New Zealand is a destination that deserves more time than I have given it with my first trip there in April and May of 2004.  I spent a grand total of about two weeks in New Zealand, and I didn't have time to even explore the whole of the North Island.  In fact, all I saw was a bit of Auckland, the Warkworth area, the Bay of Islands area, and the east coast between Auckland and Opua. Refer to the map below.

If you are interested in how I got involved in a four week trip to New Zealand and Fiji with only three weeks notice, and which involved crewing on an offshore sailboat (despite not having any sailing experience), then read New Zealand - the preliminaries & trip down first. 

If you just want to jump right in to viewing photos and reading my narratives, then join me in Auckland after my arrival.

Here is my whole trip (including Fiji) in chronological order:

You can click on the "Next" links at the bottom of each page and find your way through the whole trip beginning to end.  Of course, the text link navigation to be found at the top of each page is always an excellent way to explore the JoeTourist website, especially if you want to jump around.

This map of New Zealand is included to illustrate just how little of New Zealand I managed to cover in this trip.  The section of the North Island between Auckland and Opua is the only area of New Zealand I visited.  As I always say, leave some destinations for a future trip.  I expect to return to New Zealand and spend at least a month travelling throughout the whole country, in order to do it justice.

Thoughts on New Zealand

First off, what I saw of New Zealand and its people I liked very much.  To be honest, I was expecting a bit more culture shock after travelling so far, but it is obvious that New Zealand is very similar to Canada in many ways.  We share our mutual compulsiveness for automobiles, cellphones, coffee, the Internet, and eating in restaurants.  New Zealanders tend to not greet each other on the street quite as often as Canadians do, but that's not to say they are unfriendly - they are just a bit more reserved.  Perhaps that is their stronger ties to England showing through.  We are both Commonwealth countries, so we share our British Monarchy roots in our governments, laws, and values.  Unfortunately, we also share our problems with land claims and poor treatment of our native populations, due no doubt to our shared British colonization heritage.

New Zealanders drink good quality beer - on par with our Canadian cottage brewery and local pub beers we have grown to appreciate.  New Zealand produces a great deal of wine, however I found much of it did not appeal to my palette.  I'm not a wine connoisseur, so perhaps my opinion doesn't count for much, but I prefer our VQA Okanagan wines from my home province of British Columbia to the (admittedly limited number of) wines I sampled in New Zealand.

New Zealanders have noticeably higher quality fresh food than North Americans are used to seeing in our food stores.  Our fresh meats and vegetables tend to come from high volume food factories, so we are used to mediocre quality food at low prices.  Our organic foods might be on par with New Zealand's food.

New Zealand Links