A Visit across the Ditch

Seeing how we had a big gap between trips, Gene decided that it was time to make a trip across the ditch.  In American translation, that means he wants to visit our neighboring country, New Zealand. We had been on a cruise around New Zealand in 2011, but he wanted to take a driving tour so we could see all the beauty of this small, but gorgeous country. So for ten days, we got to check out New Zealand by car.

To give you an idea of how picturesque this country is, they shot the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the South Island.

I will admit that even though I was keeping an eye peeled, Frodo was nowhere to be found.  He must have been out getting his jewellery appraised.

I was all for this trip, because being a knitter and spinner, I have always been interested in sheep, and this is the place for them. They are literally all over the place.

Like Australia, New Zealand is an island country, located in the south-western Pacific Ocean. It is about 900 miles east of Australia, and 600 miles south of Fiji. Because of it being out in the middle of nowhere, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. Even though it has numerous smaller islands, New Zealand is mostly made up of two main landmasses called the North and the South islands. As you can see, it is along narrow country, being only 990 miles long, and 250 miles wide.  It has 9,404 miles of coastline, and a total land area of 103,483 square miles.

To give you a better idea of size, this map shows both Australia and New Zealand superimposed on a map of the US.  New Zealand is the dark part around the East coast of the US, and Australia is the other dark mass on the North West coast.

The original people of New Zealand are known as Māori’s (mow-ree), and are a very proud people. They are sort of like the Native American Indian in the States, only with a Kiwi accent. Here’s one in full Maori makeup.

Even the Māori sheep are proud breed.

Anyone from New Zealand is known as a Kiwi, even if you are not a Maori.  The name comes from the kiwi bird, (not the fruit) because New Zealand is the only place these birds call home. Kiwi’s love the kiwi’s so much, they even made it one of their national symbols.

As you can see, they are a small, flightless birds, and are still trying to figure out the age-old question of why everyone wants to know why only chickens cross the road.

Even though the kiwi fruit is not native to New Zealand, it is grown there and is big business. On a side note, these kiwis don’t care about crossing the road. They’re fine right where they are.

Another symbol of New Zealand is the sliver fern.  They grow all over the place.

Even on my socks!

The population of New Zealand is approximately 4.5 million people. Sheep are a whole other story. There are approximately 50 million sheep in New Zealand, which puts the count at about 10 sheep for every man woman and child in this small country. No wonder that sheep are a two billion dollar industry. They are EVERYWHERE.

The North and South islands are very different with the North being more populated, warmer, and rainy.  It has New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, and the capital city, Wellington.  Because of time, we decided to just visit the South island for this trip, so to help us out, some sheep got together and made a map of the South Island for us so we  would know where we were going.

We started our 10 day trip in Christchurch, the second largest and oldest established city in NZ.  In late 2010, Mother Nature decided that this picturesque city needed some shaking up, so she sent a 7.1 earthquake to the center of town. Figuring she didn’t do enough damage, Mom sent another quake to the same city about 6 months later.  This time it was only a 6.3, but, it still did a lot of extra damage. Because of this, most of Christchurch was blocked off while they try to fix everything, so a lot of businesses are closed.  Even though it has been over 2 years now, some people are still living in motels while their homes are being fixed.

This is a before and after shot of the main church in the center of Christchurch. Most of the city either looked like this, or they were cleaning up and rebuilding.  Because of that, many streets were blocked off which made it hard to get around.

I didn’t take any photos in Christchurch because of all the damage.  The whole city reminded me of my hometown of Detroit.  This is a photo of a house in Detroit, and they have never had an earthquake. Sad to say they aren’t trying to clean it up and rebuild.

One thing that was open, was the botanical garden.  I was amazed at how huge most of the trees were. This tree needed two frames to get a whole photo of it.

Big trees, mean big leaves.

They had a very impressive rose garden that was very well-marked, and laid out.

Even though it was autumn, there were still quite a few rose bushes that were still in bloom.

A lot of them had wonderful fragrance, so it was quite pleasant experience for many of your senses.

Most gardens I have ever visited always have some statue or sculpture that no one can figure out what it is, or why it’s there. This garden was no exception.  Even the ducks didn’t know what it was.

They even had a sculpture of a silver fern, but the ones on my socks are much easier to transport.

• Posted in: Driving ♦ Nature ♦ New Zealand
• Tagged: Botanical Garden, Christchurch, Kiwi, Maori, Nature, New Zealand, New Zealand South Island, Roses, sheep, south Island, travel, vacation