The human Kiwis are soft spoken, polite and friendly but they are also
hard working, determined and proud of their home. Though they live on an island
about as isolated as you could get on the planet they are extremely well traveled and very Another common symbol of New Zealand is the silver fern. They are
not easy to recognize in the "bush" because they are silver on the bottom of the
leave. The early explorers would bend a leave upside down every few hundred yards to
mark their path. The Kauri tree is a native tree to New Zealand. The lumber from
these trees is very strong and resistant to rot. Boat building with Kauri was common
until just 15 years ago when the supply began to dry up. It takes a very long time
to grow a Kauri so commercial production has not caught on and the native forests are no
mostly protected. The following are the places we visited during a 7 week tour of New Zealand. It was a wonderful trip and we will always remember New Zealand fondly. New Zealand is the first place we have stopped where we think we could live for a long period of time. It really has a lot going for it. It would also make a fantastic tourist destination. A plane ticket and a car rental would be all that is needed to get started and it would be easy for a couple to travel on US$100 a day including the car rental. Double that and you could go first class. We will try to elaborate on this later, for now check out some of the highlights of New Zealand. |
New Zealand is a wonderful island nation. With only 3.6 million people
it is just a small country but being isolated and populated by tough pioneering types it
has built itself into a thriving independent country. The people of New Zealand call
themselves Kiwis after the Kiwi bird (not the Kiwi fruit). The Kiwi bird is very
different than its appearance would lead you to believe and we give a our impressions more
completely in the 
internationally sophisticated. The New Zealand economy has suffered lately from the
Asian downturn but it is still strong and rebounding. It is well diversified for
such a small country and they have only a small trade and government spending deficit.
Wages are low relative to the US but food and housing prices are equally low and
the standard of living is good.
You see the silver fern on the side of the New Zealand America's Cup boat and
on many of their sports team jerseys.
You can still buy Kauri in small quantities. It comes mostly from tree
trunks that get washed out during floods. We fixed a Kauri board to our stern for
our outboards as seen in the