Christmas in New Zealand
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We
spent the month of December 2015 sampling Australia and touring New Zealand.
Winters in Las Vegas are not severe enough to require an escape but our trip
to the southern hemisphere did restore the long days of summer. We experienced
no jet lag problem because New Zealand is only 3 hours time difference from
home; the same difference as the Eastern to Pacific time zones in the US.
The "other side of the world" is reflected in the north/south direction.
As it happens, our Oregon house is located right on the 45th parallel (halfway
between the North Pole and the Equator). When we were cruising through Milford
Sound we noticed that the GPS coordinates put it right on the 45th Parallel
in the Southern Hemisphere.
The first two weeks of our trip was a cruise beginning in Sydney, visiting Melbourne, then circumnavigating New Zealand. We found NZ to be beautiful and Australia not so much. Sydney is a beautiful and clean city with a large harbor that was full of ferries, sailboats and kayakers. We took one of the ferries on a 45 minute trip across the harbor, more for the ride than the destination. Then we boarded the cruise ship and were shocked to see the Sydney Opera House right outside of our balcony. The ultimate "welcome to Australia" sign!
In
Melbourne we went on a tour to a wildlife refuge about an hour's bus ride
into the interior. Our group of about 20 was sneaking through the underbrush
and between the trees trying to get close to the kangaroos,
koalas and emu's. The infamous
Australian flies which had not been present in the coastal cities, were a
real plague in the outback. It was hard to take a picture when one hand was
always busy doing the "Australian wave" to shoo away the flies.
It was uncomfortable enough that touring the Australian Outback has been taking
off of our bucket list.
New Zealand is two time zones east of Australia. Our first contact with the country was sailing up the most famous of the fjords, Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound. The cliffs rise straight out of the water with no shoreline whatsoever. The sheer cliff face continues below the water and it was surprising how close our huge cruise ship could get to the land. The view is so vast that it's hard to comprehend the size of the peaks and valleys. The "tiny" looking waterfall in the lower left of this photo is over 500 feet high (three times the height of Niagra falls). The weather in Fiordland National Parks is normally pretty dreary; with mist and rain almost always affecting the visibility. We truly lucked out! The sun was shining, the air was clear, and the surrounding scenery was a sight to behold.
Our
ports of call were small villages that were located in long mini-fjord harbors.
We explored each of these ports on foot because we knew we would be back with
a car on the "land" portion of our trip. The exception to the small
village ports was our disembarkation port in Auckland. We had the drape open
in our cabin and woke up with the lights of downtown
Auckland looming right outside our window. In fact when the ship finally
docked, the 6th floor rooms of the Hilton hotel were just outside our cabin.
The tourists were standing on their balconies watching us pack to leave the
ship.
I had a rental car reserved in Auckland and we were provided with the basic rules of the road before we pulled out.....in a vehicle with the steering wheel on the right and traffic lanes on the "wrong" side of the road. It reminded me of our first trip to Lake Powell when they gave us the keys to a 50 foot houseboat and said "good luck" (before we almost took out the fuel dock). The traffic safety department in New Zealand obviously has a lot of experience with tourists having a hard time making the transition. The entrance to every roundabout had large blue arrows on each side of the lane you are supposed to be in. At every non-controlled intersection there were huge white arrows painted in the lane you need to be in after making the turn. We actually found it harder to be a pedestrian there because you never knew which direction the cars were going to come from when you were trying to cross the street.
We
traveled the length and breadth of both islands and put a total of 3,900 kilometers
(2,500 miles) on our rental car. Driving on the left side of the road is pretty
easy once you get going because you just get in your lane and stay there.
The aforementioned arrows keep you from making a major mistake in general
driving. It is only pulling out of parking lots or driving anywhere in the
big cities where you're on your own and it takes a LOT of concentration (and
a helpful co-pilot). The major roads are nearly all 2-lane. Our 2,500 miles
probably only included 25 miles on 4-lane roads. And, outside of downtown
Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch we only saw ONE stoplight (with its
attendant traffic backup). The most interesting difference was having the
steering wheel on the wrong side. Every time I went to signal a lane change
I flicked the windshield wiper lever. Patty and I would laugh every time we
saw an obvious tourist with his wipers going in a clear sunny day.
We were, perhaps, most impressed with the cleanliness of the country and the friendliness of the people. There was never any trash on the sides of the road. There isn't a single pothole in the entire country. In the big cities, what looked like a neighborhood you would avoid in the US seemed to be perfectly safe with friendly people. I had a short discussion with a policeman in one of the small towns and found a gift bag and note of apology on our motel doorstep the next morning. Anytime we ever asked locals for directions or anything, they went out of their way to enthusiastically provide more information than required. Many of them even closed the conversation saying "Good on ya, mate".
The
clear, sunny weather that we had in Fiordlands continued throughout our trip.
We had only a few hours of drizzle that hit while we were hiking to a glacier
(pronounced glass-ier). Our observation was that New Zealand tourism is mainly
directed at the young. There are youth hostels everywhere you look and extreme
adventure activities are just about all you see advertised. We saw a lot of
young singles backpacking, hitchhiking or riding public transportation. I
like to think that we didn't get there too late, but we could have had more
fun 20 years ago!
The must-see tourist attractions on the north island include the glow worm caves, the thermal features, and the unique bird species. We grew up with lightning bugs and we experienced huge fireflies in a cave in Belize, but these glow worms are different. They hang from the ceiling in certain caves and the larvae emit a light to attract flying insects for food. We drifted through an underground river in a small boat and found the ceiling covered in these small points of light. It was much more impressive than we were expecting. The thermal features can in no way compare to Yellowstone. Some of them are located on Maori land with houses all around them. There was a strong sulfur smell and we wondered about the long term health impact on the residents. We toured one location where the proprietor gave us a temperature sensor for our amusement and amazement. The islands of New Zealand developed in isolation and had no carnivorous mammals; humans didn't even discover it until the 1200's when the Maori came west from Polynesia (not east from Australia as you might expect). Europeans didn't get there until the 1800's. As a result the predominant species on the islands was birds, and most had evolved to give up their ability to fly. The largest of the flightless birds disappeared soon after humans landed. Others were forced to near extinction by the egg-eating rats that jumped ship from the European explorers. Of the current bird species, the cutest of them all is the kiwi. The bird is strictly nocturnal so seeing one in the wild is out of the question. We found an aviary that raises them and reverses their circadian rhythm by leaving the lights on all night then dimming them during the day. We were lucky enough to get there at feeding time and watched the territorial critter (about as big as a medium size dog) winding in and out of the employee's legs trying to push her away. It was soooo cute!
The
North & South islands are separated by the Cook Straight. We drove our
car onto a ferry and enjoyed the 50 mile trek both
ways. The attraction of the South Island is its mountains, glaciers and fjords.
The scenery is spectacular.
You can't swing a cat without hitting a National Park. You can hike
to the glaciers from the west side and get pretty close on the east side.
They may be more accessible from the west but they are more beautiful from
the east. Our favorite place to stay was Wanaka, a quiet village about 45
minutes north of bustling Queenstown. A majority of NZ's population lives
on the North Island but the primary tourists destination is the South Island.
Nonetheless, traffic and crowds were almost nonexistent; probably because
the largest group of tourists were young people "riding the rails"
to the extreme adventure attractions.
LONG airplane flights are never fun. We had to cross two time zones in the opposite direction to pick up our flight home out of Sydney. When we went to clear customs in Los Angeles one of our bags was missing and the tag had fallen off of the one that came through. This meant that we couldn't just check it through to Las Vegas, we had to drag it all the way down to the Delta Airlines terminal and recheck it onto our flight to Las Vegas. The Christmas season tourist rush caused us to almost miss our connecting flight and, as expected, our other bag was not there when we arrived. Losing both of our suitcases was really no problem since we were at home. And when they were finally located and delivered 5 days later it felt like we were opening Christmas presents rather than the drudgery of unpacking.