Deseret News | Postcards from New Zealand

Postcards from New Zealand

By Ray Boren
Deseret News

Published: Sunday, May 4, 2008 12:32 a.m. MDT

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If you send enough of them back home, postcards can serve as both a written and pictorial journal of a spectacular journey — a nice supplement, if you're a shutterbug, to one's own postcard-like pictures.

And if the vacation is to a spectacular place like New Zealand, blessed as it is with amazing scenery of virtually every type, from sandy ocean shores and vast inland lakes to volcanoes and glacier-clad alps — as well as a variety of eye-catching international stamps — well, all the better.

I spent three glorious weeks in the land of the Kiwis, escaping Utah's persistent winter for a gentle summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

At first I was on my own, driving a rental car ... on the left side of the road instead of the right, and with the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. (And in an economy vehicle with, to my surprise, a left-hand stick shift — something to remember the next time you or I reserve a car in a country that favors the "wrong" side of the road.) I adapted quickly, though, and had a wonderful off-the-cuff solo road trip from the top to the bottom of New Zealand's North Island.

In Wellington, the nation's capital, I joined my brother Phil and sister-in-law Reesa, who have been there for almost a year and a half, for another great road trip, with occasional boat excursions, including inter-island ferry crossings of Cook Strait. Following an excellent plan and route they had devised, we made a sweeping counterclockwise loop around the less-populated South Island before returning to the North Island for more sight-seeing together and a return to Auckland, the country's biggest city, and my (reluctant) return flight home.

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Throughout the trip, I made postcard-writing a daily priority. I like sharing my travels with friends and family, collect postcards anyway, and do indeed consider them a sort of short-form journal — to the point that I actually send them to myself, for the memories and sights they capture and because they give me interesting stamps and postmarks should I ever get around to making a scrapbook. (Why should everyone else get those "extras" and not me?)

And, OK, I'll admit it: Although some friends consider me a bit off my rocker, I actually duplicate the handwritten cards I send to others, on second copies of the postcards, as part of the record of my travels. And I often buy a third copy so that, in a scrapbook, I can show the front and the missive side on the same page.

Yes, it's a little extreme. But it works. How else could I share excerpts like these:

Dear Elaine + family,

You know, I couldn't find a postcard anywhere yesterday (let alone Whangarei's alleged post office), but I discovered them left and right today, in Paihia and Russell on the Bay of Islands. I've done well, driven hundreds of miles, er, kilometers, and on the bay today saw — dolphins!