New Zealand - 1-21 Oct
It is what you hope it’s going to be - and more. It’s a smartly run country. Everything is beautiful. Sheep are in lambing season and there are lots of confused looking little cotton puffs running around these postcard perfect fields. The freezing river waters are a pure cobalt blue. Kayakers make effortless runs through class 5 rivers. People are friendly and happy and love living there. There are lots of great Indian restaurants. Oh, and Hobbitville. They have Hobbitville (The Shire/Hobiton)!!!
As usual, more words at the bottom...if you so choose.
South Island - from Queenstown to Picton
NERDVILLE!!!
Shire landscape
The bridge and wheelhouse featured in the start of the Shire scene
North Island
We’ve been on the road for the past 21 months and have effectively run out of fitting adjectives and superlatives on the south island of New Zealand. ‘Awesomest’ and ‘Amazingest’ don’t really have the same ring as ‘Redonkulous’ (not our word but Mitch’s, and I use it liberally). I’ve mostly just resorted to “Uhh uhh uhh, Holy Sh1111T…look over there” and “Dayyyuuuummmm…loookkitt that!”. The longer you draw it out the more beautiful it is. It’s sometimes tough to gawk at stuff, though, when you’re still trying to drive on the opposite side of the car and the road.
We were here 16 years ago and it’s still stunning. The south island is a little like Lord of the Rings meets Alaska meets Colorado with a Santa Cruz vibe but with more sheep than people. And speaking of LOTR, we added one more rung to the Nerd Ladder HOF and went to Hobiton (North Island), the original film set for the Hobbit’s Village. After the 2nd trilogy they turned it into a tourist site and it’s SO worth the money. We’ve been driving around countryside that just screamed Middle Earth and Mordor for weeks so to pull up to the original farmlands that they actually built the Shire into was fitting. And it’s nice to know that I am actually too tall to fit in a normal hobbit home. My elfin mother, on the other hand, would have been right at home - no magic clamp arm thingy needed to reach the top shelf cereal boxes in a hobbit home.
The New Zealand of today is quite different than that of 16 years ago. The first 10 or so people we met were all foreigners (Brazilians, French, English, Indians, etc), expats working in NZ. We didn’t meet an actual local for a few days. With the rise in tourism they need to bring in tons of workers to manage industry, so everything from Uber to hotel to restaurant and site management (Hobiton) is mostly done with visa workers. Add in the large amount of remote workers that were smart enough to realize they could open their laptop on a beach or mountain lake here and it created a huge increase (23%) in population over the past couple of decades. We were watching some surfers on the North island one day and there were two ladies sitting on the grass next to us working on their laptops. Why wasn’t I THAT smart?????
I won’t give the entire play-by-play for NZ, as it would be WAY too long. But, here’s a few NZ highlights. We started on the south island and having visited Christchurch the previous trip, we decided to see the west coast this time. We flew into Queenstown and then drove north along the west coast for a couple of weeks. Queenstown is a beautiful town and the gateway to the western side of the island, with a major airport and easy access to everything from snow skiing to jet boat runs through the river. It’s also the hopping off point for Milford Sound, one of the iconic sights of NZ. We still didn’t go, btw, but I wish we had. It was a long drive and lodging was really expensive, so we bypassed it again…next trip! Queenstown’s a stunning lake town and is similar to a Colorado ski town, but at a lower elevation. It’s also a huge tourist destination and was crowded with mostly Asians buying up all of the name-brand snow gear and posing and preening for their Instagram shots. The city was really lively but was stricken with a bunch of TikTok famous restaurants that had hour long lines for hamburgers and Vietnamese food selfies - not entirely our scene, even though we love both hamburgers and Vietnamese food. We generally have a rule that if there is a line for a restaurant, especially of locals, we get in it, no questions asked. But that rule is voided if it’s Tik-Tockers or Instagrammers - they can ruin ANY place quickly. The city did house quite a few really good restaurants and food trucks and a nightlife that made up for the lack of nightlife in most of the other south island towns. The highlight for me was taking the lift up the ski and mountain bike mountain for the panoramic views it offered. I was amused as the mountain bikers had to stop near the end of the trail to let a family of huge mountain goats pass. One of the baby goats was hopping and jumping and playing and just looked like it needed a biker to test its horns on.
What you might hear in a piano bar anywhere in the world…or what songs does a group of Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Japanese and Chinese ALL know, from Queenstown to Boracay to Zanzibar? Country Road (Does anyone even know WHERE West Virginia is?), Piano Man, Mamma Mia, some obscure (to me) NZ band from the 80’s, 9 to 5, Sweet Caroline, The Gambler, and anything from CCR. Oddly no Crowded House here. List not entirely complete but that’s what I can remember. They also like Fireball shots. Lots of them. Oh, Sunday morning was not all that fun…
From Queenstown we drove to the highlight of NZ for me - Wanaka. Growing up near a lot of lakes, I tend to discount lake towns a bit and always prefer to be near the sea. Bad move. Wanaka might be the prettiest town I’ve ever been to, save Victoria, and one I wish we’d spent a few more days with. As we drove in we noticed a sign for a chamber concert that night at the local winery, and immediately bought tickets. The winery was on a hill overlooking the lake and mountains and held some of the most majestic views my phone camera can recall. Combining a sunny mountain afternoon with a heavenly view, some beautiful music and a ‘tiny’ bit of wine can make for the best of memories. All it lacked was a pizza. To top it off, wife made some friends, as she does, and we got to join a group of young locals (sort of) for a birthday dinner after the concert. Yet again, this is what makes travel so special for us, getting to make new friends. If you’re reading this, Jonny, Feli, Morgan and Logan, thank you for letting us crash your party - we LOVED meeting you and wherever we land, there will be room/rooms waiting for you!
From Wanaka, we travelled along the coast, visiting Hokitika, Franz Josef (I’ve always wanted to go there just because I like the name, and it has two glaciers surrounding it) Nelson, and then the beautiful little port town of Picton. Picton is where the ferry departs for Wellington on the north island and also where we took one of our best excursions. If you know wife, you are likely getting postcards from her - she’s actually writing one as I write this now. The excursion was going out with the local mailman on the mailboat/tour of the Picton Sound, delivering mail to some of the off-grid homeowners that live among the islands and inlets. This was one of the best boat rides we have taken - in addition to getting incredible weather, we got to see how their local postal service operates in remote locations and tour the beautiful NZ coastline. We were greeted by homeowners and their dogs (that each got treats from our mailman), some rare Blue Cod, a fancy luxury resort staff and lots of dolphins and a few lazy seals. Definitely recommend the Picton Magic Mail Run if you are in the area. (After I reread this paragraph I realized how old that makes me sound…)
Next we took the ferry across to Wellington on the north island. Wellington is another city I’d like to spend a bit more time in, but we only had a couple of days. It’s built around a large bay and most of the surrounding city sits on hills overlooking the bay. In addition to a great NZ history museum, Wellington boasts one of the best botanical gardens of any city we’ve seen so far, which makes a great half-day tour if you take the funicular up the hill and then slowly amble back down through the garden. We also got lucky and met (it was NOT stalking but we did see them randomly three times before actually meeting them) a wonderful American family (Amy, David and Greta) and got to spend a lovely dinner with them. Funny how comforting it can be just speaking your own language (American English!) with people, especially really interesting people.
From Wellington we stopped off in the Hawkes Bay Area for a bit of wine tasting. BTW, Shiraz (Aus) and Syrah (NZ) are not the same wines - same grape but different process and growing temp so they taste quite different. I might have offended some New Zealand wine people by not properly knowing that distinction. From Hawkes Bay we then spent a few nights in Taupo, which was similar to Wanaka but not as beautiful. Taupo boasts the most interesting McDonald’s in the world, as one of its dining rooms is an old DC-3 airplane that has been restored.
After Taupo, we stopped off at Hobiton on the way to Raglan, a surfer town that we visited years ago, and then briefly to Auckland, where we spent a day before heading to French Polynesia. We'll head back to Auckland after FP so I'll add a little more when we return.
* Best hitchhiker pick-up in NZ - Bob. Bob is a Kiwi from Auckland that retired to the bush years ago and is now a full time gold miner/panner. Bob sleeps in a hammock during the winter and seemed amused at my level of incredulity that he didn’t get cold in the winter. He was in Queenstown selling some gold to buy supplies and we picked him up a few km outside QT, on the way to Arrowtown, yet another insanely cute south island town. Bob dressed like a giant hobbit (Bobbit???) and in one 25 minute ride, schooled us on NZ politics, American politics, the gold industry and the best local yogurts available in NZ. Apparently you have a lot of time to read and reflect while living in the wilderness searching for shiny rocks.
* Best business lunch in NZ - One guy got out of the water with his surfboard, washed off with a big bottle of water and then put his suit back on. Not a bad place for a lunch break!
* Best line heard in NZ - “That seagull pinched my sushi!!!” after a gull swooped in and stole it off the plate that he was holding.
You two are just glowing - travel looks good on you (oh, and thanks for the great stories and pics)!
Kathy G