Farewell New Zealand!

Daron on the strange boulders at Moeraki

Unbelievably, our time here in New Zealand has already come to an end – today we get on a plane to Phuket, Thailand.  We enjoyed the time we had here exploring the two islands that make up this country.  We found the kiwis very friendly and genuine, and enjoyed all our interactions with them.  Their accents were sometimes difficult to understand – in fact, Daron hardly understood any of them, and to be honest I don’t think any of them understood him either!  We did more camping here than in Australia, and found their campgrounds (called holiday parks) very nice.  They were similar to Australia’s campgrounds, with great camp kitchens sometimes stocked with dishes, etc.  Lots of tourists rent caravans (camping vans) for traveling, and the backpacker culture is alive and well here.  All the tourists seem to be on the same sightseeing circuit, as we kept running into the same folks at various campgrounds amongst the two islands.  In that way New Zealand almost felt like a small town!  The locals love to camp too, especially during the time we were here, which is their summer and holiday break.  The weather was good during our stay, on the whole, if you don’t mind constant wind and cooler temperatures.  We didn’t hit too much rain (besides the flood!), which was nice since we did so much camping.  The clouds would come and go throughout the day, and sometimes were so low in the sky you felt like you could reach up and touch them!   New Zealand definitely lived up to its Maori name, Aotearoa, translated as “land of the long white cloud.” During our travels we saw the ocean practically every day, and if we couldn’t see the ocean, we were amongst green rolling hills, or had beautiful mountain views in the distance.  



Bluff, the southernmost point of NZ



Speaking of the terrain, very little of New Zealand is flat – almost all of it is covered with rolling hills and mountains.  The roads are all very curvy and steep.  I am glad that we were already comfortable driving on the left side of the road before we arrived here, since many of the roads were narrow and had steep drop-offs with no guardrails.  One-lane bridges were very common.  Except around Auckland, pretty much all the roads are one lane each way, so there was a lot of passing of slower vehicles happening.  And it must be said:  Kiwi drivers are crazy!  They drive too fast on winding roads and will pass another car anywhere and everywhere!   We were passed on blind corners constantly!  We read quite a few articles in the paper about the government trying to get kiwis to slow down (rarely did we see cops); and we read about some terrible accidents.  You would think the price of gas would have slowed them down somewhat – it shocked us the first time we filled up.  We thought Australia was expensive at about $4.60 USD per gallon - we paid $7.60 USD on average per gallon here!   Yeesh!



Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of NZ



Some interesting things we learned while we were here:  



--New Zealand no longer uses pennies or nickels – the dime is their smallest coin.  Everything is rounded to the nearest ten cents.  Just like in Australia, tax is always included in the stated price (love that!).

--Books are ridiculously expensive!  We bought our Southeast Asia guidebook here for $70 NZD ($54 USD)!  The USD price was pre-printed on it, and it was $26.99, so we paid double what it would have been in the States.  We looked in bookstore after bookstore to try to find a cheaper price and they were all $70 NZD.  Even used bookstores were outrageous (in our opinion).

--We saw sheep pretty much everywhere we went. In the 1980s there were 20 sheep for each person in New Zealand (that's probably when the sheep jokes started!).  The government has since stopped subsidizing sheep and now there are about five sheep per person.  

 --Bungy-jumping was invented in New Zealand by a couple of kiwis.  It’s everywhere here – in fact, New Zealand is definitely the place for adrenalin-spiking activities.  Skydiving is popular, as well as other crazy sports they came up with like zorbing (rolling down a hill inside a giant blow up ball, sometimes with water in it), and the flying fox (never quite understood this one).  We had lots of chances to ride in jet boats too (with seat belts this time), but I’m not quite ready for that one again.



--A little history tidbit:  New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1893.  The leader of the women’s suffrage movement, Kate Sheppard, is pictured on the $10 note.  Since then, the country has had two female prime ministers.

Enjoying hokey pokey ice cream, a kiwi favorite!

--And now for a little geology and biology lesson:  The separation of New Zealand from the greater landmass happened before mammals appeared on the scene, so birds and insects here have evolved in strange ways to fill in the gaps.  For example, the kiwi bird rummages among the forest for insects and worms (something that mammals do elsewhere), and is actually the only bird to have nostrils at the end of its bill (in order to sniff out food).  The weta (a giant ugly looking insect) has taken on a scavenging role that is filled by rodents in other parts of the world.  Bats are New Zealand’s only native land mammal. 

We say a fond farewell to New Zealand and all of its natural beauty, and look forward to a completely different experience in Thailand.   On to the next one!  J