Milford Sound (at the south-west bottom of the South Island), is one of the jewels in the crown of New Zealand tourism. It has been one of the most popular and visited sites for over a century - but somehow manages to keep a feeling of aloneness and a sense of raw untouched nature. It's like an undiscovered world that humans have not yet set foot on.
However it is very tourist-friendly with a beautiful hotel and accomodations, boat cruises, cafes etc. But they've kept them all in one place and they don't intrude an the incredible beauty of this magical place.
If you do the Milford Track Walk you will end up nearby and can relax on a cruise up the sound accompanied by dolphin surfing your bow wave. The sound is home to beautiful virgin native forest (bush), and magnificent waterfalls falling from the towering mountains on either side of you.
There are many fiords in this most south-western area of the South Island - all worth a visit - however Milford Sound is the most accessible.
Auckland is a city built on - and of - many volcanoes. Most are extinct but some are only dormant. The CBD and suburbs are all built on top of extinct volcanoes and many islands of the gulf are also extinct volcanoes - see Browns Island at left.
The mightiest volcano of all is Rangitoto - which is only dormant as it last erupted a mere 550 years ago. It is an icon of Auckland and is unusual in that it looks the same no matter what direction you view it from - it is an almost perfect cone shape. The name Rangitoto means "Bloody Sky" in Maori. It is perhaps Auckland's most favourite landmark.
Looking at a map of just a small part of Auckland shows how ubiquitous the volcanoes are. They stretch far beyond he area shown on the map.
When I wrote that Auckland was built on and of its volcanoes I meant that many volcanic cones were excavated (and often obliterated), for the red and black scoria which were the base metal of our roads - and buildings.
Flying over Auckland as you arrive home it is the volcanoes that are the most predominant of the landscape features below you. As you look down on the houses nestled around those volcanic cones and out over the blue waters of Auckland's two harbours - both dotted with volcanoes - you know you are home.
Wai-o-tapu is a thermal wonderland just 20 mins south of Rotorua. Step back in time a million years and see the raw untamed volcanic landscape. Walk amongst deep hell-holes belching steam and a sulphurous stench. Tiptoe carefully across a path between two boiling brilliant blue lakes fringed with bright orange. Gaze into a cavernous hole with unbelievable fluorescent yellow steaming water at its base. Marvel at the vivid primal colours of nature.
You can lose hours walking around the very large site, astounded at the primitive nature of the volcanic landscape and then move up into the surrounding hills where suddenly you are in a beautiful forest (bush in Kiwi terms), and you stroll along serene forest paths, catching unexpected vistas of amazing hanging lakes and the steaming volcanic area below that you have just come from - it is all so spectacular you feel you have been in another world.
Wai-o-tapu means Sacred Waters and there is something truly awe-inspiring about this place. Not for the faint-hearted but totally unique and unforgettable.
The stunning Lake Tekapo is pretty much bang smack in the centre of the South Island. It is famous for the colour of its water - the pics are a real indication of this. It is a remarkably beautiful place. The other wonderful feature of the lake is the beautiful stone church - the Church of the Good Shepherd - on its shoreline. Quite an appropriate name in this sheep farming area. There is a bronze statue of a sheep dog nearby.
In case you're wondering, the amazing turquoise blue colour of Lake Tekapo is caused by very fine particles of rock, from glaciers which feed into the lake, suspended in the water. It really is an incredible almost milky blue/green.
The night sky is so clear in Tekapo they have built an observatory to view the heavens.
The iconic Ninety Mile Beach at the very top of the North Island is a spectacular piece of coastline. It is officially a public highway and cars and tourist buses speed along its length every day. Not to mention motorbikes, horses and bicycles.
The trick is to drive on just the right part of the beach - drive by the sea and the sand is too wet and boggy; too close to the land and the sand is dry and soft and your wheels won't get any traction - and either way you're very stuck. So the middle strip - where it's not too wet and not too dry - is the way to go. Of course the inevitable happens with some regularity - vehicles get too close to the waves and the soft sand sucks them under and the waves pull them out and you're stuffed (in the Kiwi idiom).
The most alarming example of this is when a bus load of tourists becomes amphibious - doesn't happen often - the drivers are experienced and no-one's drowned yet!
Although the beach is on the West coast it is unusual in that it doesn't have black sand - it's as though the golden sands of the East coast have snuck around Cape Reinga to colonise this top-most western part of NZ.
New Zealand and sheep are synonymous - and the Aussies love to make sheep jokes at our expense. However it is a little known fact that sheep are amongst the most intelligent of animals.
A university - not in NZ - conducted an experiment putting various mammals through a maze - and the sheep learned the route through the maze faster than any other animal - not so dumb huh!
People think all sheep look the same - but when you work with them you see each face is different and they have unique personalities - as you will see from my story :-)
When I was young I spent my school holidays on a sheep farm which is where I learned to love sheep. During lambing season there were always lambs whose mothers had rejected them - and we would bring them into the house and put them by the old wood range to keep them warm and we'd feed them cows milk every couple of hours. When they were big enough they would go and live in the home paddock by the house, so we could keep an eye on them as we weaned them off the bottles of milk. They would then be added back to the flock when they were older.
However, one lamb called Sally didn't believe she was a sheep and always kept herself apart from the rest of the flock and would run helter-skelter to any human who was near, bleating in outrage that she was locked in with these awful woolly beasts. Time passed and when it came time for tupping (putting a ram into the flock for mating), she would firmly reject the ram's advances and back her rump into the fence corner and keep herself inaccessible and pure. She stubbornly did this all her life. We of course renamed her Virginnia.
