WHY:

Like many British immigrants of their time, my parents each had a sibling who migrated further away from the Commonwealth mothership. My dad’s sister, Lois, married a distant Kiwi cousin and they and their two kids lived in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland. My mother’s most eccentric brother, Mike, had fled family to Invercargill, the town at the very south of the South Island of New Zealand. We had regular contact with Lois and Maurice - indeed, they’d visited Canada in 1974 when international family travel was still uncommon - but Mike was a mystery. Mom received an annual Christmas card with one word, “Mike,” confirming that he was still alive. And that was the extent of the relationship.

So when a friend moved to Auckland with her partner so she could do a Masters in Law, I decided to make the trip to see them, and to meet these exotic relatives. If you’re going that far, you go for as long as you can, so for the first (and to date, only) time, I booked all my vacation in a block and bought a ticket to Auckland.

WHEN:

It was February and so I eagerly anticipated escaping the drudgery of Toronto winter and I wasn’t disappointed. The early pages of my journal refer to blistered feet and sunburnt shoulders - this was when we wanted to have a little colour.

WHO:

Family visits went well - I met my aunt and uncle and their adult kids in Auckland, and my bachelor uncle with his prized Murray Grey cattle in the very far south. Both visits uncovered even more familial complexity and eccentricity!

I saw other species’ families too: sheep blocking traffic in an unconcerned “there’s-more-of-us-than-you” kind of way; yellow-eyed penguins also not seemingly bothered by the tourists walking in trenches around them; and albatrosses soaring overhead.

I chatted with tourists on trains, in restaurants, and on tours. On the train between Christchurch and Dunedin, I talked for six hours with an American who had just wintered on the US army base in Antarctica.. (He later visited me in Toronto although it was a short-lived thing.)

Having my friends in Auckland book-ended the trip - I started off with them and spent the last few days there too, a welcome touch of Toronto in the South Pacific.

MEMORABLE MOMENT:

My NZ travels took me from Auckland to the Coromandel Peninsula and then south to Whakaari (then called White Island), the volcanic island where 22 tourists were killed in an eruption in 2019. White Island was one of the most awesome (in the original sense of the word) things I’ve ever seen. I felt the power that day and it was no surprise that people died from its fury.

WHAT DID I LEARN:

The weather was not the only immediate difference between Toronto and Auckland. My friend and I attended a free Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra pops concert in Pukekawa, known then as the Auckland Domain. This remnant of an ancient volcano is a public space and the concert attracted a lot of people - my notes say 300,000 but that seems hard to believe. Regardless, the crowd behaved themselves, sang Maori songs in unison, and cleaned up their garbage afterwards. My Toronto eyes were opened wide to a different kind of collective living experience!

I also learned that New Zealanders know what’s going on in the world. They are more aligned to Britain than they are to Australia and perhaps it’s because - at that time anyway - they watched a lot of British TV, they were more connected to Europe. I loved that about them.

I have always taken a lot of photos and on that trip, I learned for the first time the excitement of getting film developed in the middle of the vacation! I spent $87 on prints in Wellington at the trip’s halfway point. I sent my own photos home as postcards. I miss postcards. And I miss getting photos printed too.

Halfway through a month away I thought “I need a vacation from this vacation.” I listened to myself and simply took a day off. I found a B&B bed to curl up in with a TV remote in hand, likely some crisps (as chips are known there), and immersed myself. I realized then that vacation is tiring if you don’t pace yourself. Since then, I incorporate time for vegging out in my vacations, often at the expense of seeing the sites. I know myself well enough to know I’m not good without a recharge.

There’s nothing that irritates me more on a vacation than spending too much time worrying about money. This lesson was underscored on this trip. In the middle of the holiday, I had booked a night at a higher end B&B in Nelson, called The Cambria. I extended my stay. I recall they served venison at breakfast and that’s a good thing. So I learned for the umpteenth time - nice things are nicer than not-nice things.

The biggest take-away from that month-long trip in 1996 is that New Zealand is a wonderful destination full of lovely people and beautiful sites. Can recommend.

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