#12: Clothespins

Anyone reading this blog knows that I am in love with laundry. It was so good to be back in a land of laundry - I love to see clothes hanging on a line and NZ is simply full of it. Of course, with all the wind they get it's important to have good clothespins. A modest example are featured here. I did find them to be pretty darn effective. I brought back a goodly number of them to distribute to friends - what could be a more appropriate gift from the south when I blog as The Clothesline?

#11 South Island Cities

Today, I'm posting a bunch of photos from an album of visits to 3 cities on the South Island. (I'm finally starting to get some of my photos sorted). We visited Dunedin, "Little Edinburgh", the Scottish centre of NZ, Christchurch, a lovely city we saw on a dark and dreary day, and Wellington - forever in my memory as bright and breezy.

http://picasaweb.google.ca/cgmcc51/NzCities#

#10 Beaches

Most of us enjoy the sand of a golden beach (and NZ has plenty of them), but I rather liked the unusual black sand found along the Tasman Sea on the North Island. Our route generally followed the coasts of both islands and if you are a beach lover, NZ is a very fine place to visit. It is windy, however (at least in the spring). We loved the coastline and didn't get to a couple of the really grand beaches - like 90 Mile Beach - which could be a bit of an exaggeration for a metric country! I don't like the fact that some of the beaches are "drivable" but our rig wasn't insured to be on beaches and I don't agree with vehicles on them anyway. Beaches are another great NZ walking opportunity too.

#9: Toilets!

I can't think of ever taking a picture of one of the many, many public toilets in NZ. You'd have thought I'd at least taken a picture of the sign! Alas, I did not do that. NZ has absolutely the best public toilets in the world, I'm sure. Every town has them and they are clearly labelled so access is readily found. It was such a change from travelling in Britain where it was difficult to find a toilet and it usually cost a few pence to get in. I saw two toilets in NZ that weren't topnotch in terms of cleanliness and there was one where I provided a couple of rolls of toilet paper. That is because I expected to need toilet paper while we travelled and it was one of the first things I put into my grocery cart on the day we rented our camper. On December 4th, 5 weeks, later I hadn't used any so left a couple of rolls at the FREE DoC campground we stayed in near the Tasman Sea on the NI. The country has figured out what is important to the tourist and it has been provided!

#8: Wine

NZ is a BIG wine grower - it really made the Okanagan Valley look like pretty small potatoes (or grapes, in this case). We could usually buy a decent wine in the grocery store for under $10.00 kiwi. (There are no "state" liquor stores in NZ). We tried out lots of them. I liked this label design from the Marlborough area of NZ, close to Nelson, NZ. We're having a bottle of Oyster Bay wine for Christmas dinner tomorrow, which also happens to be in the Nelson area. From Nelson, NZ to Nelson, BC! Happy Christmas, everyone.

#7: It's Metric

For those of you who don't know what this instrument is, it's a metric needle gauge for knitting needles. I happen to own one. One thing I really liked about NZ is that it has gone metric, not in the half-assed way that Canada has. It's a bit of a shock to enter the grocery store and see that the price of bulk garlic is $19.95/kg, but the price works out to pretty much the same thing as Canada. Once I had made the adjustments, I was very happy to be able to purchase meat, veggies and fruit in kg, instead of pounds.

The knitting supplies were another NZ "buy" - I'd say the prices for yarn were lower, knitting needles and the like were cheaper and I guess with 40 million sheep, one really can't go wrong.

#6: Botanical Gardens

The city planners of NZ obviously had a grand vision and a love of plants. There are botanical gardens in every city we visited and even small places with a population less than 10,000 people had impressive public gardens. This often included water features, as pictured here in Dunedin, NZ, a rock garden, herb gardens and ROSES were the big highlight. They were at the peak of their season and I saw so many varieties, most with names I'd never heard of. We were sorry to have been a bit late for the rhododendron shows but what we did see was impressive - luckily for us it was a late spring and lots of rhodos were still blooming. Absolutely hundreds of hectares are given over to the development of public gardens in the towns and cities of NZ and I applaud the fact that we didn't pay for entrance and every one that we visited was a delightful public space. Joseph Banks came with Captain Cook to collect plants in NZ - his legacy lives on!