What’s the best thing about living in New Zealand?
A visitor asked me this the other day — and I thought it was a pretty difficult question, since it’s always hard to “look in” objectively when you’re already “inside Middle Earth.”
So there’s that for starters—living in the country that Sir Peter Jackson has transformed into JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth. And there is still a lot of open space, compared to other countries I’ve visited—areas where you can drive for miles and not see another person, or a house. I really like that.
But because NZ is long and narrow, even really remote places are never that far away. For example, the location of Edoras, in The Lord of the Rings‘ films, wouldn’t be more than a couple of hours drive from Christchurch, where I live.
True. One of the things I love is that it only takes you a couple of days to travel the entire length of the place, and along that length you can see everything from mountains and rainforests, to arid zones, plains and subtropics, to every kind of coastline you can imagine, and even fiords. We’ve pretty much got it all! And, as you say, you can drive for hours sometimes without seeing another vehicle in some parts of the country, and even our touristy spots are not that busy. We’re pretty darn lucky, really.
“What she said” 🙂 Of course, the airfares and time to get anywhere else (pretty much at all) is the flip side…
That’s very true. I guess we have to have it all here cos getting to anywhere else to see it is quite the mission!
So it’s lucky we have a lot… 😉
Amazing landscapes. How wonderful to have that on your doorstep. I live not far from Goathland in North Yorkshire, England, where the scenes for Hogsmeade Station in the Harry Potter films were shot. Also nice to have just around the corner, but not nearly as dramatic as New Zealand scenery.
I remember loving the Yorkshire and Lakes District landscapes when in the UK, and the historic fabric adds a great deal of depth.