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New Zealand is a small but incredibly beautiful country that sits like a semicolon at the end of the sentence that is Australia.

New Zealand

Hank Shiffman
2003-11-29 15:02:00

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An introduction to New Zealand for Americans and other geographically challenged peoples around the world:

New Zealand is a small but incredibly beautiful country that sits like a semicolon at the end of the sentence that is Australia. (Yes, that's a transportation joke. If you don't get it, don't worry; it wasn't all that funny.) Two big islands with roughly the land mass of California, it has one tenth the population, about a third of which resides in the greater Auckland area. Major industries include sheep, dairy cattle, timber, fruits, vegetables and just about anything that else that will grow here. It is home to three kinds of Kiwis: the bird kind, which hides away during the day and can only be seen in animal parks; the fruit kind, which they foolishly permitted to grow in other parts of the world; and the people kind, who may just be the nicest and friendliest on the planet.

So what, you may wonder was I doing in New Zealand? Credit my visit to two unrelated events. The first was the release of the extended edition DVD of Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, the one with the four commentary tracks and five hours of documentaries. By the time I'd watched the film for the third time, my desire to see the country that passed for Middle Earth was well nigh irresistible.

The second event was my employer's decision that they could do without my services, a situation which I accepted with as much grace as I am capable of mustering. So, with time on my hands while I began the search for a new gig, I decided it was an excellent time for an adventure. And a little while later I was on my way to a month-long wander through the land of Xena and Hercules and Peter Jackson.

Auckland

I arrived in Auckland in the dark, missing my first chance to see something of the country as I waited for the sun to catch up to my body's ...