17 Winter Days in Summery New Zealand

📙 Sometime in 2012, a group of like-minded souls - yours truly included - suddenly decided to drop everything - well, most things - and carefully research the country that calls itself New Zealand. But why? And who are these like-minded souls? These questions, and others, will be answered right here in this book.

But first, why New Zealand?...

Of course, everyone knows a bit about New Zealand (further - W), seen its beautiful countryside featured on the box from time to time, seen the All Blacks scare royalty with their Maori grimace-dances, and located it on the underside of globes and the lower right-hand corner of world maps. And recently there've been the well-publicized assorted hobbits and elves bounding about the country... But still - that's not a great deal of kiwi-specific low-down. No. So we decided to get ourselves down there, and have a feel for ourselves: To see the vast open spaces and incredible landscapes in the flesh. Lest we forget that many who've already been there say it's the most unusual, picturesque, mind-blowing place on the planet! Bold claim!

Besides, I have a personal interest in the place -and it relates to its claim to be the prettiest place on the planet. This is because for me - as many of you will already know - the most uniquely beautiful place in the world is Kamchatka - for its volcanism, bears, and breathtaking nature in general. I've long often wondered if there could be anywhere as good as the Kamchatka Peninsula, or - ye gods - better. So what's it gonna be? KP or NZ? The folks I know who've experienced both weren't able to provide full, proper answers. So that left us with just one option remaining: to leap half-way round the planet and have a look for ourselves...