Lifestyle and Leisure
Twelve months in New Zealand
Paddy McQueen spent a year living in New Zealand, travelling, working and generally living it up. Here he describes what’s so great about life there
Travelling around New Zealand is like walking into your favourite pub to be met by a table full of close friends who all offer to buy you a pint. At the risk of sounding like every other traveller, this really is the friendliest place I've been. Where else could you hitch around the entire country being picked up predominantly by Kiwis who frequently offer you anything from lunch to a bed for a night (and on several occasions a week)?
They smile, laugh and tell you that they hitched around the place when they were young and are simply happy to return the favour. And no, they want nothing in return – just make sure you help a traveller out when you're back home. If being happy were an Olympic sport, there would be no competition for the gold medal. I can't begin to describe the kindness, honesty, trust and warmth that you feel everywhere you travel. Every town feels like home, every person like an old friend. I was struck by how proud every Kiwi is of their country. They simply love the place, and want you to visit everywhere. If a crime is committed on the other side of the country, they treat it as if their own family is the victim.
Of course, the country has its problems, though as a traveller you simply won't see them (unless you seek out a rundown suburb in Auckland), but I felt so safe the whole time and didn't meet a single traveller who'd so much as had a wallet or camera stolen. However, it must be hard to be sad or angry in a country bursting with such beauty. From gentle rolling hills to glaciers, snow-tipped volcanoes, crystal-blue lakes and oceans of forest, this is truly the great outdoors.
The Department of Conservation ensures that every area of the country has a host of well-maintained paths to explore and huts to spend the night in. Indeed, the sheer number of them means it's easy to find yourself half way up a mountain with nothing but the stars and a campfire for company. And, given the lack of pollution, you will see stars as you've never seen them before. The Milky Way blazes across the sky, which is simply saturated with twinkling lights.
I divided my time in New Zealand between staying in many excellent hostels, huts (when walking in the National Parks) and 'Wwoofing'. Wwoofing is a worldwide project standing for 'Willing Workers On Organic Farms', whereby members can stay with a host farm which provides food and accommodation in exchange for around four hours' work a day. One place I Wwoofed at was a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere in the rugged West Coast region on the South Island, which ran on solar power, had no running water and had a compost toilet out the back. It was one of the most peaceful times of my life, spent with one of the most interesting, warm and intelligent people I've had the honour to meet.
Best of all was the famous New Zealand 'Bush-bath' – a tub outside which you light a fire under to heat up, and then spend the next few hours watching the stars drift by. If you need to top-up the temperature you simply stick another log on the embers. Add a few lemons to the water and you've got the perfect way to relax after a hot day's gardening. There's a magic to New Zealand. My time was marked by a constant stream of coincidences and downright luck. If I wanted to visit a certain place, I often simply got up expecting to go there and, lo-and-behold, the one other person having breakfast in the hostel at that time is also going there. Or else I'd start a conversation in one town, and on arriving at the next place a total stranger would strike up a conversation at the exact point I'd left off the previous one.
I had four days' travelling in a row, where each evening I'd be told to go to a particular town the next day and come morning be offered a ride by the first person I met, who just so happened to also be heading there. New Zealand is buzzing with energy – not just from the gaping hole in the Ozone Layer that's conveniently positioned directly overhead (no where's perfect, hey) – but from the friendliness, generosity, happiness and love that so many Kiwis are ready and willing to share with a total stranger.
It may sound like I'm speaking through rose-tinted glasses, looking back retrospectively at all the positives whilst forgetting the negatives. But speak to any one else who has been out there, and you'll find that if I do exaggerate, it isn't by much at all. It's impossible to go to New Zealand and not be affected by the heart-stopping majesty of its landscape, and heart-warming kindness of its inhabitants.
Register for your FREE emigration starter pack
Subscribe to Emigrate New Zealand. Read more ...