Tag Archives: New Zealand

Things I Will and Will Not Miss About New Zealand and Australia

Posted on by under Round The World 2009

After making a similar list about South America while waiting for my flight to New Zealand, I made this my farewell-to-this-continent tradition. It gave me time to reflect on my experiences in different regions and to appreciate what I had liked and disliked before moving on to the next leg of the journey. So as I sat in the Perth airport waiting for my flight to Kuala Lumpur, I pulled out the trusty notebook and pen and made my two columns.

Lake Pukaki, NZ

Things I Will Miss About New Zealand and Australia

–South Island. Pretty much all of it.

-The Pacific Ocean and the beaches

-The price of lamb and fresh seafood

–Aussie Shiraz and NZ Sauvignon Blanc

-Koorie paintings

-Hamish and Andy radio podcasts

-Koalas

-“The Castle”

-The weather: almost always sunny and if it rained, almost always got a rainbow out of it

Deadly Black Widow/Redback Spider (morguefile photo)

Things I Will Not Miss About New Zealand and Australia

-Spiders. Also, sharks

-Trying to make my brain compute that traffic keeps to the left, not the right

–Sandflies

Paying the Price of Poor Planning in New Zealand

Posted on by under Round The World 2009

Of my 12 month travel time line for my around the world trip, I had set aside about 5 weeks for New Zealand. 5 weeks on paper looks like plenty of time to explore NZ’s two islands, which are equivalent in size to the state of Colorado in the USA.

Yet, the final division was not 2.5 weeks in each. It was 4.5 weeks South Island; 0.5 weeks North Island. And of that 0.5 week, I probably spent 50% of that time on the bus making my way north to Auckland.

The South Island was nice that I wanted more time there, helped in part with my endless free accommodation in Dunedin, but it came at the cost of missing out on the North Island.

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Remembering Christchurch Before the Earthquakes

Posted on by under Round The World 2009

I visited Christchurch, New Zealand before the earthquakes, back in 2009, on my way north to Auckland.  I had a two day stop there on my way north and was very charmed by Christchurch. It was a relaxed city, with lots of pretty older buildings, free tourist activities, great second-hand bookstores and a great local sense of humour.

Example…

This was posted as a sign on a storefront window:

“Attention customers… we would like to inform you that our business will not be participating in the recession.”

-Barbershop, Manchester St.

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