Story#619
Milford in the rain
Everyone hopes for sun. Locals told us to hope for rain, because that is when a thousand temporary waterfalls appear on the cliffs. They were right within an hour.
New Zealand
The last large landmass humans settled, and the one where birds got there first.
13 entries · 5 stories, 8 fun facts
New Zealand at a glance
The practical numbers, before the stories.
- Capital
- Wellington
- Currency
- New Zealand dollar (NZD)
- Official language
- English, te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language
- Climate
- Temperate maritime. Wet on the west coast of the South Island, drier in the east, changeable everywhere.
- Best time to go
- December–March, or October–November for fewer people
- Time zone
- UTC+12 (UTC+13 in summer)
- Driving side
- Left
- Plugs and voltage
- Type I, 230 V
Worth knowing: Biosecurity checks on arrival are strict. Declare all food, and clean your hiking boots before you fly.
Planning a trip to New Zealand
The decisions that determine whether the trip works, whichever country you are going to.
Polynesian navigators reached Aotearoa around 1300 AD, making it one of the last sizeable places on Earth that people settled. Because the only native land mammals were bats, birds filled almost every ecological role, which is why the country's wildlife still looks like an experiment run without cats.
The entries here include the fiord that is misnamed a sound and gets six metres of rain a year, the river granted legal personhood in 2017, the cave ceiling that looks like a star map and is in fact several thousand hungry larvae, and the bridge where commercial bungee jumping began. Hope for rain in Milford. Locals will tell you the same thing.
Entries from New Zealand
Story#621
The Tongariro crossing
Nineteen kilometres, four weather systems and a lake the colour of antifreeze. Somebody in shorts passed us going the other way at a run.
Story#625
Hitching in the South Island
We waited eleven minutes and got picked up by a shearer who talked about sheep for two hours and dropped us forty kilometres past his own turnoff.
Story#629
Glowworm ceiling
The boat went silent and the guide pulled us along a rope in the dark. The ceiling looked like a star map and was in fact several thousand hungry larvae.
Story#631
Hangi under the ground
Food cooked in a pit with hot stones for four hours. The steam when they opened it was worth the entire wait and the whole meal tasted faintly of earth.
Fun fact#814
New Zealand has more sheep than people
The ratio has fallen from twenty to one in the 1980s to around five to one today, still comfortably ahead.
Fun fact#816
New Zealand had no land mammals
Before humans arrived the only native land mammals were bats, so birds filled almost every ecological role.
Fun fact#817
New Zealand was the last big land settled
Polynesian navigators reached Aotearoa around 1300 AD, making it one of the last large landmasses humans settled.
Fun fact#820
Milford Sound is really a fiord
Carved by glaciers rather than a river, Milford is technically a fiord, and it gets over six metres of rain a year.
Fun fact#821
New Zealand has a legally recognised river
In 2017 the Whanganui River was granted legal personhood, with guardians appointed to speak for it.
Fun fact#824
Rotorua smells of sulphur
Geothermal activity vents hydrogen sulphide across the town, earning it the nickname Sulphur City.
Fun fact#826
Bungee jumping was commercialised in Queenstown
The first commercial bungee site opened at the Kawarau Bridge in 1988, inspired by Vanuatu land diving.
Fun fact#954
The longest place name is in New Zealand
Taumata whakatangihanga koauau and its full 85-letter form is the longest official place name in an English-speaking country.
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New Zealand is one of 36 countries in the library. Read straight through a continent, or start from the map of everywhere we have written about.