Where Are The Victoria Falls? - Someplace Around Taupo I Do Think? Or Why Do New Zealanders Often Ignore Their Own Beautiful And Diverse Country?

While the headline above may seem perhaps odd and irrelevant, it is taken from an advertisement shown on New Zealand television several years ago. It is connected with the tendency of travelers from NZ to ignore the wonderful destinations available within the boundaries of their own beautiful and diverse country.

Extending from the wonderful stone architecture of south Canterbury and Southland to the Unique and fragile Beech forests of the West Coast; to the broad sandy beaches of Northland, the sheltered sandy coves of the East Coast; to the magnificence of the looming, often snow covered slopes, of the active volcano which is Mt Ruapehu. The night life of the biggest cities contrast with the comparatively sedate rural existences lived by those within half a day easy drive from the centre of these bubbling metropolis.

Roads are almost entirely sealed now, although unsealed and less frequented routes with evocative titles still exist. The 'forgotten highway' which goes from Taranaki into the Ruapehu District is just one such example. The 'Bridge to nowhere' is New Zealand's monument to the rugged and challenging terrain of the central North Island. Even this small territory nestled in the South Pacific, after almost 400 years of human habitation, there are still largely untraveled tracts of land in existence.

Wooden churches and stone stores from a colonial past still exist. With history books in hand, an individual is able to still view the carved wooden grave markers of the very participants within those same pages. Having studied New Zealand's heritage in my years at university, such tangible markers give substance to the languid process of time in locations of this land, my home, New Zealand.

Speaking again, to the essence intended in the title, I will inform you, the visitor, that as a teenager, myself and my close friend cycled many of the pathways of this beautiful and diverse country. I am confident that I have at least a cursory appreciation of this landscape. In earlier years, my experiences as a boy scout saw me wandering about the old tram tracks and logging skids of gold mining and forestry operations around Wairongomai. Now, just as then, bush covered and less than 'easy going' terrain. The men and women that moulded a state from this wilderness that was pre-colonial NZ were indeed of hardy stock. Often the settlers were military veterans of the Victorian Empire's conquests all-around the globe. They were no strangers to discipline and hard physical labour.

It can thus, be seen, that New Zealand has vast scope of appeal for the adventure seeking and those people wishing to experience a vigorous, and not too distant, history. You can be having eggs on toast in a cafe near the shores of the great Lake Taupo in the morning, then be skiing the slopes of Ruapehu after lunch. You can be reading through historical documents in a provincial museum in one of many small towns around the country, then, that same night be dancing the night away in a popular night club in one of the main city centres.

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