New Zealand
I left New Zealand today. Not physically. Metaphorically. I did it when I purchased tickets from Queenstown, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia. I anguished over leaving more than I wanted. It wasn’t that I wanted to stay in New Zealand. I’m sure it’s a nice place, even if I’ve never been there. But I will be there in about eight months and my plans were to be there for about a week. Once I started doing my research on the country it became more and more evident that I wanted to do more than I could afford. Well, more than I was willing to afford. And, even if I let go of the funds, there was a question of time. My plans are now that I’ll be there a little over a week.
New Zealand is not-that-big. It’s the seventy-fifth largest country in the world in terms of land mass. I live in one of the five largest countries in the world and I live in one of the least populated areas of that country. I’ve perpetually owned a vehicle for over fifty years because there are relatively large distances involved in the everyday life I’ve led. I just couldn’t walk to the village to go to school or to go to work. Distance is something I’m used to. I live in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. My cousin lives on the north side of town and I live on the south side of town. It takes me a good forty-five minutes to get from my house to her house on a typical weekend day when the traffic is considered normal for a weekend. Yet, I couldn’t quite seem to fit all that I wanted to do in New Zealand into a week and the primary reason was physical distance and economics. New Zealand is about twelve hundred miles from one end to the other. According to Google Maps I can drive from my house to New York City in less time than it takes to get from one end of New Zealand to the other. Someone in Europe can drive from Paris to Macedonia in about the same time and they would have traversed about nine different countries.
New Zealand Bus Pass
New Zealand is primarily two large islands. They are called the North Island and the South Island. If you exclude islands of the world which are covered with ice for the majority of the year, these two islands are in the list of the ten largest islands in the world. Had I limited my stay to the North Island and not desired to go to the South Island, there wouldn’t have been a problem. I would have had plenty of time and enough budget. But because I really wanted to see some of New Zealand’s best landscapes, and I’ve read that New Zealand landscapes are some of the best in the world, I not only needed to get to the South Island, I needed to get to the southern end of the South Island.
Auckland Rental Cars
That’s where economics comes into play. Public transportation in New Zealand is costly. There aren’t a lot of trains and the bus system is expensive compared to where I live. Fuel costs are almost four times what I’m accustomed to and rental car quotes disappointed me rather than getting me excited. This left flying and two or three flights around New Zealand would add up. It took some research but I manged to do a little create travel planning and got my New Zealand transportation ducks in a row. I don’t mind telling you it was a bit of work and after all the effort I put into it I was rather pleased. I had to cut a few corners, but in the end, the job I did made me smile. I’ll be telling you all about it in about eight months.