New Zealand Part 2

Overall, we were quite enamored with New Zealand’s South Island. While Christchurch was a bit too touristy for us, the rest of what we saw was marvelous. Our train trip from Christchurch to Picton took us along the eastern coast of New Zealand where we saw more beautiful beaches, wildlife, and a bit of the inland scenery. The ferry from Picton to Wellington started off rather innocently (but a couple of hours late). Initially you have to go through some protected land and that part of the trip was quite beautiful. Then you have to pass through Cook’s straight – and that is another story. The weather was stormy that day and so the seas were rough – Kevin had a blast and was happy to go to the top deck to see what was going on. Abigail (me), on the other hand … let’s just say that I made it to Wellington in one piece and was all too happy to get off the boat. Of the three New Zealand cities we visited, Wellington seemed the most cosmopolitan and most livable. Kevin got to do most of the site seeing as I had to work most of the time I was there – ended up giving two talks, meeting with folks from a research institute, and even gave an interview on Radio New Zealand (hopefully nothing that I said will come back to haunt me). There is a fabulous museum in Wellington called Te Papa – it covers life in New Zealand from a “white man’s” perspective as well as from the Maori’s perspective – and covers life as it was as well as life today. We were quite surprised to learn that the Maori are quite respected in New Zealand (extremely different from the way the aboriginals are treated in Australia). In Wellington, we also got to reconnect with a friend from Princeton’s days which was quite nice.

We spent the weekend at Wharekauhau, a resort north of Wellington. The resort was beyond our expectations. We had our own little cottage that faced onto Palliser Bay. We were there for 3 days and nights. In general, the resort is in a rather remote location (but still 90 minutes from Wellington) – there are only 10 cottages situated on a 5000 acre sheep station. There are lots of activities and for the most part the meals are served to all guests in a communal setting (everyone sits at the same table). The first day we were the only guests and so we had this fabulous five course dinner alone. We explored the area on horseback and on foot. There was a lovely pool and spa. The setting was fabulous (see the pics), the food tremendous … we even had one of the two resident cats (fish but not chips) come and hang out with us in our cottage. The night sky was unbelievable – all sorts of stars and the milky way was amazing. Our second and third nights we dined with the other guests which included a winemaker and his wife and one of the principal owners and his girlfriend. A bit pretentious but we still enjoyed our evenings.

After our weekend of relaxing and being well fed we drove from the resort north to Auckland. Unfortunately we only had a day to do the drive so we did not see much of the North Island. While nice, we decided we enjoyed the people and the landscape of the South Island. We were very disappointed with Auckland. It is the biggest and most industrial looking city in New Zealand – apparently the charm of Auckland comes from its mini-islands – it struck us that it was a mini-Sydnew with less charm.