When you go to New Zealand, you will find a place where the beauty of the environment coalesces around the consciousness of a people. This is a place where nature and nurture blend together at every turn of the road, every valley of lupines, every jar of manuka honey. It happens over and over when you travel through New Zealand, and though my wife, Chantal, and I had been on the road for sixteen days, it happened again as we drove from Nelson to Picton on the north coast of the South Island.
“Oh my god, you have got to see this!” Chantal exclaimed.
“Can’t!” I barked back. “Trying not to die!”
We were driving along Queen Charlotte’s Drive, a stunning road, narrow, twisting, scaling the sides of mountains at times, dropping to the ocean at others. It traced a half dozen inlets and bays between Havelock and Picton, where we were going to take the ferry to the North Island. But one more clawing ascent or eye-bulging descent had me thinking the ferry might not be in our future.
We were closing in on Picton—at least that’s what Google Maps told us. By our second full week driving around the South Island, we had learned not to trust Google Maps completely. When we were in Te Anau and heading to Milford Sound to cruise the fjords, Google Maps confidently proclaimed the ride would be just over two hours. But both the email we received from the cruise boat we had booked as well as the giant highway sign that was posted as we drove out of town screamed “Don’t rely on Google Maps! Allow 3 hours to travel from Te Anau to Milford Sound!” They were right: Google Maps doesn’t allow for the narrow and blind curves, or the long strings of traffic backed up behind the fleets of camper vans heading in the same direction. So when Google Maps showed us just 5 kilometers from Picton, we had our doubts. You will too, when you go to New Zealand.
That’s when Chantal suggested that I look up from the road, over the edge, hundreds of feet below. I didn’t. But there was a scenic turnout just ahead—there’s always a scenic turnout just ahead on the roads in New Zealand. I parked the car and chiseled my fingers off the steering wheel, and took a breath for the first time in half an hour. That’s when I saw what she had been pointing at: logs.
There were thousands and thousands of logs—trees waiting to be processed into lumber—filling the cup of Shakespeare Bay. It was a huge embarkation point for the 26-wheel tandem trailer trucks we had begun seeing as we neared Nelson a few days earlier. We had also begun to see a sight we thought—and still think—anathema to New Zealand: clear cut forests. Entire hilltops and mountainsides stripped of trees, lain open to the elements of erosion. It was contrary to all that we had so far experienced in New Zealand, a country that gets more of its power from hydroelectric, a country that pasture raises its beef, lamb, and venison, a place where tangerines are so sweet candy makers can’t complete. We would learn more about the complicated approach to forestry later, through different perspectives.
But at that moment, the vastness of the scene was overwhelming.
As was my wish to put this section of road behind me. Incredibly, with only 1.5 kilometers remaining, we still couldn’t see Picton, a large and busy port. And then we dropped out of the mountains, a couple of hairpin turns worthy of the Tour de France depositing us right in the middle of the terminal. I couldn’t wait to get on the ferry for the 3½ hour crossing and maybe settle my nerves with some of New Zealand’s excellent beer or world class wine. And you will, too—when you go to New Zealand.
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