Planning for New Zealand (Aotearoa)

Dana and I have been planning our trip to the Great Land of Hobbits: Kiwiland aka Aotearoa aka New Zealand. "New" Zealand? Where's the old one? Well, Zealand is the largest island in Denmark, so named because of the huge seal population (seal-land). New Zealand was colonised by whites from England, so perhaps these chaps were very observant and, noticing the equally huge population of seals, named it New Zealand. I'm not sure.

OK I just checked. It seems New Zealand was named after the Dutch province of Zealand. The new version of this province.

Aotearoa is the Māori name for New Zealand. It means "Land of the Long White Cloud"... so that says something for the weather we can expect. Māoris are the original human inhabitants of the islands, having arrived about 1000 years ago. New Zealand's Rugby Union team starts each game with the traditional Haka, where they strut their stuff and stick out their tongues to intimidate the opponent. The All Blacks are pretty good, so I guess it kind of works.

We're both very excited. We're limiting ourselves to the south half of the South Island, which is a lot larger than most people would expect. Also, NZ is also a lot farther from Australia than people think: about the distance that Chicago is from New York... it's certainly not swimming distance. Along the way we'll enjoy some tasty local beers, take in the scenery (which I'm told will always exceed expectations), kayak in the fjords of Milford Sound, bungee jump (one of us), and spend our first Christmas away from where we spent our first Christmas away.

Here you can get an idea of the distance and size of the islands. We'll be landing in Christchurch and heading south from there. Obviously we'll be a lot further south so the temperature may be a bit more like what we're used to in the States at this time.

I don't think we'll see a real kiwi, but we'll keep our eyes open.