Travel As The Best Form of Education

Read all about the adventures of Mike Cooney and partner starting here: http://www.worldpropertychannel.com/featured-columnists/real-estate-news-my-g...

Of all the places we had visited, Australia was the hardest one to leave. Two months is a respectable amount of time to visit Oz, but like the U.S., still only provides a glimpse of what there is to see and do. Given the time it takes to get there and the distance from almost anywhere, two weeks is the minimum for a visit. It will take approximately two days travel time in both directions plus getting used to the 18-hour time change (East Coast of U.S. to East Coast of Australia). Depending on your personal fortitude and stamina the time change could take several more days to become acclimated.

Originally, we had planned on three weeks in New Zealand - two weeks to tour the South Island and one week to tour the North Island. After looking at maps, distances and the challenges of getting between the two islands we reduced it to 14-days and only toured the South Island. Everyone we spoke to said that it was the more beautiful of the two, and it did not disappoint.

Difficult Driving Conditions Christchurch is the largest city on the South Island and is where we landed after leaving Australia. Both countries take significant measures to ensure no foreign plants and animals are brought into the country.

However, New Zealand immigrations and customs asked the most questions about where we had been, if we had been hiking and where, and if we had tents and/or sleeping bags. Since the answer to all of the questions was yes, the officials took great pains to inspect all of our gear.

In addition to taking our hiking boots and spraying them with disinfectant, they literally vacuumed out the three tents and sleeping bags. That thoroughness took more than an hour. When everything was returned they apologized profusely for the wait, but said it was necessary to ensure non-indigenous species were not brought into the country. Even though they had a very challenging job, they were the nicest, most courteous customs officials we had met.

Once outside the terminal, we met a van from the RV company where we had a reservation, and were taken to the depot near the airport. Because it was winter, we had to go through a number of safety issues and were asked if we wanted snow chains. Since we had no intention of venturing into locations with snow on the roads we declined.