe got muskets first, and started using them to dominate their enemies. Other Maori responded by getting their own, and, for the next 40 years, New Zealand erupted in the most vicious tribal warfare it had ever seen.

By the end, a massive chunk of the Maori population was dead. There were only about 100,000 Maori in 1800. By 1845, by conservative estimates, 18,000 people had died—although others put that number twice as high. By some estimates, up to half of their population was wiped out.

The British were getting nervous. Open trade, they now believed, was very dangerous. From here on in, the British started changing how they dealt with the Maori.

6The Wairau Affray

In 1840, the British signed a treaty with 540 Maori chiefs: the Treaty of Waitangi. This gave the British sovereignty over New Zealand. In exchange, the Maori kept the right to buy and sell land, and had the rights and privileges of British citizens.

Some of the Maori who signed it did not totally understand what it meant. They understood, though, that they had the right to their land—and they were not about to give it up.

The first fight happened in Wairau. Some British settlers purchased land in the Wairau Valley and realized they did not have as much as they wanted—so they started surveying some land that the Maori had not sold them. The Maori were not okay with this. They burned the surveyor’s equipment down and sent them back to their ships.

The surveyors tried to charge two Maori chiefs with arson and sent in a force to arrest them. The Maori, though, were ready for them. Their warriors refused to move—and, after the first shot was fired, they fought back. By the end, 22 Europeans were dead, and the rest chased away.

This, though, was only the first fight of many. The British would keep encroaching on Maori land, and they would keep pushing back. For the next sixty years, the history of New Zealand was filled with land conflicts and bloodshed.

5The Flagstaff War

In 1842, a Maori man named Maketu was tried and hung for murder. He had been working for a European who he felt mistreated him—and he dealt with it by going to her home and slaughtering her and her entire family.

One Maori chief, Hone Heke, was furious. Maketu had been tried under British law. This was further proof that the Maori no longer had control over their own country. They were paying taxes and tariffs for the first time in their lives, and they were subject to foreign courts. Hone Heke decided he would no longer live under British rule.

He had his men cut down a flagpole that waved the Union Jack. When the British put it back up, he cut it down again—and again. The British tried to put it back up three times, and Hone Heke cut it down every time. “God made this country for us. It cannot be sliced,” he wrote to the British forces. “Return to your own country, which was made by God for you.”

The two sides fought to a standstill, with no clear winner. When the fighting ended, though, the Union Jack still laid trampled in the dirt.

4The Massacre of the Gilfillan Family

A few years later, a British sailor named H. E. Crozier shot a Maori man named Hapurona Ngarangi in the face—something he maintained was an accident. His crewmates managed to treat Ngarangi and keep him alive, but Ngarangi’s tribe was not satisfied. They wanted Crozier dead.

The British refused, but Ngarangi’s tribe demanded “utu”. They could not leave a bad deed unpunished—they needed vengeance. If the British would not give them Crozier, they would carry out their revenge on the nearest settler they could find.

They went to the home of a painter named John Gilfillan and massacred his family. John assumed they were after him and ran out, expecting the Maori to chase him, but they let him go. Ignoring him, they slaughtered his wife and children and burned his house to the ground.

The British arrested the men responsible and had them executed—but the Maori would not accept that, either. Soon, a Maori tribe had the town under siege. Another war had broken out.

3The Horrible Death of Carl Sylvius Volkner

A new religion was starting in New Zealand: Pai Marire. It was a combination of Christianity and Maori beliefs, founded by a prophet named Te Ua Huamene. They would prove to be one of the biggest problems the British faced.

When fighting broke out between the Pai Marire and other Maori tribes, one German missionary refused to leave. Carl Sylvius Volkner was warned that he would die if he stayed where he was, but he was determined to stay and spread the gospel.

The Pai Marire did not appreciate it. They started to suspect that the reason Volkner was sticking around was because he was a spy, and so they got rid of him—in one of the most brutal ways in history.

One of Huamene’s disciples, Kereopa Te Rau, had Volkner taken prisoner and executed. Before he died, Volkner was allowed to kneel down and pray. Then he stood up, shook hands with his killers and told them, “I am ready.”

After he was dead, Kereope Te Rau hacked off Volkner’s head. He grabbed his decapitated head, walked into the church, and delivered a sermon with Volkner’s head on the pulpit. At the climax of his speech, before his followers, he gouged Volkner’s eyes out and swallowed them.

2The Massacre at Poverty Bay

Not all Maori fought the British. Some became loyal to, and fought side-by-side their colonizers, beating down Maori rebellions. Te Kooti was one of these loyalists—until the British became paranoid he might be a spy and threw him in prison.

Locked in a jail cell on the Chatham Islands, Te Kooti had a change of heart. He spent three years in prison before he broke out. He freed 298 other Maori prisoners, seized a ship, and sailed off, landing in Poverty Bay.

There, they were confronted by the town magistrate, Reginald Biggs. Te Kooti told Biggs they just wanted to pass through peacefully. Biggs demanded they give up their weapons. Te Kooti refused—and things escalated.

That night, Te Kooti and his men broke into Bigg’s home. They gunned him down and stabbed him with their bayonets, then killed his wife and his newborn baby. Then they ran through the town, slaughtering every person they could find. Before the massacre was through, 51 people had died.

Te Kooti, it was clear, was no longer a loyalist. When the massacre was over, he waged one of the biggest wars New Zealand would see.

1Riwha Titokowaru’s Guerilla Army of Cannibals

At first, Riwha Titokowaru pushed for peace with the British—but when he went to war, he went at them hard.

He brought back the old Maori tactics of war to strike fear in the hearts of the British. His men would cut out the heart of the first man they killed and cannibalize the others. “I have begun to eat the flesh of the white man,” he told the world. “I have eaten him like the flesh of the cow, cooked in a pot.”

He was trying to terrify the British—and it worked. Titokowaru’s campaign was so vicious that the British nearly gave up. One battle against Titokowaru was called “the most serious and complete defeat ever experienced by the colonial forces.”

“The small and utterly disorganised force here might any night be cut up and cooked by Titokowaru,” one man wrote. “Unless something is done and done quickly, we had all better clear out.”

In time, though, Titokowaru’s onslaught ended. The British did not stop him—he had an affair with a subordinate’s wife and lost the respect of his men. They abandoned his fort and gave up the fight.

The wars raged on and thousands more died—but, by the 1900s, the Maori had been pushed to the fringes of the country. The last insurrections were quelled. The Maori could not keep their land from being colonized—but they made the British go through hell to get it.

Mark Oliver is a regular contributor to . He writing also appears on a number of other sites, including The Onion’s StarWipe and Cracked.com. [His website] (www.mark-oliver.com) is regularly updated with everything he writes.

Who doesn’t love a good mystery?

Some have logical explanations, of course, but others defy any attempt to explain them away. Even a small island nation like New Zealand (home to myself as well as some guy named Jamie Frater), roughly the size of the state of Colorado, seemingly has more than its fair share of unexplained events.

Here are ten head-scratching mysteries from the Land Down Under that might just make you go hmmm.

Related: Top 10 Wacky Things New Zealanders Love To Eat

10 The Crewe Murders

On June 22, 1970, Len Demler walked into the farmhouse belonging to his daughter Jeanette and her husband, Harvey Crewe. There was no sign of the couple, but there was blood—lots of it. Then, Demler heard his 18-month-old granddaughter calling out from her bedroom. He ran to find her in her cot, hungry and filthy but otherwise unharmed.

Almost a month to the day after the murders, fishermen found Jeanette’s body floating in the nearby Waikato River. She was wrapped in a bedspread, and there was some evidence that the body had initially been weighted down. Several weeks later, Harvey was found in the same river, tangled in weeds a few kilometers (a mile or so) away.

Police arrested a local farmer known to the Crewes, Arthur Allan Thomas, alleging that he was obsessed with Jeanette. Thomas was found guilty, and after spending nine years in prison, a Royal Commission of Inquiry determined that a spent cartridge allegedly tying Thomas to the double-homicide had been planted by two police officers in order to secure a conviction. Thomas was subsequently paid $NZ 950,000 in compensation for the time spent in prison and for the loss of his farm.

To this day, the killer or killers have never been found. However, the evidence seems to indicate that they were familiar with the Crewe property and local area. For over fifty years now, someone has gotten away with murder.^[1]

9 The Kaikoura UFO Sightings

On December 21, 1979, not long into a flight south from New Zealand’s capital city Wellington, the two pilots and four passengers on board a Safe Air flight reported seeing a strange light in the sky.

Conveniently on board the small plane that night was David Crockett, a freelance cameraman. Crockett grabbed his camera and began to film the light. On the return trip later that night, the light could be seen again. It also appeared on the plane’s radar, indicating that there was an object in the sky at a distance of approximately 29 kilometers (18 miles). When the aircraft turned toward the light, it seemed to react by moving away.

A week later, a television film crew attempted to film the light and managed to record multiple lights for several minutes. Journalist Quentin Fogarty later said they were mesmerized by the mysterious phenomenon. “We saw this string of lights; it started as a small pinpoint of light then grew into this large pulsating globe with tinges of orange and red,” he stated. “We were told after it was about the size of a house,” he added.

Explanations for the strange lights included that it was merely Venus or Jupiter or brightly lit Japanese squid boats off the coast. Some even hypothesized that it was light reflected from fields of cabbages below. However, it is hard to explain how any of these appeared on the radar.^[2]

8 Zuiyo-Maru Carcass

In April 1977, the Japanese fishing vessel Zuiyo-Maru was trawling for mackerel some 40 kilometers (25 miles) off the coast of Christchurch when a large, rotting carcass became entangled in its nets. The putrefied remains, estimated to weigh over 1,800 kilograms (3,950 pounds) and measure some 10 meters (33 feet) in length, were lifted on board.

Crew member Michihiko Yano had some training in biology and research methodology, and he sketched the peculiar stinking hulk and took several photos. Yano also had the presence of mind to take several tissue samples before the creature was thrown back into the sea in order not to spoil the catch.

The evidence was studied by a team of scientists at the Science Museum of Tokyo. They unanimously declared that the animal was a plesiosaur, a large marine reptile that lived during the Jurassic period, thought to have become extinct some 65 million years ago.

French researchers later examined the evidence and concluded that the creature was no ancient marine reptile but rather the decomposing remains of a basking shark, a species that could be found in the cooler waters further to the south. While the photos and sketch seemingly showed a creature with a long neck, small head, and no dorsal fin, they hypothesized this was due to the decomposition of the carcass and predation.

Shark or sea monster? Since the biological samples have been lost, the sea will hold onto the answer for awhile longer.^[3]

7 The Ngatea Mystery Circle

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

On September 4, 1968, farmer Bert O’Neil discovered a strangely affected patch of ti-tree scrub on his farm in Ngatea, a small settlement in New Zealand’s North Island. To his surprise, he saw a perfectly circular patch of dead, silvery-white brush amid otherwise green and lush native bushland. On the ground near the center of the circle, O’Neil found three very strange, deep V-shaped indentations positioned like the points of a triangle.

News of the unusual find quickly spread, and unfortunately, nearly a thousand curious visitors swarmed to the site. Sightseers and souvenir hunters trampled the strange markings on the ground and removed much of the vegetation. This occurred before they could be examined by the university scientists, who arrived some five weeks after the initial discovery of the anomaly.

As more reports of similar circles began to pop up from different parts of the island and headlines screamed “Is Mars Now Taking a Look at Us?” authorities scrambled to explain the phenomena. Theories ranged from defoliant sprayed from an aircraft or plants ravaged by fungal growth. The ground indentations, they asserted, had been made by rabbits or wild pigs. However, it has been estimated that for the ground cuts to be as deep as they were, cutting through tree roots, some 20-tons of pressure would have to be exerted.

The Ngatea circle remains the best known of the odd “mystery circle” events of the 1970s. Like the UFO sighting hysteria of the time, it eventually faded from the news and into memory.^[4]

6 The Nelson Street Ripper

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In 1914, Frederick Marshall stayed up all night anxiously wondering where his wife could be, only to be told by a neighbor in the morning that “your missus has been murdered.” Marshall raced to the local police station, where he learned that it was true—his wife of some 20 years had been savagely stabbed and slashed to death.

Frances had been found in a narrow alleyway and had suffered dozens of wounds on her head, neck, and chest. Her skull was fractured, her lungs and heart were pierced, and her jugular vein was slashed. Her attacker, it was surmised, likely killed her with a pocketknife. There were no obvious signs of a struggle, nor was it a robbery, as her handbag was found under her body, containing money worth about $NZ 40 today. While her clothes were described as being somewhat “disarranged,” her small blue hat was still on her head.

Sensational news reports likened the savage crime to the infamous Jack the Ripper serial killings in London. They alleged that Frances was probably killed by that “foul being known to scientists as a necrophilo (sic)—one who satiates his lust on the body of the dead.”

Police records describe Frances as having been working that evening as a prostitute, although Marshall vehemently denied this suggestion. He did, however, admit that he hit her from time to time. Ultimately, the coroner concluded that Frederick wasn’t involved in her death and that it was likely Frances had been murdered by some unknown person.^[5]

5 Moehau Man

All over the world, many cultures have tales and legends of huge, hairy, ape-like creatures. In the Americas, there is Sasquatch or Bigfoot. In the Himalayas, the Yeti. In Australia, the Yowie.

Here in New Zealand, we have Moehau Man, named for the tallest peak in the mountain range where the creature was first allegedly sighted. It is a sacred place to the Maori and is said to be an area where all sorts of mythical creatures can be seen.

As European settlers began to disperse across the island nation in the late 1800s, tales of the Moehau Man started emerging. Initial reports were from people merely being startled by large, hairy human-like creatures deep in the native bush. Then more ominous tales began to emerge of settlers being maimed and killed.

In 1983, two hikers claimed to have seen seven of the creatures in the Lake Waikaremoana area, dressed in what appeared to be cowhides. They estimated that one adult male in the group stood about 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall. From their vantage point hidden in the forest, they watched the group for several minutes as they made their way along a rocky creek, then disappeared into the woods.

In 2001, Australian Yowie “expert” Rex Gilroy traveled to New Zealand to investigate the Moehau Man for himself in the hopes of gathering good anecdotal as well as possible physical evidence. Gilroy claimed to have found large hominid footprints on a remote forest track in the Urewera National Park. He proudly displayed two plaster-cast molds for the eager media.

Until there is some kind of definitive proof from perhaps a more trustworthy source, for now, Moehau Man is just like its hairy brethren, the Sasquatch and the Yeti. They remain just a story and something of a myth.^[6]

4 The Wreck of the Joyita

On November 10, 1955, the small cargo ship MV Joyita was discovered drifting some 600 nautical miles off course, devoid of the crew, passengers, and cargo. The Joyita had been expected in the small New Zealand dependency of Tokelau, but it had never arrived. The mystery of what happened to those on board has seen it dubbed “The Mary Celeste of the Pacific.”

There had been 16 crew members and nine passengers, including two children, on board when the vessel had gone missing 38 days earlier. The Joyita carried four tons of cargo, including medical supplies, food, and empty oil drums, but most of that was missing. The ship’s logbook, sextant, and other navigational equipment were gone, along with all three lifeboats and the firearms that were known to be onboard. Also, there were some sinister indications of possible violence. The ship’s bridge had been smashed, and still on the deck, a doctor’s bag was found open along with several bloody bandages.

The Joyita still had plenty of fuel, and it was possible that it had been abandoned when the vessel began to take on water. However, the cork-lined hull and 80 empty oil drums on board pretty much made it unsinkable. The missing cargo may have been taken by opportunistic vessels that had come across the abandoned vessel. Others theorized that it might be pirates or possibly insurance fraud.

After the wreck, rather creepily, the Joyita was repaired and went back into service as a cargo vessel again. However, after running aground on a reef, it was at long last deemed an unlucky ship. It was stripped and broken down. Now, no trace of the Joyita remains, and the whereabouts of those unlucky souls on board remains an enduring mystery.^[7]

3 The Missing Dragonfly

Nearly 60 years after a plane went missing between Christchurch and Milford Sound, groups of searchers are still looking for it in the rugged mountainous regions of New Zealand’s South Island.

Pilot Brian Chadwick’s Dragonfly plane went missing on a scenic flight on February 12, 1962, with five passengers on board. When it failed to return, authorities embarked on one of the most extensive aerial searches in New Zealand history, but the plane was never found.

Searcher Bobby Reeve said the discovery of a woman’s boot in a remote mountain location has led them to believe the plane was about 8,000 feet up, deep in the permanent snow. “I think if it had been in the bush the whole time, it would be covered in moss—but it wasn’t, which is why I think it’s come down off the snow.” He’s asked the mountaineering community to help continue the search in the treacherous and unforgiving terrain. “It’s too dangerous—both of my sons have fallen off the side of the mountain already,” he said.

And the search goes on.^[8]

2 Mysterious Moas

Despite its small size, tales abound of long-extinct birds apparently thriving away from human eyes. Moas were New Zealand’s nine species of flightless birds, thought to have become extinct about 1400 after being hunted into extinction by the indigenous Maori. The largest moa measured 3.6 meters (12 feet) at full height, weighing some 230 kilograms (510 pounds), while the smallest was approximately the size of a turkey.

Although the moa died out well before European settlement, tales of moa living in deep hidden valleys persist even to this day. When West Coast publican and mountaineer Paddy Freaney claimed to have tangled with a moa in the Cragieburn Valley in Jan 1993, authorities didn’t take it very seriously. However, there was a frenzy in the international media.

Other critters allegedly seen roaming in the more remote regions of New Zealand are more exotic, including otters, panthers, and even moose.^[9]

1 The Mystery of the Invercargill Pool Pooper

A mystery pooper dubbed “the brown bomber” struck a public pool complex in New Zealand’s southernmost city of Invercargill for six Fridays in a row in 2015.

Staff at the Splash Palace aquatic center launched an investigation into whoever could have been the pooping perpetrator of the series of weekly “code brown” evacuations of the pool complex. The worst incident saw the entire facility closed after brown bombs were found in all three pools over a three-hour period.

Unfortunately, staff was unable to find the culprit in the act because while the pool complex had cameras, they were “not high definition enough to pick up the red face of someone squinting,” explained Splash Palace spokesman Pete Thompson.

Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt said the international media interest generated by the serial brown bomber was not particularly good publicity for his city. “Phantom pooper in the pool isn’t the sort of headline you want,” he explained.^[10]

New Zealand. Aotearoa. The Land Down Under. Land of the Long White Cloud. Home to hobbits, the All Blacks rugby team, where good coffee is easy to find, and the wine isn’t half bad either.

While New Zealand is my much-loved homeland, there can be some strange goings-on down this way, and here’s just a handful of oddball stories that have hit the headlines here in recent(ish) years.

Related: Top 10 Ironic Stories Of Cops Getting Themselves Arrested

10 Shrek the Sheep

Shrek the sheep gained international fame in 2004 owing to his gigantic wool fleece. Shrek had evaded shearers for six years by hiding in caves in the rugged foothills of the Central Otago region in the South Island. Merino sheep are usually shorn annually, so when Shrek was finally caught, he was immense. “He looked like some biblical creature,” explained Shrek’s owner, John Perriam, of Bendigo Hill station.

Shrek had grown a fleece weighing some 27 kilograms (60 pounds), containing roughly enough wool to make suits for 20 large men. He instantly became a national celebrity and was shorn live on television. His fleece was auctioned off to raise money for children’s medical charities. Josie Spillane of Cure Kids said that over the years, Shrek had raised more than NZ$ 150,000 (US$ 104,400) for the charity, which funds research into life-threatening childhood illnesses.

Shrek died in 2011 at the age of sixteen, with is a good old age for the Merino breed.^[1]

9 Blow on the Pie

It has been referred to as the food safety tip that echoed around the world. Police dog handler Guy Baldwin went viral back in 2009 for giving a suspected car thief some sage culinary advice regarding the safe handling of hot pastries.

Filmed in the early hours of the morning for the reality crime show Police Ten 7, the officer had pulled over a teenager suspected of driving a stolen car. The motorist claimed he was out at 3 am because he was hungry and intended to purchase a hot pie from a nearby service station. The officer’s dead-pan response went viral, providing the nation with a catchphrase that inspired T-shirts, songs, and a multitude of parody skits.

The officer asked the all-important question, “It’s three o’clock in the morning, and you’re buying a pie from the BP station. What must you always do?” The confused teenager simply had no response to that unexpected line of questioning. “That pie has been in the warming drawer for probably about 12 hours; it’ll be thermonuclear,” asserted Baldwin. “You must always blow on the pie… Always blow on the pie, safer communities together, okay.”^[2]

You heard it here, folks. Always blow on the pie.

8 Road Flock

This list item combines both sheep and the police. Incredibly, it also involves sheep belonging to the police.

In 2016, four people driving a stolen Honda Integra led police on a 90-minute car chase through Shrek the sheep’s ‘hood in Central Otago. Earlier attempts to stop the car using road spikes had failed, and it was a flock of some 150 sheep being driven down the road that eventually caused the vehicle to come to a stop.

Fortunately, none of the sheep or farm dogs were injured as the car came to a halt without even attempting to drive through the flock. They were being moved by a farm worker, who was totally unfazed by the scene unfolding behind him as two men and two juveniles were taken into custody by police.

It turned out that the herd was, in fact, owned by a Queenstown police officer. “I don’t know if the local officer trained the sheep or not, but they sure did a good job in stopping that car,” a journalist on the scene later commented.^[3]

7 Thomas the Blind Bisexual Goose

In 2018, a blind, bisexual goose named Thomas was farewelled and laid to rest next to where his swan partner of nearly two decades lies. A commemorative plaque immortalized their love story by proclaiming:

” Here lies Thomas, the great-hearted goose,
Nestled near Henry, in their final roost.
Here where they raised young and found sanctuary,
Somewhere above us, great souls fly free.”

It was an enduring, complicated love story that crossed genders as well as species. Thomas the goose and Henry the swan spent 18 years together before they were joined by another swan, a female named Henrietta. The feathered polyamorous threesome raised 68 cygnets together before Henry’s death in 2009. Then, Henrietta flew off with another swan, leaving poor Thomas “heartbroken and crying for his friend.”

Thomas eventually fathered ten goslings of his own. However, they were stolen by another goose named George, who raised them as his own (George, you heartless bastard!). “You would see George and the babies, with Thomas just following them around,” a local bird-fancier recalls.

Failing eyesight saw Thomas rehomed in a bird sanctuary, where he lived out his final years eating corn and helping to raise orphaned baby swans. “He was a gentleman; he was kind to every other bird he bumped into, literally,” a staff member later commented.

When the commemorative plaque was unveiled, local Waikanae man Mik Peryer mourned that “this is the end, the love story is over.” He explained the significance of the memorial service for Thomas as being “something that needed to be done. The story touched a lot of people, particularly that he was gay.”^[4]

6 Dug the Faux Spud

When Hamilton couple Colin and Donna Craig-Brown discovered a behemoth potato in their veg patch weighing a whopping 7.9 kilograms (17 pounds), they felt certain that it would break the Guinness World Record for the heaviest potato.

Dubbed “Dug the Spud,” it was more than 2.8 kilograms (6 pounds) heavier than the existing Guinness record for the heaviest potato, a spud found in England in 2011. Seven months and one genetic test later, the couple received some devastating news. “Sadly, the specimen is not a potato and is, in fact, the tuber of a type of gourd. For this reason, we do unfortunately have to disqualify the application,” a Guinness World Records representative informed them.

Not even a potato, Dug was revealed to indeed be a tuber, that is, a swollen underground stem or root. The DNA testing showed that the tuber belonged to a type of gourd, a vegetable with a hard outer skin like a pumpkin. The couple was stunned by the news. “It looked like a tater, it tasted like a tater, it grew like a tater,” Colin explained. “So I figured it’s a tater.”

Dug is still currently residing in the couple’s freezer. “I say g’day to him every time I pull out some sausages. He’s a cool character,” Colin said. ^[5]

5 The World’s Loneliest Tree

A lone Sitka spruce tree growing on New Zealand’s windswept, inhospitable sub-antarctic Campbell Island shouldn’t technically be there at all. The Sitka spruce is actually a species native to the northern hemisphere, but what makes this all the more remarkable is that this tree is more than 247 kilometers (170 miles) from its nearest neighbor on the Auckland Islands. This makes it the loneliest, most remote tree in the world.

Unlike Dug the “pretender” Spud, this somewhat unremarkable-looking tree is a genuine world record holder because of its isolation. The previous record-holder was the Tree of Ténéré, a well-known landmark in the heart of the Saharan Desert in Niger. The acacia tree was some 402 kilometers (250 miles) from any other tree until it was allegedly mowed down by a drunk Libyan truck driver in 1973.

The 9-meter-tall (30-foot), 100-or-so-year-old Sitka spruce was thought to have possibly been planted around the turn of the 20th century by New Zealand’s then-governor, Lord Ranfurly, while on a bird collecting expedition for the British Museum. It is suggested that he planted the conifer in the hope of transforming the island into a place of “productive forestry.”

As the spruce is apparently trapped in a juvenile state by the harsh climate and physical damage, it is unable to produce pinecones and seed, so it is likely to remain a lone sentinel at the bottom of the world.^[6]

4 Zoologist Shagged by World’s Rarest Parrot

The kakapo is a large, nocturnal, flightless parrot found only in New Zealand. It is also critically endangered and was on the brink of extinction in the mid-1990s when only some 50 birds were left. However, thanks to intensive conservation efforts, a total of 210 birds were known in June 2020, all of which carry radio transmitters and are intensively monitored and carefully managed.

The most well-known kakapo is a young male named Sirocco, who rocketed to fame in 2009 after his X-rated encounter with zoologist Mark Carwardine made him a YouTube sensation. Carwardine was filming the BBC documentary series Last Chance to See with British comedian Stephen Fry. A rather frisky Sirocco attempted to energetically mate with Carwardine’s head as Fry laughingly quipped he was witnessing someone being “shagged by a rare parrot.”

Hand-raised by conservation officers due to suffering from respiratory problems, Sirocco had imprinted on humans at an early age and seemingly swore off mating with his own kind. Apparently, his unsavory rendezvous with Carwardine’s head was far from being his first, nor would it be the last.

His unorthodox rise to fame saw former Prime Minister John Key dub him the nation’s “official spokesbird for conservation.” Sirocco has since gone on annual nationwide tours as an ambassador for his species and even visited Parliament. He also promotes various wildlife conservation issues through his official Twitter and Facebook accounts.^[7]

3 Spaghetti Vandalism on Mount Victoria

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

In March 2018, a group of jogging students made a bizarre discovery on Wellington’s Mt. Victoria lookout—a massive dumping of…freshly cooked pasta.

Students Jack Anderson, Elleana Dumper (ironic name), Tobias Leman, and Flynn Beeman were on an early morning run. They came across the pasta on top of Summit Rock, at the lookout point boasting panoramic views of the city and harbor, just before 9 am.

Wellington City Council said they had, in fact, received numerous reports about the mysterious pasta vandalism. “Our contact center logged the incident after it left a bad taste in their mouth, and the cleaning crew was dispatched to deal with spaghetti junction,” a council spokeswoman said. “The public health team said they don’t recommend anyone eating spaghetti on the rocks,” she added.

The local park rangers couldn’t recall seeing a mass food dumping like this before and added that it made a nice change from the hazardous dumping of cars, TVs, and fridges that the clean-up crews usually have to deal with.

The source (sauce???) of the pasta at the popular tourist spot was never discovered.^[8]

2 Pole-Dancing Prostitutes Destroy Street Signs

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Prostitutes in New Zealand’s largest city Auckland were accused in 2012 of destroying street signs by dancing and swinging from the roadside poles in order to entice potential customers.

Local resident Donna Lee explained how prostitutes use them as dancing poles. “The poles are part of their soliciting equipment, and they often snap them. Some of the prostitutes are big, strong people.” She claimed more than 40 signs had either been bent or broken over an 18-month period.

At the time, local Mayor Len Brown stated, “there is no doubt that the street sex trade is enjoying its unrestricted use of public space and is possibly the only industry in New Zealand to enjoy such status.” He added that other industries have to acquire licenses or receive special authority while street prostitution “faces no such constraints.”

Residents in the area hoped that bringing attention to the issue would put pressure on the government to allow Auckland Council to outlaw sex workers from certain areas. A spokesperson from the Prostitutes Collective said that banning prostitutes from popular streets would be counter-productive. “They’ll be expected to pay a fine which they can’t pay. They’ll go to court, then they have to come back onto the streets and work to pay them off. It’s just going to clog up our justice system,” said Prostitute Collective Auckland spokeswoman Annah Pickering.^[9]

1 Bess the Boar

Photo credit: WIkimedia Commons

Also in 2018, KFC fries and warm bread rolls were used by emergency services to corral a large pig on the loose in the Waikato town of Waihi.

Estimated to weigh some 150 kilograms (331 pounds), the hefty hog casually trotted down one of the small town’s main streets with police in hot pursuit at its heels. “We got into a pursuit with a pig,” Waihi police Constable Harley North later explained.

At the time, North was unable to say how the swine got loose, believing it was likely someone’s pet that had broken out for a night on the town. Using finger-licking good bribes, the pig was eventually corralled into a makeshift pen at a local church. “The pig was left to contemplate his sinful behavior,” North said.

Later the pig was spotted being escorted by a “tall, dark stranger” down the Waihi street. The pig turned out to be a brazen boar named Bess. Just over a week later, he did another runner and was found chowing down on an orange tree. He was coerced back home by the embarrassed owner carrying a big bucket full of tasty treats.

Bess apparently got a stern telling off from the local police, who said they were considering fitting Bess with an ankle bracelet and imposing a strict curfew.^[10]