Tuesday 18 September 2012

New Zealand - no predators land


Classic in NZ
There are three ways to travel in NZ – doing the Kiwi Experience which means lots of bus rides (also called the “fuck bus”, won´t explain why), renting a car or hitchhiking. We pitched on the second option – just providing much more flexibility, you see more and turns out to be cheaper too.
Low population density = empty spaces, good personal security, brilliant roads, fantastic I-SITE visitor information centers, DOC ((Department of conservation) camp sites everywhere make it easy to get off the beaten track. Only the weather could fuck things up cos in NZ you never know, it changes rapidly, you might experience the four seasons in just one day.
Milford Sound
We were told that pure Maori people don’t exist anymore but a few times we saw some that looked pretty Maori to me (all the face was tattooed) but of course Im not able to tell. There are lots of places to get familiar with Maori culture if someone is interested or the Maori traditional dance “haka” (the well-known dance performed by All Blacks before rugby matches). The kiwi´s knowledge of Mauri language is usually limited to “Ke Ora” (Hello).
The kiwis are quite shy and distant at the beginning but once you get to know them they are the nicest and friendliest people. Pretty often after meeting someone shortly on a bushwalk or just a short break in the mountain, you end up staying in their house like old friends. They would go out their way to help you, open up their home, introduce you to their family and friends and make sure you taste every bit of this kiwi hospitality. The first 2 weeks we found difficult understanding the accent, especially when “e” was involved, like ten, tent, Ben, bed, bread, egss (they pronounce it as if it was iggs)…