We flew to Christchurch in the late afternoon, across the ramparts of the Southern Alps, half in sun, half in shadow, with the 12,349 ft. mass of Mount Cook to the North. New Zealand is compact enough to be comprehended physically from the air, and the flights from Christchurch to Nelson, to Wellington and on to Auckland were worth all the geography books ever written.
"Windy" Wellington lies in the only break in the mountain chains of North and South Islands, and winds are funnelled through Cook Strait with accelerated velocity. Between November and April there are, on average, seventeen days when winds of 60 m.p.h. or more, are experienced, and there are 40 m.p.h. winds thrice weekly. There is a sort of parallel, pointed out to me by an Australian, between the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide - and Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Sydney and Auckland are the big cities, both built around much water; Melbourne and Wellington have a reputation for bad weather, while Adelaide and Christchurch are the more leisurely and formally scenic cities.
Auckland is "Hobson's choice", built on a site chosen by Captain William Hobson, who intended that it should be the Capital. It is the only city I observed to have female taxi-drivers, who, incidentally, must cease work at dusk, though it was not made clear whether this was for their own protection or their customers.
My hotel followed the old custom of seating guests in the dining-room at specific tables, rather than leaving them free to wander round and pick the table with the prettiest waitress. At breakfast I sat opposite a man in the milk business, with a problem caused by Holstein cows in Christchurch giving milk, ample in quantity, but deficient in certain prescribed milk-solids, I said: "You will have to take the bull by the horns and demand better milk." Perhaps it was too early in the day, because he answered: "It's not quite as simple as that. We don't want to force anyone out of business."
New Zealand is called "A world in miniature." For anyone not contaminated by the bustle and artificiality of big cities, it offers a leisurely, almost idyllic existence, and the tourists are catered for with clean, comfortable hotels and everything they should require in the way of variety of activity and scene. The weather ranges from sub-tropical in Auckland province, to the extreme of the foulest weather imaginable, on the West Coast of South Island if visited at the wrong time.
One man's brief stay there included, he said, five inches of snow, twelve inches of hail, thirteen inches of rain, and plagues of mosquitoes, sand-flies and blow-flies.
Many on holiday were Australians, who make repeated trips across the Tasman Sea to check that New Zealand is still inferior to their own country. In this remote part of the globe, Australia is a powerful neighbour, and New Zealand may have some private apprehensions about her ability of survive separately. A Christchurch man described Australians as "like rough, uncultured New Zealanders, if you can imagine such a thing," but a stranger to both countries would find great difficulty in sorting out the one from the other. Even the accents are very similar.
A visit to Rotorua took me through country which seemed effortlessly and unfailingly beautiful; even the cloud formations were spectacular. Rotorua itself was something of an anticlimax, and once it had been explained to me that the hot springs and the steam chugging from the ground resulted from water on a natural bed of hot ash, it all seemed inevitable. My bedroom, like the rest of Rotorua, smelt of sulphur. I slept badly, dreaming that I was in Hell and unable to get an exit-visa.