I haven’t been everywhere, but based on the 40+ countries I have visited in the last 40+ years, I am quite sure that New Zealand is the most beautiful place on earth. We’ve just returned from a 10-day visit to the south island of New Zealand. It wasn’t our first visit, as we did live in Australia for 3 years and made a point of visiting NZ. So, the phenomenon whereby your first visit to some place is not as exquisite as the second visit – that does not apply to this place.
We were based primarily in Cromwell, a small town in the south island. I went for a 35km bike ride, visited Queenstown and Arrowtown, Bluff and Te Aura, and went kayaking on Doubtful Sound.
Milford Sound is most famous place to visit in the south island, I think. We went there some years ago and it is truly gorgeous. However, these days it is ‘discovered’ and because you can drive there, it can be busy with tourists on guided tours. We chose Doubtful Sound – it is quite difficult to get to. We took a bus to a boat to a bus to a boat and finally ended up at the Sound, where we got in our sea kayaks. I think we saw one boat during the day. The waterfalls and the unspoiled scenery were just magical. I hope it stays that way.
We also did our duty in exploring some of the wine region in Central Otago. There are over 40 vineyards in the south island alone. We went to three in the Bannockburn region – Carrick https://www.carrick.co.nz/, Mt Difficulty (www.mtdifficulty.nz) and Dicey https://www.dicey.nz/, run by the Dicey brothers. Each was beautiful and had wonderful wines. This region is known for Pinot Noir and it did not disappoint.
Driving around New Zealand is a treat in itself. The scenery is just beautiful and you will of course see sheep and cattle everwhere. The ratio of sheep to humans is still about 5:1 (less than it used to be when we first visited) but in the Southland region it is about 80:1.
There are no dangerous predators on the island of New Zealand – they don’t have poisonous spiders and snakes and frankly the people (they call themselves kiwis) are the nicest population we have run across. I don’t think I have met a kiwi who isn’t a nice person…not hard to understand given the heaven where they live. Our daughter even married one!
I’ve never gone to visit NZ without thinking “gee, could I make a living if I stayed here?”
If only.
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