Final Thoughts on New Zealand

With only 3 days of our 70 day stint in New Zealand remaining, we thought we'd compile the many random thoughts and impressions this stunning country has left on us...

• Scenery: New Zealand is an amazing country. If you took the best scenery of the US that we've seen - the mountains of Yosemite, the fjords and glaciers of Alaska, the coastline of Big Sur, the beaches of the Caribbean, the geothermal features of Yellowstone, the lakes and forests of Minnesota, the Big Sky country of Montana - and put it into an area not much larger than Minnesota you'd have New Zealand.
• Coffee: Regular drip/filter coffee is extremely hard to find anywhere in NZ. The coffee shops only make espresso. Your choices are either a "long black" (espresso with hot water), a "flat white" (long black with milk), or a "short black" (long black with less water). We finally found this little coffee shop that had regular drip coffee. We think they may even have a few shops back in the US....it's this place called Starbucks.
• Surf: We realized how good we had it while living in California. Around Ventura there is usually at least a few days each week with clean, ground-swell surf. Here in NZ we were either very unlucky or the surf is very inconsistent. (We talked with a few traveling surfers from CA and they had the same experience as us so we're going with inconsistent.) We had a couple of amazing days of surf (Kaikoura and Gisborne), but most of the time all we found was somewhat messy wind-swell. When the surf was on, it was usually much more challenging (Dustin says more fun/exciting) than the waves around Ventura...stronger currents, lots of rocks along shore and in the lineup, and much faster, more powerful waves (not for the faint of heart).
• New Zealanders: We have been lucky enough to meet some of the most amazing people in this country. The people we met were all very warm, genuine, and treated us like we were part of the family.
• Sinks: The sinks in most public bathrooms have separate faucets for hot and cold water so your choice is to either wash your hands with ice cold water or with scalding hot water. Or you can do what we do and try to move your hands really fast between the two, trying to get a mix of each.
• Burgers (Dustin's thoughts): Who would've thought that New Zealand has significantly better burgers than the US? No more needs to be said about Fergburger (best burgers ever), but the couple of other places we had burgers at were also much better than anywhere in the US. Besides the usual beef patty with bacon, cheese, lettuce and tomato I've had one hamburger with all that plus hashbrowns and egg. Another had the hamburger plus bacon, egg, sliced steak, cheese, lettuce and tomato. Both were excellent. Try putting an egg (over-easy) on your next hamburger...trust me, you won't be sorry.
• Flyfishing (Dustin's thoughts): The fly fishing has been amazing. There are not a lot of fish, and many of them are ridiculously hard to catch, but they are big. The ones I caught averaged 19-20". In the many times I went flyfishing, I only saw other people 3 or 4 times. For the most part, I had these beautiful rivers to myself, with nothing around except the occasional sheep.
• Muffins: Actually, not regular muffins, but "savory muffins". Most places sell "sweet muffins": blueberry, banana nut, cranberry, etc and "savory muffins". The savory muffins have some combination of sausage, bacon, cheese and various herbs. Our favorites include the sausage and mushroom savory (tastes just like Thanksgiving stuffing) and the jalapeno cheese savory.
• Showers: We're getting used to the backpackers lifestyle of not showering regularly. Rachel has had a harder time adjusting than Dustin...he's been practicing for this his whole life.
• Best Foods: We tried the Korean Pancakes again when we got back to Auckland and they were still very good, but not near as tasty as we remembered. Maybe we were just really hungry after eating all the bad food while we were stranded on the island in Fiji. We adjusted our "Top Foods" list accordingly. Also, we left off all the food we had during our time with the Lowrys. Dave is an amazing cook and he would've monopolized the list...smoked mussels, salmon gravlax, meatloaf with plumb chutney, burgers (with bacon and egg), and all the fresh vegetables from his garden.
• Vehicles: There are NO pickups here. We haven't seen a single full-sized pickup the entire time we've been here. There have been a few small, Ford Ranger-size trucks, but it's almost entirely cars and vans. It's not at all uncommon to see mid-sized cars towing large boats or big trailers.


• Favorite towns: Nelson and Dunedin


• Best beaches: Coromandel area


• Best fishing: Mohaka and Mataura Rivers


• Best Surf: Kaikoura


• Best Mountains: Mt. Cook


• Best Hiking: Queenstown to Milford Sound area


• Best Kiwi Phrase: "Good on ya" meaning good for you or congratulations