It was the best of tramps; it was the worst of tramps. We started out the first day of the Queen Charlotte walk with high hopes and sunny skies. After an hour-long water taxi, it was four hours and eight miles with just a few up and down hills, early dinner and ready for the next day. We awoke on the second day to steady rain. We waited a couple of hours for it to recede, but finally started out, and the rain never stopped. It rained for the entire four hours of the walk. Now we can tell you the difference between rain resistant and rain repellant clothing. Rain resistant, which we have, means the first hour is ok, as long as you can duck under the trees. By the second hour you are kind of wet, and after that you are completely soaked from head to your boots, socks and all. Fortunately, it was an easy hike and not too cold. But we decided that was enough and took the water taxi back home the next morning instead of tackling a 15-mile, eight-hour hike the third day. The real surprise about the rain is that it happened at all. New Zealand, including the Marlborough Sound, is experiencing the worst drought in the past 100 years and hasn’t seen rain for weeks—except for the day of our hike.
We returned by ferry to Wellington on Friday and met our surprise visitor—Phil from Canada. He represents the biotech association in Canada and had a conference in Auckland, so flew down to stay with us over the weekend. Phil used to work in DC with Marshall at the Department of Agriculture, and he and his partner Brian now live in Ottawa. Even though he gets to Vancouver a few times a year, which is about three hours from our home on Whidbey, it seemed easier to hook up this way. We checked out the waterfront and the Botanical Gardens and it was good to catch up with him.
While in Wellington we also visited on Monday with Linda’s friends Barbara and Glen Evans, who took us on a tour around the city neighborhoods and then for a pleasant lunch at their home in nearby Hutt City, where Glen was Mayor for nine years. On Wednesday we had dinner with Marty’s cousin Wendy and his second cousin Victoria, who is a law student here. In New Zealand you can study law as an undergraduate major (four years) and the practice of law is de-regulated, which means anybody can do it once you pass the tests. We were joined by two other law students and Peter, a friend of Wendy’s , who is now chairman of the international board that sets policy for the internet. He said the board had just worked out details to start offering domain names in non-English languages (i.e. Chinese, Arabic). And on Thursday we took a train out to the Paraparuanumu golf course, ranked in the top 100 in the world and the best links style course in the entire Southern Hemisphere. However, like most links courses, it often feels like you are playing in a sheep pasture and wonder what the fun is as your ball bounces through the green into the deep bunker.
Traveling throughout New Zealand for six weeks has been a totally enjoyable experience. Compared to other trips, this has been hassle free, mainly because there was no language barrier. It means we can meet people and get information, from booking hotels to sending a package by mail, with a minimum of problems. The people are friendly, helpful and informal, the scenery is stunning day by day, and the wine is greatly underrated. We regularly have wine for dinner, and sometimes even for lunch—can breakfast be far behind?
So here are a few take-away thoughts as we prepare for the long flight home:
--Traveling in NZ feels like we have gone back in time, mainly because there is such a small population. The entire country has fewer than 4 million people, and almost half of that is in Auckland. The rest of the country is open and sparsely populated. The towns have an old-fashioned quality to them, with central squares and low-rise buildings with shops and cafes and almost no big-box retailers. People have access to the internet, but almost a dial-up mentally exists. Few people are seen staring at their phones and checking emails every 10 minutes, which means people actually make eye contact!
--Although the prices are good for us, thanks to the exchange rate, some items seem unusually expensive. A new paperback book costs about $20 USD, a movie ticket costs about $15, Coca cola costs about twice the US price, and gasoline is about $5.50 per gallon, probably all because of sin and gasoline taxes. We can’t figure out why Amazon, for example, doesn’t sell the Kindle and $10 books here, but I think those kinds of things are blocked for sale on the internet.
--There are large numbers of people who have moved here from other countries in the UK. We met people from Britain, Ireland, Australia and Kenya. Apparently immigration is pretty restricted—people can get jobs here for one year, but to stay longer it must be demonstrated that no Kiwi wants to fill the job. There seem to be a number of jobs available, based on ads in the paper, but wages may not be very high.
--We continued to ask people about the health care plan. Like Canadians they get frustrated that they must wait for “elective” operations such as hip replacement for a few months, but without exception they expressed surprise that the US has not had national health coverage. Most people also have supplemental health insurance, which gives them access to immediate coverage for doctors and hospitalization.
--The economy has been impacted by the international recession, and many homes are on the market, but altogether the country seems quite affluent and middle-class. The number of cars sold is quite small—just a few hundred per month nationwide. Dairy is a big business, accounting for a full 25 percent of the country’s exports (it is called “white gold). Sheep are everywhere, but today there are 45 million compared to 80 million about ten years ago because there is less market for natural wool products. Many sheep farmers are converting to dairy cows. There are more than 400 wineries, and we tried our best to sample most of them. There is a low key conversation about merging the NZ economy with Australia, kind of a small EU concept, but the Kiwis do not want to become Australia’s seventh state, so it probably won’t happen.
-- I always read a big history book when I travel and this time it was a biography of Capt. James Cook, who discovered New Zealand back in the 1760s. He conducted three separate trips from England to this area, and each time stopped for supplies in the Queen Charlotte Sound, exactly where we started our hike. On his last trip he discovered the Hawaiian islands, where the local tribes initially thought he was a god sent to fulfill their visions. After a number of conflicts, however, they decided he was not a god and during a battle he was killed. It was later discovered that his body parts were eaten, according to the cannibalism practiced in that day. I was visiting the national museum in Wellington one day and saw the original robe given to Cook by the locals, an intricate red and golf cape made from the feathers of more than 20,000 birds (back when he was considered a god). It gave me a wee tingle, as the Kiwis would say. Back in those early days of exploration, the natives in Tahiti and elsewhere did not have iron, which they wanted for various purposes (spears, cooking, etc.). In order to procure nails, the women of the island were willing to exchange, shall we say, certain favors. Indeed, sailors were willing to exchange so many nails that their ships were literally falling apart when they left harbor. One of Cook’s men got 60 lashes for trying to exchange a whole bucket of nails.
Today we start the long trip home. The big debate is whether to throw our clothes in the trash here or burn then when we get home. We appreciate your comments and emails and we know others have been lurking in the background. We hope to see you soon. Come visit us on Whidbey Island—it is beautiful in the summer.
