No worries

I could write a long-winded travelogue about the trip to New Zealand, but it would take a long time and none of you probably would read the whole thing. Plus, I'm lazy. Looky! Here's a picture instead: It's Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables range near Queenstown.

But here, in convenient bulleted form, is what we did - and didn't - do in the land of the Kiwi.

DID:

• Hike 82 kilometers in less than four days on the Heaphy Track with 14 kilograms of pack on my back. In American, that's 51 miles and 31 pounds.

• Get several dated pop songs stuck in my head on the hike: "Livin' on a Prayer" (mostly the line "Who-oa, we're halfway there" whenever I thought we reached the halfway point to the next milestone), "Purple Rain" (it rained a lot), "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers (that chick really better be worth the blisters, sore feet and destroyed knees) and "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car" (this one kind of defies explanation).

• Visit four national parks: Kahurangi, Paparoa, Fiordland and Abel Tasman.

• Visit five airports (these were less inspiring): Auckland, Nelson, Christchurch, Hokitika and Queenstown.

• Kayak three days, two in Doubtful Sound and one in Abel Tasman National Park.

• Eat very well, including some New Zealand specialties: lamb, venison, blue cod. Yum.

• Spend a lot of money. This is easy because New Zealand notes are colorful and there are birds on them so they don't look like real money.

• See two Maori shows and learn to pronounce correctly the Maori geographical names of the places we visited.

• Enjoy the hilarity of "Flight of the Conchords."

• Learn that Kiwis are not as uptight as Americans. This was confirmed by the Auckland airport's televisions all being tuned to "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," f-bombs, boobs and all.

• Feed eels at the National Kiwi Centre in Hokitika, a facility of such renowned international fame that its operators do not even deem it necessary to have a web site.

• Discuss U.S. politics with several Kiwis who were very well-educated about such matters. It seems they don't much care for the current administration. None of them, however, could remember Rudy Giuliani's name; he was just "the 9/11 guy from New York."

• Take a bunch of photos, most of which do not do justice but will be posted at some point anyway.

• Decide to adopt the New Zealand national motto: No worries.

DID NOT:

• Eat chutney, vegemite, haggis or any of the other nasty-ass "food" the Brits imported into New Zealand.

• Touch a computer the entire time I was in the country (save for two minutes in Auckland to make a bank transfer).

• Know whether the Bears won or lost their last two games. I did, however, watch South Africa destroy England for the rugby World Cup championship. It was 15-6 for those of you scoring at home.

• Tip at restaurants. It's not the custom because wait staff actually gets paid a decent wage. This, unfortunately, is reflected in the food prices.

• Shave. But I did that once I got home so I no longer look like I just got voted off "Survivor."

• Think about work.

• Drive. Although I wanted to take a crack at that drive-on-the-left concept.

• Have any exposure to news, except for two newspaper clippings of most of southern California on fire and the last couple of innings of the Red Sox knocking off the Rockies in Game 4 (sorry, Morgan).

• Kayak in Milford Sound. Unfortunately, an avalanche closed the road that leads there.

• Kill anything, despite a sign at a youth outdoor camp in Fiordland that taught us "Conservation in New Zealand is about killing things." (For the record, I did not put my hand in the trap.)

• Succumb to the urge to skip the return flight. This was a struggle.

• Posted by Brian at 11:33 PM
• Comments (9)
• Category: Travel