Greetings 'Kia Ora!' from New Zealand, I'm finally here, Aotearoa, 'The land of the long white cloud' NZ's true name in Maori language. The flight from Sydney to Auckland was impressive. The plane just dropped out of the sky suddenly and the Northern island appeared out of nowhere! The edges of the island dropped into steep, straight-edge cliffs into the ocean and the sail boats were everywhere---thus Auckland's loveable nickname 'City of Sails'. The island looked so small from the plane, and as we descended we sped up and headed nearly vertically into the ground. I was sure we were going to run out of runway and ram off a cliff before the plane safely towed itself to our departing gate.
Tomorrow I'm on a morning flight to Queenstown, the mountains and forests of the southern island, to start work. Meeting hostels, managers, operators, and getting to the fun stuff--site inspections on the activities we'll be doing for the tour.
I'm in Wellington now. We took a 20 minute flight to get here, on one of the those really small and terrifying planes with propellers that look like a strong wind will just knock the wing off. On the tarmac, I stepped one foot onto Wellington soil and was immediately knocked down by the wind...flat on my ass, in front of everyone. Yes that's right, the local nickname here is 'Windy Welly'---haha, I get it now.
Wellington is the nation's capital at the stepping point between the North and South Island....the mountains up the West coast of the South island were once connected to the range up the East coast of the North Island. So Wellington, is located in a natural tunnel--where winds travel between the mountains, channeled through Cook's Strait (waters separating the islands) creating a powerful 'funnel' action of mother nature!
So far I'm going solo, and my first tour starts in less than a week--52 people all by my lonesome, traveling through a country I barely know!
We started our tour in Queenstown (bottom tip of the South island) and have worked our way up the West coast: mountains, lakes, wineries and gold mining history. I finally hiked a glacier--Franz Josef! It was awesome: ice tunnels, crevasses, blue waterfalls, and ice climbing...I'm hooked! The only other glacier in the world that leads into a rainforest is in Patagonia, so it's pretty special.
Today we were in Nelson, kayaking around the Abel Tasman Bay. I saw wild NZ fur seals and Wekas---flightless birds related to the Kiwi. Most of the indigenous birds are flightless because they had no natural predators and were not evolved for the need to fly away. The only native mammals to NZ are two species of bats: short and long tailed. All other animals have been introduced by European settlers in the 19th century, with some pretty devastating effects.
...The sheep...49 million sheep in this country...you can't throw a stone without seeing one. It's getting annoying every time we get held up in 'stock traffic' when herds of sheep sit on the roads and refuse to move no matter what you throw at them!
I'm learning Maori- history, legends, myths and most importantly the language. It's confusing hey, with words spelled like Aotearoa (a-yo-tea-yah-row-ah) "Land of the long white cloud" and the true Maori name for New Zealand. Ihenga (I-hee-na) and Arawa (adi-wah) and Ngati Tuwharetoa (nati- too-farry-to a) are tribal names, hangi (hawng-ee) traditional foods cooked in the earth on heated stones, and hongi (hong-ee) the Maori greeting.
Our bungy jumping operator Priel is Maori, and my first day in Queenstown she grabbed me and pressed her nose to my nose for a good few seconds. I flinched as I thought she was kissing me, then remembered this was Hangi---the greeting. That's gonna take some getting used to.
Tomorrow we're off to Rotorua to white water raft a class 5 rapid off a 7 meter waterfall...in freezing cold water...wish me luck!
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