Aaron Around The World >> Oceania >> New Zealand
New Zealand (10 December 2011 - 8 February 2012)
After an amazing two-and-a-half months travelling around Southeast Asia I returned home, and this was the first time I'd been home for any decent period of time in over five years! This time I had Kristina with me, and I got to spend two whole months exploring my country with a whole new set of eyes having been travelling the world for quite some time now. The plan was to spend a couple weeks in my home city of Christchurch catching up with friends and family, buy a car, and hit the road just after Christmas for a six-week road trip all round New Zealand - for me revisiting some old haunts and discovering some new ones. Our route map and itinerary for the road trip are below.
Click a link below to get into it, starting with our initial fortnight in earthquake-ravaged Christchurch...
Between leaving Christchurch and arriving back again 39 days later my poor car had covered 7,200km (4,300 miles) including the 1,000km drive back down from Auckland, and apart from that one minor hiccup with the clutch on day one (which could hardly be blamed on the car as it turned out) it never gave us any grief. Now I gotta sell it again - anyone want a 2000 Subaru Legacy RSK-B4?
Somewhere in there I said, "I never knew how beautiful my country really was until I left it, and then returned with a more worldly pair of eyes." Yeah, well I couldn't agree with me more on that one, and while I think it's safe to say that New Zealand has a reputation internationally as being a stunningly beautiful country (even before The Lord of the Rings was released) I also think it really has to be seen and experienced firsthand to be believed. Vibrant cities, rugged country towns, stunning and diverse natural beauty (jagged mountains and glaciers, steep fiords, pristine lakes, raging rivers, scenic beaches, active volcanic features), adrenalin sports (bungy jumping, caving, rafting, zorbing, sledging, jet boating, skiing, sky diving, and paragliding to name just a few), one of the earth's richest flora zones combined with some unique fauna (the kiwi for example), and add to all that a rich and fascinating culture and you've got New Zealand in a compact and easily accessible nutshell, just like the country itself :)
That last point is a huge plus for us travellers. New Zealand is only a small country by global standards, and yet the range of what you can see and do and experience in this one little country in just the six to eight weeks that we've been here is staggering (and there's a lot more we could have done had time and money permitted). As if all that wasn't enough, there is no shortage of 'Kiwiana' to make this place even more unique (hokey pokey, pavlova, gumboots, Weet-Bix, Marmite, L&P, Four Square, Whittaker's peanut slab, etc. ;) Furthermore it's safe, it's clean, it has a temperate climate, modern visitor facilities, and well-developed transportation networks.
New Zealand really is a country you can bang on, and on, and on about, and all bias aside it really has to be the perfect destination for mine. But for me it isn't a destination - it's home sweet home, and it always will be. Now then, we're off to Australia...
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