Aotearoa Bonus Features

I like New Zealand.

It's probably fairly obvious that I like the South Island. I think I can honestly say it is the most beautiful place I have ever visited. There are of course many beautiful places in the world but I have never been anywhere so consistently breath taking and magnificent.
 
The other thing I like about New Zealand is irrespective of your age or gender everyone calls you "mate". I was slightly taken aback initially as I associate the term "mate" with men. I then worried that perhaps my face had gone a bit Grizzly Adams given the rest of me had over 17 days of camping and thereby confused vendors as to my gender. 

As it turns out everybody is "mate" and I like that. It is friendly and genial. So officially New Zealanders are the nicest people on earth. Oh along with people from Norway. They are jolly good too.
 
The other interesting thing about some of the nice people of the South Island is most of them are British! I think we exported all our lovely young men and women to Queenstown to work in the outdoor pursuit racket while we imported the lovely young men and women of New Zealand to sit in Graham Nortons red chair to be humiliated and flipped by celebrities. An odd swap, indeed.
 
I was chatting to a nice English guy who worked at a cafe in Queenstown who said he had been in New Zealand six months and has not yet made any kiwi friends but instead, his social circle is full of Brits Americans and Swedes. It's such a buzzy young exciting place and I can see the draw for the bold and the beautiful.

Still it is a shining example of why an anti-immigration policy would be a good thing for New Zealand as who wants ghettos of young middle class Europeans stealing everyone's jobs!

I Hate New Zealand.

There surely cannot be anything one can hate about New Zealand. Well there is and it is very small and I touched on it in an earlier part to this blog. Sand flies. They really are monstrous. There are zillions of these minions of Satan in the South Island with their biggest hangout being Milford Sound.
 
Mosquitoes of course provide itchy bites but they are stealthy and you hardly know you have been their prey until the itching starts. They are sophisticated and sly so you hate them but admire the fact they got you unawares. Well played mosquito. Well played.  Of course here in Singapore some of them carry dengue just to add a bit of frisson to the relationship.
 
Sand flies on the other hand are slow floaty things that hover around you like flying gecko poo and are very easy and satisfying to kill. But while you think you have killed hundreds of them by clapping hands and smashing them on the campervan windows little do you know one has settled on your foot and you feel the sharp bite. Again you can kill them quick at that point but these creeps actually draw blood. And then the infernal itching. My god it wakes you up in the night. It is excruciating and there is nothing you can do as it's just too cold at 2am to be scrabbling around for your bite relief cream.

Lastly, I think it's a good thing when the sentence "look at that great view" comes out of your 5 year olds mouth. It means the holiday worked. He might get beaten up at school for saying something so fruity but it doesn't matter. He has developed an appreciation for the beauty that is nature and the true wonder that can be found in pockets of this glorious planet.

And so end's my Magnum Opus on the South Island.  Given we came back from New Zealand 6 weeks ago, even I am bored writing and reading this blog so you will be pleased to know that this is the last one.  Not forever I am afraid but certainly on Hobbiton.  Over and out.