In the Land of the Long White Cloud

It takes a long time to get to New Zealand, but it’s worth it. Some 900 miles east of Australia in the southwest Pacific, New Zealand is an archipelago composed of two main land masses, North Island and South Island, and over 600 smaller islands. With a population of 5.5 million, it has about 400,000 fewer people than Wisconsin and they’re spread out in a total land area of the two main islands that’s about 55% larger than our state.

            The islands are so remote that they were the last large inhabitable land mass to be settled by humans. The Polynesians arrived around 1300 and developed into the Maori culture. Europeans discovered New Zealand in 1642 and settlement began in the early 19^th century. Today, Maori comprise some 17% of the country’s population. Just about every placename sign in the country has its English and Maori names together, and artwork celebrating the original natives’ culture is everywhere.

            How long does it take to get there today? On April 1^st (no fooling), we flew from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, then to Auckland, New Zealand’s capital and largest city. That took a total of 16 hours in the air. Then, after a short layover, it was another hour to Christchurch, the site of the Travel Leaders International Summit. We’d held an earlier summit in the country, back in 2017, and this was the first time we’d make a repeat visit for a Summit. My husband Dave and I actually arrived on April 3^rd, thanks to crossing the International Date Line. New Zealand time is 18 hours ahead of Wisconsin time, which takes some getting used to, but we adapted fairly quickly.

            We spent all our time on the South Island, enjoying the modern city of Christchurch, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2011 and has bounced back nicely. It’s a city full of gardens and parks, celebrating its English tradition, and we visited some of them on a bicycle tour. After my conference on the morning of the 5^th, we journeyed north into wine country and toured three wineries—and yes, they had samples! Wine is rapidly becoming one of New Zealand’s top exports.

            On Sunday, we boarded a small bus for a 90-minute ride south and east of Christchurch to the Akaroa area along the coast, where we explored the charming seaside village and cruised through the 10-mile-long harbor with Black Cat Cruises to see dolphins and seals. The next morning, it was back to the airport for a short Air New Zealand flight across the island to Queenstown, where we stayed two nights at the beautiful Rees Hotel, on the shores of Lake Whakatipu, one of the country’s many majestic lakes, large and deep.

            After dining that evening with friends in our traveling party, we rose early the next morning for the trip to the coast and Fiordlands National Park. This is a stunningly beautiful area of fiords (the Scandinavians spell it with a “j” instead of the “i”) and we were to explore one of its best, Doubtful Sound. First, a bus ride to Lake Manapouri, a boat ride across that lake and then another bus trip through a dense rain forest to the sound itself, where we sailed its length aboard a catamaran. Doubtful Sound is the second-most popular tourist attraction in New Zealand, after nearby Milford Sound, which I’d seen on my 2017 visit. Doubtful is even more majestic: 25 miles long, up to nearly 1400 feet deep, and although it receives a lot of rainfall every year (up to 20 feet, we were told), our visit was graced with clear skies, all the better for us to enjoy the magnificent scenery, all the way out to where the sound empties into the Tasman Sea.

            The next day we were on the road again, this time to the town of Fox Glacier. Along the way we stopped in the lakeside town of Wanaka, where we saw the most photographed tree in the country, the Wanaka Willow. Our final excursion of the trip came on Thursday the 10^th, with a helicopter ride to nearby Franz Josef Glacier, where we were equipped with the necessary gear—boots with crampons and hiking poles—for an unforgettable, if too short, hike on the icy glacier. Its peak is at nearly 10,000 feet above sea level (we didn’t get that high) and its length is 7.5 miles. The glacier is retreating, although it’s still nearly 1000 feet thick. We followed our glacier hike with a little warmer one through a nearby rain forest, returning to the hotel after a long and tiring but wondrous day.

            Our last full day in the country was Friday the 11^th. We started with yet another bus ride—we spent a lot of time on New Zealand roads, but they’re well-designed and have no billboards, which was rather pleasant—through more of the Southern Alps and their stupendous scenery, to the town of Greymouth. There we boarded the TranzAlpine Railway train to Christchurch, a relaxing 5-hour ride that included a delicious meal. Our final night was at a very nice hotel next to the airport.

            The return trip home was again a long one, although we gained back the day we’d lost on the calendar on the arrival trip. When we got up that morning, it was 4:30am New Zealand time on Saturday the 12^th, and when we finally got home, it was just after 6pm and still Saturday. In real time, though, it had been some 30 hours since we’d walked into the airport terminal in Christchurch.

            Was it worth the long travel time? Absolutely! If you’re interested in visiting the Land of the Long White Cloud (the country’s nickname, based on Maori legend), give us a call!

            Sue Tindell