News & Views
British tourists rave about New Zealand
So many sights, so little time. Peter and Mary and Peter and Ruth are part of the British tourist resurgence, just back from a two-week campervan holiday around the South Island.
Taking a breather in Christchurch, the friends are ready for more. They are on the Picton train this morning, heading for Wellington and a rental car to get them to Auckland.
Peter Miles was here in 1997, when he crewed on a yacht in the BT Global Challenge and stopped over in Wellington. He and Mary have a daughter in Auckland, where they will spend Christmas on Waiheke Island beach. Peter Dawson and his wife Ruth will be back in UK by Christmas.
Miles, a semi-retired architect, and Dawson, a zoologist and retired teacher, will have nothing but good things to say when they get home. They saw four whales off Kaikoura and what seemed like thousands of dolphins. They struck good weather at Milford Sound. They were also impressed by reasonable prices and good service wherever they went.
Dawson’s son and girlfriend had taken a break from their IT jobs and spent three months in New Zealand. “They were enthralled with what they saw as we’ve been,” he said. Other members of their families have been here, too. “You have got a massive country,” said Miles, “You could lose millions of people in it.”
(Christchurch Press - December 4 2004
