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Kiwis are just plain friendly. The day we arrived in Christchurch, for example, we were several hours late and so arrived late in the evening. We took a local bus and didn't really know what stop to get off at. The bus driver, however, didn't hesitate to call into the bus depot and find out what stop was the closest to the street address we had. Having done that, he stopped the bus for us at the corner of our street even though that wasn't the official stop so that we wouldn't have to carry all of our luggage so far and then he waited until Gerry had made sure he had found the house before driving on. Now wasn't that nice?

We rode the buses a whole lot in Christchurch and it's hard to remember anyone being rude on the bus. In fact, in Christchurch and to some extent in Auckland, it was customary for passengers to thank the driver as they got off the bus. Maybe that's why the bus drivers were more inclined to go that extra mile for passengers. A smile and a thank you go a long, long way.

The general friendliness seems to rub off on the tourists, because everyone we met travelling around like us were just the nicest people you could wish to meet. And that was important when sharing kitchens and bathrooms with complete strangers in a backpacker hostel. We found the backpacker hostels we stayed in were great value for money and the network of hostels that we used most of all was BBH (Budget Backpacker Hostels). They use a system of member evaluations that can really be relied upon, so it made finding somewhere to stay really simple. We became members on our first night out of Christchurch in Methven and never regretted it. You'll see references to some of our favorite BBH backpacker's throughout this travelogue.

It is hard to put into words what makes a great backpacker hostel, but New Zealand certainly has quite a few people who have managed it. It is such a delicate combination of constraint and liberty. You have to feel free to kick back and relax, but constrained to protect the order and cleanliness of the place that is so essential to comfortable living. It has to be a home away from home, but must instill the desire to cooperate in the general enterprise. Some hostel owners fight the fight with notices everywhere in capital letters. Others use a force of paid watchers, who look just like regular guests but who are really there to gently urge transgressors back into line. But the really successful ones do it more subtly, by keeping the place really clean and sort of shaming you into keeping it that way. Our absolute favorite place was Global Village in Greymouth. First, the house itself is very comfortable and attractively decorated; the kitchen is the best organized kitchen for multiple cooks we have yet come across; the owners provide lots of added value to the basic bed and a place to cook recipe with free bikes, kayaks, books, music, DVD's, and a level of cleanliness that was awesome. They truly deserve their top rating from BBH members. It's just a shame that it's in cool rainy Greymouth, rather than Queenstown or Wanaka.

Our biggest beef with New Zealand, however, had to do with language. How on earth did the Kiwis manage to mix up every vowel in the English language? As native speakers, even we often had trouble. Did she say "six" or "sex", "ten" or "tin"? We never got used to it and it always was there as a low-key irritant. But hey! without this the NZ experience would be perfect and we know that perfect doesn't exist.

Life in NZ reminded Jan of her childhood in England. That was when central heating was unheard of, when baths were taken in tubs in front of the living room fire, and laundry was done in a poss-tub in the backyard with a huge wooden implement that you used to beat out the dirt. OK, so life in Kiwiland is not quite that bad. But honestly, some of the houses in NZ are still without proper central heating, do not have insulated walls, or double-glazing. That would be no problem, of course, if it didn't get cold out, but believe you me the South Island of NZ especially can be mighty chilly even in its summer months! I'm not sure why the Kiwis have been so slow to adopt modern building techniques — maybe it has something to do with the tough guy image — but there's no way I'd buy an old house over there. The house in Sumner was a cute place. It reminded me of the house I was born and brought up in — both as leaky as a seive. Without central heating, you are reduced to heating room by room meaning that the room you're in is warm, but the one you want to be in is probably cold. I hadn't gone to bed in a cold bedroom since my college days. What a shock that was to the system!

Perhaps the other small thing (big thing?) wrong with New Zealand is its position on the Globe. It's about as far away from Euope as you can be. Psychologically, that's a big drawback when, like us, you have lots of family and friends in both Europe and the US. At some point you have to expect that your body won't be able to take 13-hour flights and so jetting back and forth will get harder and harder. And honestly, how many people will fly half way around the world to visit you? So, for all these reasons, we probably won't be settling down in New Zealand. But gee, it really was tempting.