Tag Archives: New Zealand

Capture the Color: 5 Photos, 5 Colors, 5 Senses.

Posted on by under General

You’ve probably heard of a little contest from TravelSupermarket called Capture the Color that is making the rounds in the blogosphere. It’s a sweet contest: you pick 5 photos for 5 colors and then nominate 5 bloggers to do the same, then submit your post to the contest to win neat stuff like iPads and money. A virtual high five to Annette of Bucket List Journey for nominating me to participate!

After looking over my choices, I realize that I chose my submissions based on the sensory experiences that connect me to each photo, so the 5 senses have become a theme within the theme for this post. Enjoy!

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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 fact that practically no wildlife in NZ is life-threatening

-Entertaining accents

-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

-People being able to tell the difference between Canadian and American accents

Deadly Black Widow/Redback Spider! (morguefile photo)

Things I Will Not Miss About New Zealand and Australia

–Auckland

-The fact that nearly everything in Australia is lethally venomous (spiders, snakes, jellyfish, scorpions, and believe it or not, platypus)

-Also, sharks

-Getting a headache from trying to make my brain compute that traffic keeps to the left, not the right

-Lack of breakfast cereal variety in NZ

-Water restrictions in Australia

–Sandflies

–Mangy kangaroos

–Dodgy Australian hostels

-“Glassings”

-Non-insulated housing

-People referring to North America as “America”. Sigh.

Paying the Price of Poor Planning… Sorry, North Island, NZ.

Posted on by under Round The World 2009

My apologies, North Island. I had every intention of spending some time with you, but that did not materialize.

When you look at the straight numbers, what I did was inexcusable. Of my 12 month travel time line, 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.

I was entranced by South Island, and perhaps partially motivated by my endless free accommodation in Dunedin, but that is no excuse for not even giving North Island a chance to impress me.

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