Lake Hawea
After more than three months vagabonding around South America, life around New Zealand took some getting used to. It took me almost a week to stop thanking people in Spanish. Seeing a McDonald's or a Starbucks or any other American franchise no longer caused my blood pressure to spike. Beans and toast now qualified as immersing myself in the local culture.
New Zealand is a lot like Canada. Both are countries born from British colonialism. Both utilise a piece of indigenous foliage as a national emblem. Both exhibit a touch of inferiority complex when it comes to their closest neighbouring countries. Neither country boasts a national religion, but have populations that harbour a devotion to their respective national sports that could be understatedly described as zealous.
It was somewhat comforting to be back in a place where everything seemed so familiar.
Unfortunately, arriving in New Zealand also meant my reintroduction to First World pricing. My average per-day spending was up fifty percent over my entire time in South America. It was up twenty-five percent over Brazil alone; where, on top of being the most expensive country in South America, I was at the start of my trip and -- with a flush bank account -- spending like a drunken sailor.
Railway Station, Dunedin II
That being said, it wasn't that the day-to-day living expenses were ridiculously dear. On the whole, I was shelling out less per night for a hostel berth than I paid in southern Brazil. Food was reasonable; though I kept those costs down by adopting ham and cheese sandwiches as my staple lunch, and took full advantage of hostel kitchens to cook most of my own meals. And carting myself around the North and South Islands with my Kiwi Experience pass worked out a little cheaper than my per-day average transportation costs through Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay.
No, what really pushed up my expenses was all the doing of stuff. The sledging, the skydiving, the surf lessons, the tramping, the bungy jumping, the luge runs, the caving. And that's not even half of the stuff I could have done had I been blessed with an unlimited amount of funds.
Say What Now?
But New Zealand isn't all about adventure sports and tourist traps both great and small. It is a country of immense natural beauty. For a lover of the outdoors; there are fiords, mountains, sand dunes, glaciers, bays and inlets, active and inactive volcanoes, forests, small islands, beaches, lakes, waterfalls, gorges, stratified rock formations and world-class white-water rapids. As such, the country holds an inordinate number of photographic opportunities.
It wasn't all good, of course. The broadband infrastructure in New Zealand is just this side of atrocious, meaning that shelling out lots of money for Internet access became the order of the day. The Kiwi government's authoritarian solution to a public drunkenness problem was to institute urban public liquor bans, which in many cases would cover the distance between local liquor stores and my hostel; meaning I could have been stopped by police at any time just carrying liquor from a legal place of purchase back to my lodgings. And, for a country so steeped in outdoor tradition, I found the price of quality outdoor equipment to be ludicrously priced. But these were minor quibbles.
Mount Doom Revealed
Copious amounts of mountains and ocean. Rugby. Lots of spots from which to take pretty pictures. Friendly people with, by and large, both a relaxed and adventurous attitude. Throw in a wine industry noted for its Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc and there's little wonder why I become so completely enamoured of the country.
Things I Miss the Most:
1. Fergburger
2. PAK'nSAVE
3. Never Being More Than 119.44km From the Ocean
Things I Don't Miss at All:
1. Liquor Ban Areas
2. The Utter Lack of Free WiFi
3. Invercargill
Relates Entries:
1. Really... Any Post with 'New Zealand"' As a Tag
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