Saturday, 28 April 2007

Two very different New Zealands

I've just returned to Auckland after 2 weeks travelling around the country. I went to Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wanaka and also did some tramping in the Mount Aspiring National Park. It was a great time and I got to catch up with a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time. I've got lots of photos to post but first I'd just like to state my amazement about the difference in climate between the two main islands of my county. On Friday for example:

11:30am driving to Christchurch airport with heater going full blast.
1:30pm driving home from Auckland airport. It's so hot in the car we turn on the air conditioning.

For the last few days the temperature in Auckland has been a full 10 degrees hotter than Dunedin. So although there're lots of things I don't like about Auckland, I'd have to say that it has an ideal climate. Especially after living in unbearably hot Taiwan.

There are also differences in plant life between the 2 islands. Here is one photo taken near Auckland in the North Island and one photo taken in Otago in the South Island. Can you guess which is which?


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