“What was your favorite thing in New Zealand?” A question that has at least a thousand answers.
But, if pressed for a single thing, I would answer, “the people.” New Zealanders are welcoming, sweet, hospitable, gentle, helpful, fun, humorous, congenial, inviting, friendly…they are “nice”, in the way I remember our country being “nice” when I was growing up.
Their “niceness” is a culture that shows in restaurant menus (offering alternatives to those with food allergies), in street signs (a smiley face that replaces the speed on a digital speed road sign when you hit the appropriate speed), well-maintained trails to make walking available to all ages and levels of walkers, zippering (for merging on freeways or any roads…like a zipper rather than create a road rage event). Being “nice” is not a sign of weakness, but of strength.
Being nice is the acceptable New Zealand culture. And that (along with blue penguins, the Southern Alps, the Te Papa National Museum, the Thermal Explorer Highway, the colors of Tasman Sea as seen from the Abel Tasman trail, the jungle-like wild and wet Whanganui river, the steep streets of Dunedin, the cosmopolitan feel of Christchurch, the whimsy of Hobbiton, the endless islands in the Bay of Islands, the welcoming Maori culture that is evident, accepted and embraced, the green pastures filled with sheep or dairy cows, the birds in flight or flightless adding dimension to the landscape, the powerful geologic forces—volcanic, glacial—that created and are continually creating a new landscape, the vineyards and fruit trees, the small towns hidden in the mountains, the national respect for the environment shown in the thousands of small and large parks, etc.), is what makes New Zealand special.
Yep. It was, indeed, the trip of a lifetime. The cool thing is, we plan on having many more lifetimes in this lifetime.
~Wendy & Nick
The sunset from the lanai of our condo in Maui. The end.