Must you go to Australia or New Zealand?
If you happen to’re planning an excellent Antipodean journey, Australia and New Zealand tempt in equal measure.
But since that year-long sabbatical that may will let you journey slowly throughout each international locations could also be a very long time coming, you’ll seemingly need to make the powerful resolution to go to one over the opposite.
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How do you deal with such a selection? Let two of our journey consultants assist.
Why Australia is awe-inspiring
Australian journey author and Lonely Planet contributor Sarah Reid has collected greater than 130 passport stamps. However she has but to go to one other nation that ticks as many containers as her homeland.
So our mountains won’t be as dramatic, our airline security not as humorous, and our rugby groups aren’t as well-known internationally because the All Blacks. However whereas I’ve a deep affection for our neighbor throughout the Tasman Sea, there’s actually no beating what Australia has to supply guests.
Cultural cachet
Let’s begin with the world’s oldest dwelling cultures. Each nook of the nation kinds a part of the normal lands of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander group with its personal language, customs, traditions and tales. And there have by no means been extra alternatives to expertise this wealthy cultural legacy, from being dazzled by Wintjiri Wiru, a state-of-the-art cultural storytelling expertise at Uluru, to climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge with an Indigenous storyteller information.
Talking of Sydney: what a showstopper! I lived within the New South Wales capital for practically a decade, and I nonetheless get misty-eyed on the sight of the Sydney Opera Home protruding into the glowing Sydney Harbor.
With regard to new meals frontiers, do you know the flat white was invented in Sydney? (We understand that may be onerous for Kiwis – who suppose it was invented in Wellington – to just accept.) And whereas New Zealand might need made the primary pavlova (one other contentious meals merchandise that each international locations declare to have invented), its culinary scene doesn’t maintain a candle to Australia’s, notably in Sydney and Melbourne, which each lie inside straightforward hanging distance of high wine areas. And let’s not neglect our different cool capital cities: Canberra and Hobart, to call two, can get a lot colder than Auckland or Wellington, however hardly ever as windy.
A world of wildlife
The magical island of Tasmania is residence to 5 of Australia’s 12 Nice Walks. And whereas we received’t deny the Lord of the Rings landscapes skilled on New Zealand’s 11 Nice Walks are fairly particular, they’re usually missing one factor Australia has no scarcity of: wildlife. (Sheep don’t rely.) It by no means will get previous recognizing a koala dozing in a gum tree, an echidna waddling throughout your path or a kangaroo bounding by the bush. And the way wonderful are Australia’s birds? There are few sounds as joyous as a household of kookaburras erupting into laughter.
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I’ll say that New Zealand’s small measurement makes for simpler and fewer carbon-intensive journeys inside the nation. But throughout its nice girth, Australia is blessed with astounding and unmatched variety, greatest skilled on a street journey to locations like Cairns and Far North Queensland, the place the world’s oldest dwelling tropical rainforest meets the world’s largest coral reef (the Nice Barrier Reef remains to be unimaginable, by the way in which). Or the wild and rugged Prime Finish of the Northern Territory, the place red-dirt trails result in Aboriginal rock artwork and serene swimming holes.
You could possibly spend a lifetime exploring the highlights of mainland Australia. However our territory additionally encompasses greater than 8000 islands. From the colonial heritage of Norfolk Island to the otherworldly pure fantastic thing about Lord Howe Island, many of those spots are bucket-list locations unto themselves.
It helps, in fact, that Australia has a really perfect local weather for exploring outside. What good is a beautiful seaside that’s often too chilly for a dip? At any given time of the 12 months, it’s the right time to be someplace Down Beneath. Simply ask the 15 % of New Zealand’s inhabitants who name Australia residence.
Expertise the zing of New Zealand
As a Lonely Planet author and editor, Tasmin Waby has explored virtually each nook of New Zealand – from Cape Reinga within the north to Stewart Island/Rakiura off the tip of the South Island (and he or she loves each little bit of it).
Whereas a few of the world’s wealthiest doomsday preppers could have chosen New Zealand because the place to maneuver within the face of a world apocalypse, New Zealanders are busy making the world a greater place so these billionaire bunkers received’t be wanted in any case.
New Zealand is the house of my prolonged household – my wh?nau – and I actually can’t perceive why I do not reside there myself. I’ve vivid childhood recollections of the South Island: consuming my first ripe peach straight from an Otago orchard, smelling lanolin on my fingers after petting a lamb, following a cousin into the frigid ocean at St Clair’s seaside in Dunedin in winter.
Small however mighty
Among the best issues about going to New Zealand is which you can simply tour its highlights in per week or two. (Truthfully, if you happen to’re going to go all that means, take your time and do it correctly.) You may’t say the identical for Australia – which is mostly a continent of countries. Regardless of what your maps may recommend, you could slender a go to to 1 area (and cope with your FOMO later).
Whereas New Zealand is small, it doesn’t really feel it while you’ve pitched your tent in a campground by an almost-empty seaside that fades right into a distant mist of sea spray. Nor while you’re mountaineering otherworldly volcanic landscapes at Tongariro Nationwide Park, or rainforested valleys with solely the decision of the native wildlife for firm.
And what of New Zealand’s native animals? Effectively, for a begin, they’re not attempting to kill you!
When crusing the azure waters of the Bay of Islands within the tropical “winterless north,” New Zealand may be very a lot a Pacific paradise the place bottlenose dolphins frolic. Down south, chiseled mountains plunge into an ocean of marine life, and moody Fiordland may double for Scandinavia.
New Zealand is the nation for lovers of nature, who additionally worth a correct espresso (whether or not Australia or NZ invented the “flat white” stays a degree of competition) or a high quality drop of wine – ideally sampled at a vineyard restaurant with ocean views.
If you wish to preserve energetic, on the North Island you may cycle from one coast to the opposite in simply in the future. Down south, take a look at your individual limits snowboarding, bungee-jumping, mountain-biking, jet boating and tackling a through ferrata in Queenstown and W?naka.
Subtle cities (plus penguins)
New Zealand’s greatest metropolis, Auckland is a thriving metropolis with harborside eating places, open-air festivals and muggy summer season nights, akin to Sydney however with out the parking challenges. Pocket-sized Dunedin and Wellington tick all of the “metropolis” containers with vacation spot motels, cocktail bars and positive eating. But, quarter-hour from the middle, you may spot penguins – or migrating whales.
However do not simply journey to New Zealand to solely immerse your self in its unimaginable landscapes. You’re right here to expertise the world anew.
Australia could also be making sturdy strides towards reconciliation with First Nations, however in New Zealand, the M?ori language and the normal values of guardianship of the land, sea and sky are very a lot part of their worldview. Right here, the cultural and religious significance of a river is already enshrined in legislation. All of us have a lot to be taught from this diminutive island nation.
You’ll additionally discover that New Zealanders are progressive, pleasant and good-natured. Although not all of them have been extras in Lord of the Rings, be happy to ask anyway: Kiwis have a really wry humorousness. Recover from and uncover it for your self.
