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Published: August 18th 2007
New Zealand. A place I thought I’d travel to when I’d finished seeing the rest of the world. I’m no slouch on geography and yet, I couldn’t have told you before my trip here if Christchurch was on the North or the South Island. That may be due to a naturally occurring Australian trait that takes New Zealand for granted, like the country was a distant 9th state of Australia with nothing to offer but an unlikely accent and an underachieving cricket team. How wrong I was.
New Zealand is a stunningly beautiful place that gives you an idea what the world would be like if the human race wasn’t so prolific. This place is as far from London as you can possibly get and not only in a geographical sense. The mountains look wild and untouched; the sea’s are plentiful with life; the water you drink straight from the tap tastes like it came from a cool icy lake up in the mountains. There are fjords here that were carved out by glaciers during the last ice age and some of those glaciers still survive up amongst the cloud-covered peaks. If you’re even slightly inclined to outdoor adventure you
should make an effort to come here. I will definitely be back for more. The people here are friendly and unassuming and most certainly grounded. OK, I admit that I didn’t frequent any Once-Were-Warriors-style drinking holes but I’m told they are pretty rare…well except for South Auckland where I believe the film was shot.
I spent almost five days here with my good mate Steve Kaminski who I used to work with in Brisbane. As we hadn’t really had a decent chance to catch up in four years, we had lots to talk about and had a good laugh the whole time. It’s a pity my schedule didn’t allow me more time there.
The highlight of my stay in NZ was heading over to Akaroa on the coast just south of Christchurch. Akaroa is a natural deep water harbour that was once part of an enormous ancient volcano. Steve and I went out for a day’s fishing and had a brilliant time. The skipper was a Kiwi Paul Hogan complete with a repertoire of jokes and a funny looking sidekick (Kiwi deckhand). The other guys that came along were two South Africans. So with Steve and I as
the Aussie contingent, we reckoned it was the Tri-Nations fishing competition. As a harbinger of good luck for the impending Rugby World Cup, I’m proud to say the Aussies cleaned up ;-) Check out the pics as evidence. After the last few weeks in the tropics of Mexico, Hawaii and Fiji, this was a cold weather wake up call. Thanks Steve for lending me half his wardrobe so I’d stay warm.
Regrettably, my New Zealand sojourn is almost over. I’m sitting here at the airport in Auckland about to fly to Indonesia and I guess I’m looking forward to the warm weather again.
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Steve
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Freddy's coming for you ...
Freddy can fillet a fish with 2 fingers. You better hope Kruger doesn't read this blog roge ... you better keep an eye out on the horizon at G Land in case he carves his way across the pacific hell bent on revenge :). PS: The boys won their 2nd game this weekend 4-2 and Jordan was not there.