The Rough Guide to New Zealand (Travel Guide eBook)

Rough Guides

Description

Discover this spectacular destination with the most incisive and entertaining guidebook on the market. Whether you plan to sample fine wines in Hawke's Bay, canoe along the Whanganui River or hike across the Franz Josef glacier, The Rough Guide to New Zealand will show you the ideal places to sleep, eat, drink, shop and visit along the way.

Independent, trusted reviews written with Rough Guides' trademark blend of humour, honesty and insight, to help you get the most out of your visit, with options to suit every budget.
Full-colour maps throughout - navigate New Zealand's towns and cities or its scenic coastal roads without needing to get online.
Stunning images - a rich collection of inspiring colour photography.
Things not to miss - Rough Guides' rundown of New Zealand's best sights and experiences.
Itineraries - carefully planned routes to help you organize your trip.
Detailed regional coverage - whether off the beaten track or in more mainstream tourist destinations, this travel guide has in-depth practical advice for every step of the way.

Areas covered include: Auckland, Northland, Western NorthIsland, Central North Island, The Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and the East Cape, Poverty Bay, Hawke's Bay and the Waiarapa, Wellington, Marlborough, Nelson and Kaikoura, Christchurch, Central South Island, Dunedin, Stewart Island, the West Coast, Queenstown, Wanaka and Central Otago, Fiordland .

Attractions include: Milford Sound, Farewell Spit, Kaikoura Peninsula, White Island, Ninety Mile Beach, East Cape, The Catlins. Abel Tasman National Park, Wai-o-Tapu, wine regions.

Basics - essential pre-departure practical information including getting there, local transport, accommodation, food and drink, health, the media, festivals, outdoor activities, culture and etiquette, and more.
Background information - a Contexts chapter devoted to history and recommended books, plus a guide to Maori language and a glossary.

Make the Most of Your Time on Earth with The Rough Guide to New Zealand.

About Rough Guides: Escape the everyday with Rough Guides. We are a leading travel publisher known for our "tell it like it is" attitude, up-to-date content and great writing. Since 1982, we've published books covering more than 120 destinations around the globe, with an ever-growing series of ebooks, a range of beautiful, inspirational reference titles, and an award-winning website. We pride ourselves on our accurate, honest and informed travel guides.

Sujets

• Nueva Zelanda
• New Zealand
• Nouvelle-Zélande

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 02 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781789195200
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 14 Mo

Extrait

Hemis/AWL Images
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Where to go
When to go
Author picks
Things not to miss
Itineraries
BASICS
Getting there
Visas and entry requirements
Getting around
Accommodation
Food and drink
The media
Festivals and public holidays
Outdoor activities
Spectator sports
Culture and etiquette
Shopping
Travelling with children
Living in New Zealand
Travel essentials
THE GUIDE
1 Auckland and around
2 Northland
3 Waikato and the Coromandel
4 Rotorua and the Bay of Plenty
5 Central North Island
6 Eastern North Island
7 Wellington and the south
8 Marlborough, Nelson and Kaikoura
9 The west coast
10 Christchurch and Canterbury
11 Otago
12 Fiordland and Southland
CONTEXTS
History
Maoritanga
Landscapes and wildlife
Film and music
Books
Language
Glossary
SMALL PRINT
Getty Images
Introduction to
New Zealand
Kiwis – the people, not the emblematic flightless bird – can’t believe their luck at being born in what they call “Godzone” (God’s own country). Year after year, travellers list New Zealand in the top ten of places they’d like to visit – and you rarely meet anyone who has been and didn’t love the place. And what’s not to like? With craggy coastlines, sweeping beaches, primeval forests, snowcapped mountains and explosive geysers, the scenery is truly majestic. The forests come inhabited by strange birds that have evolved to fill evolutionary niches normally occupied by mammals, while penguins, whales and seals ring the coast. And in a land that’s larger than the UK and two-thirds the size of California, there are only around 4.7 million people. Māori have been here for around eight hundred years and retain distinct and fascinating customs overlaid by colonial European – and increasingly Asian – cultures that together create a vibrant, if understated, urban life.
Given this stunning backdrop it’s not surprising that there are boundless diversions, ranging from strolls along moody windswept beaches and multi-day tramps over alpine passes to adrenaline-charged adventure activities such as bungy jumping, skiing, sea-kayaking and whitewater rafting. Some visitors treat the country as a large-scale adventure playground, aiming to tackle as many challenges as possible in the time available.
Much of the scenic drama comes from tectonic or volcanic forces, as the people of Canterbury know only too well following the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The quakes, along with several thousand aftershocks, devastated the city but it is well on the way to recovery.
So many residents have left Christchurch that Wellington now outranks it as the country’s second largest city, both well behind Auckland . Elsewhere, you can travel through stunning countryside without seeing a soul: there are spots so remote that, it’s reliably contended, no human has yet visited them.
Geologically, New Zealand split away from the super-continent of Gondwana early, developing a unique ecosystem in which birds adapted to fill the role of mammals, many becoming flightless because they had no predators. That all changed about eight hundred years ago with the arrival of Polynesian navigators, when the land they called Aotearoa – “the land of the long white cloud” – became the last major landmass to be settled by humans. On disembarking from their canoes, these Māori proceeded to unbalance the fragile ecosystem, dispatching forever the giant ostrich-sized moa, which formed a major part of their diet. The country once again settled into a fragile balance before the arrival of Pakeha – white Europeans, predominantly of British origin – who swarmed off their square-rigged ships full of colonial zeal in the mid-nineteenth century and altered the land forever.
An uneasy coexistence between Māori and European societies informs the current conflicts over cultural identity, land and resource rights. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi , New Zealand’s founding document, effectively ceded New Zealand to the British Crown while guaranteeing Māori hegemony over their land and traditional gathering and fishing rights. As time wore on and increasing numbers of settlers demanded ever larger parcels of land from Māori, antipathy surfaced and escalated into hostility. Once Māori were subdued, a policy of partial integration all but destroyed Maoritanga – the Māori way of doing things. Māori, however, were left well outside the new European order, where difference was perceived as tantamount to a betrayal of the emergent sense of nationhood. Although elements of this still exist and Presbyterian and Anglican values have proved hard to shake off, the Kiwi psyche has become infused with Māori generosity and hospitality, coupled with a colonial mateyness and the unerring belief that whatever happens, “she’ll be right”.

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DRIVING CREEK RAILWAY, COROMANDEL

Fact file At latitude 41° south, Wellington is the world’s southernmost capital city and shares the honour of being the most remote with Canberra, over 2000km away. At 85 characters, a hill near Porangahau has one of the longest names in the world: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. Kiwis enjoy foreign affirmation: Flight of the Conchords was turned down by domestic television and only became a local success after their HBO hit series. New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections (in 1893). There are no snakes in New Zealand, and only a few enomous spiders, rarely seen. The numerous Māori words that have crept into everyday conversation easily confound visitors: aroha is love; kia kaha means be strong; kia ora can be hi or might signify agreement; and koha is a donation or offering. New Zealand’s eels live to 80 years and only breed once, at the end of their lives – and they swim all the way to Tonga to do it.
Only in the last forty years has New Zealand come of age and developed a true national self-confidence, something partly forced on it by Britain severing the colonial apron strings, and by the resurgence of Māori identity. Māori demands have been nurtured by a willingness on the part of most Pakeha to redress the wrongs perpetrated over the last 175 years, as long as it doesn’t impinge on their high standard of living or overall feeling of control. More recently, integration has been replaced with a policy of biculturalism – the somewhat fraught notion of promoting two cultures alongside each other, but with maximum interaction. This policy has been somewhat weakened by relatively recent and extensive immigration from China, Korea and South Asia.

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QUEENSTOWN
Despite having and achieving much to give them confidence, Kiwis (unlike their Australian neighbours) retain an underlying shyness that borders on an inferiority complex: you may well find yourself interrogated about your opinions on the country almost before you’ve even left the airport. Balancing this is an extraordinary enthusiasm for sports and culture , which generate a swelling pride in New Zealanders when they witness plucky Kiwis taking on and sometimes beating the world.
Where to go
New Zealand packs a lot into a small space, meaning you can visit many of the main sights in a couple of weeks, but allow at least a month (ideally two) for a proper look around. The scenery is the big draw, and most people only pop into the big cities on arrival and departure (easily done with open-jaw air tickets, allowing you to fly into Auckland and out of Christchurch) or when travelling to Wellington from the South Island across the Cook Strait .
Sprawled around the sparkling Waitemata Harbour, Auckland looks out over the island-studded Hauraki Gulf. Most people head south from here, missing out on Northland , the cradle of both Māori and Pakeha colonization, cloaked in wonderful subtropical forest that harbours New Zealand’s largest kauri trees. East of Auckland the coast follows the isolated greenery and long, golden beaches of the Coromandel Peninsula , before running down to the beach towns of the Bay of Plenty . Immediately south your senses are assailed by the ever-present sulphurous whiff of Rotorua , with its spurting geysers and bubbling pools of mud, and the volcanic plateau centred on the trout-filled waters of Lake Taupo , overshadowed by three snowcapped volcanoes. Cave fans will want to head west of Taupo for the eerie limestone caverns of Waitomo ; alternatively it’s just a short hop from Taupo to the delights of canoeing the Whanganui River , a broad, emerald-green waterway banked by virtually impenetrable bush thrown into relief by the cone of Mount Taranaki , whose summit is accessible in a day. East of Taupo lie ranges that form the North Island’s backbone, and beyond them the Hawke’s Bay wine country , centred on the Art Deco city of Napier. Further south, the wine region of Martinborough is just an hour or so from the capital, Wellington , its centre squeezed onto reclaimed harbourside, the suburbs slung across steep hills overlooking glistening bays. Politicians and bureaucrats give it a well-scrubbed and urbane sophistication, enlivened by an established café society and after-dark scene.

Māori Culture
Tribal costume is only worn on special occasions, facial tattoos are fairly rare and you’ll probably only see a haka performed at a rugby match or cultural show. In fact, Māori live very much in the modern world. But peel back the veneer of the song-dance-and-hangi performance and you’ll discover a parallel world that non-Māori are o