Seduced by the Godzone:
A Traveler’s Tale of New Zealand
by Julie Ubben, Assistant Marketing Manager
New Zealand had always sounded extraordinary to me. Ferns as tall as trees; lunatics like AJ Hackett bungy-jumping from bridges; early settlements defined by the absolute necessities: a butcher, a baker, a banker, a brothel. Even in a country with more sheep than people, wild and wooly isn’t the half. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to tour the place that posed as the countryside of Rivendell and the Shire in the Lord of the Rings series, the magical land of Willow and the dramatic terrain of Vertical Limit?
One of my journal entries reads: “Today: saw 5 cars and 1,000 sheep.” Two days later: “Things my sister and I did in the last 24 hours: Rode a metric century/ Spent gobs of money on greenstone jade/ Climbed Mt. Hercules, on bikes/ Flew over Franz Josef Glacier in a helicopter/ Hiked on Franz Josef glacier for four hours/ Locked ourselves out of our room/ Climbed in the window/ Took nap/ Did laundry/ Shopped for souvenirs.”
But New Zealand, ‘God’s own country,’ – the ‘Godzone’ for short – wasn’t just thrilling, it was simply astonishing. It’s lavish, it’s intense; it’s a high-octane land of brilliant dreamscapes. Touring the South Island as part of a Bicycle Adventures group, my sister Heidi and I were positively seduced by the countryside everywhere we went. New to cycling at the time, she learned to shift gears on the Banks Peninsula, cruising along roads with spectacular views of confetti-hued surfers and parasailers against cobalt water. We explored Christchurch – a city crammed with history, exquisite dining, and marvelous shopping. We bicycled through wine country, gold rush country, tropical rainforest; we pedaled glacier country, lake country, jade country. We stayed at an idyllic eco-lodge on Lake Moeraki, where the hosts offer daytime mini-tours to view fur seal colonies and penguins (when they’re not nesting) and starlight strolls where glowworms sparkle like fairy lights on the hillside. We walked beaches with more seashells than sand, and other beaches with tiny pebbles every color of the rainbow. And at the edges of every landscape, always, is a colossal pinking-shear zigzag of mountains: the Crown Range, Mount Cook, the Remarkables.
On this trip, as on all of our trips, you can choose to do everything, or you can do very little. Either way, you’ll be romanced. Hours were fiddled away bird watching; Heidi and I spent an entire afternoon sleeping on a sundeck overlooking olive orchards and a glittering bay, an escape that provided endless amusement for the neighbor’s cows – and equally endless chagrin when we discovered the painful realities of a nearly nonexistent ozone layer. One of my journal entries reads: “Today: saw 5 cars and 1,000 sheep.” Two days later: “Things my sister and I did in the last 24 hours: Rode a metric century/ Spent gobs of money on greenstone jade/ Climbed Mt. Hercules, on bikes/ Flew over Franz Josef Glacier in a helicopter/ Hiked on Franz Josef glacier for four hours/ Locked ourselves out of our room/ Climbed in the window/ Took nap/ Did laundry/ Shopped for souvenirs.” And every day, we ate and drank until we were ‘chockers’ – Kiwispeak vernacular for ‘stuffed’ – because the food and the wine were, for the most part, fabulous. We tasted local dishes, including whitebait, WeetBix and Vegemite (not fabulous.) When you’re biking, and hiking, and kayaking – Heidi was even bungy jumping – you get to eat whatever you want.
We also met some fascinating people. Put together a retired librarian, a professor, an engineer or two, a physical therapist, a marketing specialist, a computer geek, a rugby player and a real-estate developer; mix in an eagerness for travel and a love for cycling, and dinner conversations are bound to be lively. Toss in some folks with penchants for art, wine, culture and good food and it only gets better.
After our ten days in wonderland with Bicycle Adventures, we had planned in two extra days before reality was allowed to mount ambush. But two extra days in Queenstown is the traveler’s approximation of being in a really good chocolate shop with a heap of spending money. There’s a full menu of offerings in the ‘Adventure Capital of the World,’ as Q-town bills itself: hiking (or ‘tramping,’ as the locals call it), jet-boating, gondola riding, visits to sheep stations, wine tours. But as the final Godiva truffle in a trip that had proven to be one mouthwatering delight after another, we chose to do Real Journeys’ overnight tour of Milford Sound, on the 60-berth Milford Mariner.
As anticipated, the fiordland finale was just as amazingly seductive as the rest of the country had been. On silent waters empty of day-trippers, the intense beauty and rugged moodiness of Milford Sound is nothing short of awe-inspiring. We slipped through glassy waters past the massive cliffs of 5,551-ft Mitre Peak, immense waterfalls streaming its sides. Once anchored, we kayaked with a merry party of a dozen-plus bottlenose dolphin, a memory that will happily haunt me forever. On board the Mariner, dinner was delicious, including vegetarian entrees, lamb, smoked mackerel, and finally a table heaped with local cheeses and desserts. As we lolled on deck chairs late that evening, drinking wine and watching the Southern Cross drift in and out of the clouds, we were in utter bliss.
Now, when someone asks me about New Zealand, there’s usually a pause and a sigh on my end of the phone, followed by, “Oh…it’s unbelievable. It’s amazing.” How can you not love a land that offers its soul instead of selling it? A place where an entire village refuses to move just because it’s sitting on a gold mine (literally)? Where a search for Lord of the Rings souvenirs yields nothing even remotely similar to the Hollywood-plastic action figures available on this side of the ocean? Where it’s high summer in January? I was speaking with one of our guides who regularly leads the New Zealand trips, and he mused, “I tell people, ‘Why are you even thinking about going to New Zealand? What is there to even think about? Just get yourself a plane ticket!’” It’s probably safe to say that, like me, he’s fallen in love.