Pat here:
Those of you who follow the wenches regularly know that I’m a notorious sun lover. Even though I now live in Southern California, the land of sun, I still love traveling to the southern hemisphere and enjoying the long days of summer while the US is experiencing the short days of winter. Since our son, the ultimate sun-lover, lives in the Philippines, we meet every other year in a warm place none of us have explored. This year, it was New Zealand.
The written history of New Zealand isn’t very long. The country was the last habitable place in the world to be discovered—the Maori didn’t arrive until roughly 1200 AD, after Polynesia became overcrowded. We have only their oral history for that.
The first European to discover NZ was a Dutch explorer in 1642, Abel Tasman. We visited a spectacular national park named after him, right along the western coast with untouched natural beaches, rock formations, and amazing wildlife.
But it wasn’t until Captain James Cook arrived in 1769 that traders began arriving regularly. While the US was fighting a revolution, New Zealand was no more than a lawless trading post, fighting with the local Maori for the valuables they could strip from the land, and destroying flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. (extinct Moa from the Auckland museum)
Not until 1840 did the British establish a government, in cooperation with the Maori. Maybe because New Zealand was established so late in history, it grew at a slower pace and in what I consider to be a more civilized fashion. Agriculture still seems to be the predominant business—no big box stores and sprawling suburbs. They still have real downtowns!
We could barely cover the entire country, much less delve deeply into culture and history, in our spare two weeks. But we did our best! Auckland has a fabulous museum where almost the entire first floor is devoted to Maori artifacts and history. From Auckland, we drove to Hobbiton—in the farmlands south of Matamata. The rolling hills remind me of the Cotswolds. I could have spent far more time there, just as I’ve always wanted to linger in the Cotswolds. The Hobbiton movie set was built on a farm and if you arrive early enough, before the crowds, it’s a little like walking through the movie. You expect Bilbo or Samwise to step out of their homes at any time. The flowers are maintained by the young student employees, and it’s very much like walking through an old English village—except for the hobbit doors!
Ever onwward, we traveled south to Rotorua, home of fascinating hot springs that fill the town with the scent of sulfur when the wind blows the right way. There are several Maori villages there, where local families offer insight into the traditional language, music, and culture. I’m not too much on bathing in hot springs, but the Maori dances are a wonder to behold! (we have some great video, if only I could figure out how to download from an ipad!)
From there, we really should have gone to Christchurch, but due to various road closures, we were directed back to the opposite coast, where we explored the Abel Tasman park mentioned earlier.
Since we’re not athletic, don’t backpack, bicycle, or climb mountains, we spent more time driving through the mountainous south island than actually exploring it. At the last minute, we decided to skip the glaciers and cross back over to historic Christchurch. I could easily have spent a week there, but we were running out of time. So we trotted quickly through the botanical garden, adored the Nor'West Arch Morris Dancers dancers, didn’t have
time for the animal reserve, which we really wanted to see. And then we hiked all over the vibrant downtown area, so sadly damaged by the earthquake.
We ended our journey in Queenstown, where we ate decadent chocolates, cooked our steaks on stones, visited a fabulous bird park, and surrendered the car to take a bus tour to pristine Milford Sound, enjoying not driving anywhere for a while.
The best part of the journey, of course, was visiting with our son, but I’d go back in a heartbeat. Is there some part of the world you’d love to visit? Why?