My wife and I recently took a wonderful hiking vacation to New Zealand. We flew Air New Zealand to Auckland, then to Christchurch, which is in the lower island. We spent several days in Christchurch. It's a great place to visit.
They have a large magnificent park close to the middle of town that has many different plants and nature walks. We rented kayaks and paddled through the stream that circles around the park.
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Across the street from the park is a flea market/museum facility that has original Maori hand carvings and foods.The center of town, with its interesting shops, is located only a small walk away, around ˝ mile. From the town square we started our tour with “Active New Zealand”, a New Zealand tour company. They supplied two people to baby-sit us for the next two weeks. One of our "sitters" was the driver of the small tour bus, and the other cooked and helped with the hiking. |
They drove us to the various hiking locations, mainly rain forests, showed us the paths and made sure that we arrived safely. We didn't have to hike as a group, we were able to hike at our own pace and comfort. We hiked to higher elevations near Mount Hood, and in the lower elevations near the Tasmanian sea. We also hiked to a glacier, yes a real life glacier near Mount Hood. |
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When we arrived at the South
Rim of the canyon, we were given the choice of a bus tour or hiking.
We opted for hiking. The first view of the Grand Canyon was breathtaking. Its' enormous size and vivid colors create the illusion of standing within a giant Southwestern painting… definitely a wondrous site to behold. It took 4-6 million years for erosion to create the Grand Canyon. It hosts a chasm 277 miles long with an average depth of 1 mile. |
Great food and rest were supplied at the end of each day. The one thing that was absolutely amazing to me was that there were no snakes, no mosquitoes and no harmful spiders (in fact I can't remember seeing any spiders) in the rain forests. The only pest we had to worry about was a small sandfly in the wetter areas. He likes to bite, but non-toxic citronella stops him. The rain forests were safe, not like some others we have visited. Many times we would stand still in the quiet of the rain forest and would hear absolutely nothing. If you want to visit rain forests that are safe, New Zealand is the place. |
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