New Zealand

I just thought I would post a few of my observations on New Zeland in general. End of March/beginning of April turned out to be a great time to go (though most people might prefer it to be a bit warmer like in Jan or Feb). It was warm during the day and cool at night for my entire stay, until my last day in Christchurch, when it turned quite cold. It only rained 4 days of my 17 in New Zealand, even though I spent considerable time in the rainiest part of the country, the west coast of the South Island, so I got lucky. The Kiwis are fun and friendly, to generalize. The exchange rate is 1.75NZD to 1USD right now (all the prices I mention are USD), making it a bit cheaper, but it is still not a cheap place to travel compared to Central and South America and Southeast Asia, but much cheaper than Europe. There really isn't much history and culture to speak of in New Zealand, so apart from the natural wonders, most of the extra time of young tourists such as myself is spent relaxing or drinking with the other travelers. There are also plenty of "Adventure" activities like whitewater rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping, etc. I'm on a budget and I don't care much about them so I didn't partake. Below is a more exact route for New Zealand. As you can see, I missed lots of New Zealand, staying almost exclusively on the South Island, but I couldn't see it all in two and a half weeks, which was a good amount of time to spend there. By the end, I was getting a bit tired of the whole bus crowds thing, I'll explain. There are three bus companies, Kiwi Experience, Magic Bus, and Stray Bus, that provide package transport for people who don't like to plan ahead for a ridiculous price. The advantage is that one gets to meet lots of people, but they get sheparded around, making some nice places ridiculously crowded at times. And some, but not all, people on the bus will only be willing to talk to the people on their bus at bars and hostels and such. It wasn't a big problem for me, I met tons of fun people and got to really enjoy the natural scenery in New Zealand to my heart's content.

Beer of New Zealand: Rather than having one of two of the same beer throughout the country like the third world to which countries I'll be going, the selection is very much like it is in the States, or more accurately, in two states, as it is much smaller. They have two or three national microbrews, like Speights and Monoleiths, with different varieties available and a few cheaper, light beers, Tui (named after one of their endangered birds) and Export Gold. Tui is quite good and Export Gold makes me gag, but all together the Kiwis do a good job with their beer. It helps that the exchange rate makes them cheap, they charge about the same as in the States but in NZ dollars. Grade: B+.