There is something freshly-rinsed about this nation of unexplored rainforests and snow-capped peaks. The beaches are cleaner, the air is sharper, the food is fresher, the wine is wonderful, and the possums outnumber the human beings by around twenty-to-one.
New Zealand comes in two halves. The North Island is semi-tropical, with stunning beaches and vistas. It's also home to Auckland, the City of Sails, with its exotic mix of Maori, Asian and European cultures set on a yacht-filled bay.
The South Island is more wild, the land of sheep and mountains, of whale-watching and dangling in chasms on the end of bungee ropes, something of a national pastime in the region. The spiritual home of bungee jumping is Queenstown, where hard-as-nails kiwis treat the Remarkables, those gigantic peaks stretching well into the sky, like a giant bouncy castle.
But there's gracious living here too, particularly around Marlborough at the island's top end, where the vineyards are heavy with fruit, the rivers leaping with fish and the air tastes like Chardonnay.
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