The Paua and the Glory - the New Zealand round up

---

The Blue View

Wow, what a place.

A place that I had wanted to see more of since my last visit a decade ago.

A place I now want to come back to and explore even more.

The first place I can truly say I could emigrate to. Now I just have to convice the wife.

This is a place that is stunningly beautiful, where every corner reveals yet more amazing scenery, and just when you think it can't get any better, it does.

It is a country where they know the value of their wild areas, and look after them very well, yet also make them accessible to the populace. In that regard they are light years ahead of us in the UK. When was the last time you found a usable public convenience - let alone one in the middle of dartmoor, that had no graffitti and plenty of toilet roll?

The people here are friendly, and love to have visitors viewing their country - they are happy to show it off, they know they have something spectacular.

I can think of no better way to see this country than as we did it a camper van and would recommend it to anybody. The only caveat to that is that to do it justice you need longer than we took, or to drive for a long time each day. There is our only regret of this trip - we should really have skipped Australia entirely and doubled our time in NZ, especially as it wouldn't really have increased our spend in NZ as we would have done the same number of kilometres, just driven less each day.

From the frigid south to the winterless north, this place is beautiful. The water is warm up north and the surf is decent in many places, the language is our own, and they drive on the correct side of the road - what isn't there to like? Apart from the ridiculous way they have interpreted the "give way to the right" rule, which means somebody turning right on the other carriageway has priority over you if you are turning left from your lane into the same junction (but if you're going straight on you have priority over them,) this place is a breeze.

They have decent beer, and good wine, oh and did I mention the place is beautiful?
Yet part of that beauty was in the familiarness of the landscape with that from home. Why don't we think of our own country like this? Is it the facilities or lack of them? Is it just that we don't take the time to view our own back yard?

I'm not sure what the answer is but one thing we have said many times prior to this trip, and have repeated even more whilst on this trip is that we really should see more of the UK - hell I have never even been to Scotland, yet I can travel the length and breadth of NZ in 3 weeks.

Whatever the outcome, if we do end up seeing more of home, it will be because NZ has awoken us to the possibilities of travelling in this manner. Or maybe I won't bother with looking around at home and start saving to come back here again.......

The Pink View

You can see just how blown away with this place Gregg is - he started typing his round up before I had even begun to think about mine. That is not to say that my feelings about NZ differ from his (well perhaps in one particular respect - I'm staying put in England) but I was enjoying the place too much to want to think about summing it up - to do so would have been to acknowledge that our time there was nearly over.

South Island was, for me, the undisputed highlight of our trip it is just jaw dropingly stunning. It is impossible to describe it or photograph it in a way that does it the justice that it deserves. Around every corner is a brand new 'wow'.

Even when our teeth were chattering from the cold and we were being battered by the wind at midnight it was beautiful and I didn't want to be anywhere else.

I have always loved the rugged beauty of North Cornwall in deep winter when there are few tourists to be seen and the far south of South Island had exactly the same quality. Even though we spent little more than an hour without seeing another camper van, it felt as if we were seeing each landscape, waterfall and coastline anew. New Zealand has this way of making you feel that you are one of the chosen few to witness its wonders.

North Island was, for me, slightly less spectacular but perhaps I would have viewed it differently had we started there and finished in Sourth Island. It was still picture perfect though and oh, so peaceful (except if camping by a railway line or an HGV depot!).

There will always be a place in my heart for NZ and our time there is something that I will treasure. It is the first country that we have visited that I have not been ready to leave when the time has come (or sometimes earlier than that) which speaks volumes - this place sucks you in but won't spit you out again. It is far too gentle for that.

I think that I would have previously been put off holidaying in NZ because, being English speaking and westernised, it didn't seem enough of a challenge. Bugger the challenge, this is a place that I wish all of those that I love could have shared with me - it would have been a mighty big camper van but, boy, would it have been fun.

---