New Zealand
A holiday is no longer about the journey. 9 times out of 10 it’s all about the destination. The journey works more as a reminder and indicator that we are actually going somewhere; telling our body and mind that we have gone somewhere else; that things are now different and we can now look upon people with an objective mind, like if we were visiting animals at the zoo.
A flight from London, UK, to Christchurch, New Zealand takes about 25 hours in travel time, and has a time difference of 13 hours plus. Now that’s a bit more than just a “small reminder to prepare for a difference in culture”.
A UK - NZ flight sticks with you for a while.
And gives you stories to tell.
It all ran smoothly up until Melbourne. The guy at customs almost tore my passport apart. I told him to be careful since I had noticed that the photo page in my passport had started to tear a bit, which led to him “inspecting” (e.g ripping) it even further. When I handed it over it was “as good as new”, when I got it back it was “almost invalid”.
Then, they (customs) didn’t even want to let us through to collect our bags. A transit visa apparently cost them money. They said, “The people in London should have sent your bags all the way to Christchurch”. They said, “We can make sure your bags get on the plane, so that you don’t have to go through customs (e.g cost us money). Come this way, and go directly to your gate.”
I said thanks.
In Christchurch customs told me Swedish passports are shit. They told me to “follow me” and “please sit” and “please wait” and “we will let you through with this passport, but be careful so it doesn’t rip all the way”.
I said thanks.
Then, the conveyor belt at the baggage claim told me, “Your bags were not on the plane”, followed by “the people in Melbourne seem to have f***ed it all up”.
I said thanks.
I left UK on Saturday the 18th of February and landed in Christchurch on the following Monday lunch time with an invalid passport and no luggage.
I said thanks.
The main reason for us flying out was to visit Willow’s best friend Elspeth Richardson. Elspeth moved to New Zealand in August 2006, with the prospect of it being better for her career as a doctor — ie she had lost faith in the NHS.
Not that many people seem to fly out from Europe to New Zealand for a two week holiday. Most visitors stop by during their “Around The World Trip”, just after they have been to Thailand or Singapore and do the whole country during a month or so. I do think that’s the best way to do it. We had two weeks and two weeks was not enough. Not even close - and we were only on the south island. Two weeks might be OK if you’re going with only one thing in mind; you’ve narrowed it down — e.g. doing amazing walks like Queen Charlotte Track or Milford Sounds — but not if you’re going to get a good bite of what New Zealand has to offer.
Before we went I didn’t know much about New Zealand. I knew it was a country the size of the United Kingdom, with nice scenery, low population and a lot of sheep.
It all as been proven correct. Except that ‘nice scenery’ should probably be ‘amazing scenery’.
Can I see myself moving out there?
No (but I did like this house).
At first I was totally blown of my feet by the amazing and untouched scenery (flying in from grey February London to hit a late New Zealand summer probably added fuel to that fire), but as the time passed a bitter aftertaste started to appear. It wasn’t that much behind the huge mountain but another huge mountain. On the other side of the beautiful peninsula was yet another beautiful peninsula.
I think being raised in a country like Sweden and its vain women has taught me to look beyond the facade.
It is a very very young country (read: since Europeans start occupying). The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in the Bay of Islands on 6 February 1840. The treaty is regarded as New Zealand’s foundation as a nation. That’s only 167 years ago. I’m not 100% sure, but I do think that it’s the young age that makes New Zealand feel a bit hollow and “amusement-park” like.
But, having said all that - I do want to go back for another visit.
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Christchurch
About 24 hours after we landed in Christchurch our luggage arrived, and we started our drive around the island.
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Dunedin
A nice little student town with a lot of Scottish inherits. Here we took the Taieri Gorge Railway (photo). I can also recommend the peninsula (photo).
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Te Anau
We stayed here to go Kayaking at Milford Sounds. We had a very nice accommodation(photo, photo).
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Milford Sounds
With an annual rainfall of 6813 mm on 182 days, we were very lucky to have wonderful weather during our day Kayaking in the sound. It was a beautiful day.
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Fox Glacier
From Milford Sound we drove to Fox Glacier, via Queenstown and Wakawa (photo). This is the part I wished we had scooped a bit more time for. It was lovely around these parts. A tip is to get off state highway #6 at Queenstown and drive the Crown Range Road via Cardrona to Wanaka(map). Crown Range Road is the highest part of New Zealand’s highways and a very scenic route (photo).
The same day as we arrived to Fox Glacier we had a helicopter ride over the glacier (photo).
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Franz Josef
Bad weather (photo). Here we finally meet up with Hanky and Isak! Was very nice to see them, but I do think it will be even nicer to see them when they come past London on their way back to Sweden; in a more relaxed environment.
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Christchurch
Via Arthur’s Pass (photo) we drove back to Christchurch to pick up Elpeths parents.
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Kaikora
Swimming with dolphins. When I was told we were supposed to swim with dolphins I pictured a dolphin in a pool. Not 400 wild dolphins in the sea.
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Picton
We just stayed in Picton over night. If we had more time, I would have loved to go on the Queen Charlotte Track walk.
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d’Urville Island
To get to d’Urville Island, you first have to drive to French Pass, which is an amazing drive (photo), and then take a boat taxi (photo) out to the island. We had a first class bedroom view on the island (photo), but unfortunately, for me, the stay on this lovely island wasn’t as good as it could have been due to a huge abscess that appeared on my left butt cheek.
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Nelson
Beaches.
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Blenheim
On the way back from Nelson to Christchurch we did some wine tasting. I’m afraid most of the vineyards were a bit to commercialised for my taste. One that I did like was Fromm. They were Swiss and made wine “the European way”, and were actually one of the few places to use corks instead of screw caps.
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Christchurch
And home went.
