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New Zealand Tour
The beginning of our live New
Zealand Tour, March 2011
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Website last updated
Friday October 21, 2011 11:09:13 AM
Photos by OurTownSarasota.com copyright 2011
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Geology
New Zealand has almost a complete set of landscape
features: beaches and mountains, rivers and plains, glaciers and boiling
mud-pools. Half of New Zealand is farmland, a quarter is forest and, in a
nation the size of Colorado an area the size of Vermont is national park. In
the Southern Alps, which stretch almost the entire length of the South
Island, there are 16 peaks over 10,000 feet, including Mt Cook, still New
Zealand.s highest mountain after 30 of its 12,349 feet slid off in 1991. New
Zealand was formed relatively recently and volcanoes in the centre of the
North Island show the signs of this geological adolescence, they are usually
sleeping, often smoking and likely to erupt
unpredictably,
Photo courtesy Whale Watch Kaikoura
Whale watching is one of New
Zealand’s biggest attractions, and the best place to go whale-spotting is Kaikoura
Canyon, just offshore of the east coast of South Island. The boarding point
is from the town of Kaikoura, a two and a half-hour drive north from
Christchurch.
New Zealand Language
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When you ask for an ice coffee in New Zealand this is what you get....an ice cream soda with coffee. Be careful what you wish for lol.
06-026-08
Tidbits: Very few animals live in NZ, as they weren't introduced onto the continent until 200 years ago. There are no snakes in the country. One third of the country is national parks. 90% of their wine uses metal screw caps. In 1995 there were 156 vineyards, now there are over 750. There are roughly 4 sheep for every human in NZ. There are 4.2 million people in NZ, most on the north island. The south island grows apples, oranges, peaches, plums, pears, hopps, grapes and many other crops. The 45th parallel runs through NZ. There are over 1,000 earthquakes a year in NZ. Blue cod is one of their local highly prized eating fishes along with green lipped mussels. Takaka mountain has like 240 switchbacks going up and 170 coming down.
Flying into Auckland a city of over 2 million people.
Nelson: Christchurch tower, Trafalgar Street.
Grapes growing at the home we stayed at in Mapua. NZ has rich and fertile land with a great growing season.
A look to the north captures rolling hills and mountains from the Mapua home
we stayed at.
Tassman Bay viewed from hiking trail through Abel Tassman Natl. Park. The OTS New Zealand Tour.
Tasman Bay with the town of Nelson, NZ in the background. The OTS New Zealand Tour.
The river water at the Resurgence doesn't get any prettier or clearer then this. Our friend took a dive into this mountain water run off at about 50 degrees...brrrr.
A fabulous New Zealand lamb dinner at the Millbrook Resort outside Queenstown, NZ. Paul your host does a knock out job of running the restaurant and making you feel like a Queen or King.
Queenstown as seen from Skipper Canyon rim.
Jet boating is a big sport and provides an excellent means to take in some fantastic scenery. This is along the Dart River outside of Queenstown. Way funn:)
The Fijords at Milford sound on the South Island..
Population
There are 4 million people in New Zealand. Most
live in cities and only 15% live in rural areas, where they do, however,
have 44 million sheep for company. Three quarters of the population lives in
the North Island, and almost a third lives in Auckland, a Seattle-sized and
sailing-obsessed city of a million people. Wellington, the capital (pop.
350,000), a small cousin of San Francisco. It has steep hills, wooden
Victorian houses, a cable car and occasional earthquakes, is 400 miles south
of Auckland at the foot of the North Island. The main South Island cities
are Christchurch (pop. 300,000), which is famously English, and Dunedin
(pop. 100,000), still proudly Scottish. Most New Zealanders are of European
descent and all speak English. The Maori, the country's original
inhabitants, comprise 13% of the population. Much that is unique to New
Zealand is derived from Maori culture. Pacific Islanders form a sizable part
of the population, and there is a growing number of people of Asian origin.
We take you across the International date line while on our way to New Zealand Saturday morning NZ time. As you can see the sunrise was incredible. What was quite amazing was that this is the first time we had ever crossed the International date line and jumped a day. The flight from LA was almost complete, in about two hours we landed in Auckland. Continue to follow our trip through New Zealand on the OTSarasota Tour. 2/26/11
The Air New Zealand crews are exceptional. Smiling and endlessly helpful. The food was better then many restaurants and the wine, complimentary, was very good. Sarasota Airport rep, Lionel from our FB page provided us with great luggage tags to present to the Air New Zealand crew, they loved them. Shown are Vicki and Shelly just before we landed.
The end of summer in Mapua, NZ has the boys taking kayak lessons
Kaka Point, north of Motueka, holds a breath taking view of golden sand beaches and mountains in the background.
Hopps groves outside Mapua, NZ.
An old high school in Motueka, NZ. It is used now for a cafe and museum.
Tasty lamb in New Zealand. There are 4 sheep for every New Zealander.
Switchback roads over the Takaka Mountains lead you to Abel Tassman Natl Park. There are over 400 switchbacks to cross the mountain. We traversed these mountains on the way to Abel Tassman Natl Park.
Patrick one of many Americans that has moved to New Zealand. Shown here on his wine vineyard. He grows on about 20 acres with many bottles selling for $35 NZ or about $27 U.S. He told us that when he migrated to NZ there were 156 wine vineyards, now there are 710 making it difficult for small growers to distribute/sell all of their product.
Waikoropupu Springs on the north end of the North Island.
The Queenstown area on the South Island is known for all kinds of dare devil
sports; hundreds line up to jump off a bridge, go figure:)
Scenery as seen from the Devil River, we think they are the Remarkable Mountains?
Climate
New Zealand is a maritime nation with a temperate climate . it has a great variety of weather but a much smaller range of temperatures. Wind, rain and bright sunshine can fast-forward through a morning, and re-wind through an afternoon. A daily forecast can provide a synopsis for a year's weather. The seasons in New Zealand, a country in the Southern Hemisphere, are opposite to those in North America. January is the warmest month of the New Zealand summer, July the coolest month of the winter. While the north is warmer than the south, the climate throughout the country is mild, summer temperatures rarely top 85 degrees and winter temperatures in the northern regions often reach 60 degrees. Rain can fall on most places at any time, but snow falls where it should, on the mountains. Sunhats and umbrellas are more useful than long-johns and air conditioners.
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