New Zealand, 8-29-2017--Tahiti to Auckland to Christchurch to Springfield

We left Tahiti on Air New Zealand the evening of August 27, chasing the sun westward and crossing the International Dateline to land in Auckland on the evening of the "next" day, despite it being only a 6 hour flight.

Having stumbled along with less than child level French for 5 months, it was such a relief to board the plane and suddenly find every communication in English.  Given our lack of proficiency in French, it was also a relief to have escaped the arcane complexities of the French Polynesian immigration system, which had been compounded exponentially by David's illness.

The other relief was to find exceptionally friendly customs and immigration officials at the Auckland airport.

Auckland weather was as we expected, cool and rainy.  Fortunately we still had our warm weather clothing from the initial chilly days of the voyage when we left California in late February.

Laying out our sleeping pads at the international terminal, we got a less than ideal night's sleep before boarding a flight to Christchurch on the South Island the next morning.  Being right outside the security gate, we learned what a melting pot New Zealand is as we watched passengers arriving through the night from Australia, China and various South Pacific Islands. 

We'll let the photos tell the rest of the days story: 

Tourism is a major industry in NZ, and just about every aspect of our visit showed how well dialed in the country is to accommodate visitors.  Here, Pearl stands beside the shuttle that will take us to the van rental.   

Mr. Orange would be our home and transportation for the next 3 weeks. 

We rented Mr. Orange from Spaceship Rentals and highly recommend them if you're going to visit NZ.  The personnel were all super friendly and accommodating.  The van was well arranged and equipped for camping and the price couldn't be beat.  Since it was off season and they wanted to get the van from Christchurch back to Auckland, they paid the ferry fare to cross over to the North Island, a $250 savings for us, and then gave us 15% off on the whole rental to boot.  We wound up paying about $250 (U.S.) for 3 weeks use of the van, with no limit on miles.

We have an aversion to big cities and Christchurch, with a population of roughly 400,000 qualifies in our book.  That we were very short on sleep and constantly trying to remember to drive on the left side of the road only increased our desire to escape the city.  Our first stop was a thrift store where Pearl scored a down jacket for 50 cents, then groceries and gas and we were headed out.  Our plan was to head west through the Southern Alps to the Tasman Sea, then south to the fiordlands.   

Daffodils in bloom made Pearl's heart soar...

...and the public toilet situation made my heart soar.  One of my metrics for rating a country's level of civilization is their access to public toilets.  On a 1-10 scale, NZ gets a 9+ (by way of comparison, the U.S. rates less than 1). 

Think about it, how many times in the U.S. have you had to search for a toilet, only to finally find one hidden in the back of a store, for which you then had to go back up front and request a key.  In NZ, there are signs everywhere pointing folks to the nearest public toilet, which is never far away. 

OK, rant over.   

As you can see, NZ rates just as highly in the cleanliness dept.  We rarely encountered a public toilet that wasn't clean and they were all well stocked with TP.   

Flying into Christchurch I (David) was puzzled by innumerable dark linear objects surrounding just about every field.  Once on the ground, we discovered they were tall hedges, planted to protect crops and livestock from what local folks said were frequent and sometimes severe winds.  

Hedges were typically double rows of conifers closely spaced and around 15 feet wide by 25-30 feet high.

We never saw them being pruned, but it must be quite a machine to reach that high.

We drove all of 50 miles before stopping for the night at a public campground, which are abundant throughout New Zealand, and then slept like the dead.