Kiwi Project: Premlinary

I have a trip to New Zealand coming up. I know basically nothing about the country except:

1. Parts of The Lord of the Rings movies were filmed there. Pretty, but whatever.
2. New Zealanders call themselves 'Kiwis'. This refers to the bird, not the fruit. I think if the fruit first.
3. My super-cool friend Calle lives there. This alone is enough to warrant a trip!
4. They have wineries and mountains and beaches! What more do I need?

So I've started reading random things about NZ. I won’t bore you with all the stats, but I did read the CIA’s World Factbook page on NZ. Seems like a pretty “modern” country.

• First country to allow women to vote!
• About the size of Colorado, Italy or England.
• About the same population as Colorado (NZ ~ 4.1M, CO ~ 4.3M)
• The "main" or most populated island is the North Island -- where the capital of Wellington is. This is where Calle is.
• The Maori came over from Polynesia around 800 or 900 AD.
• The British Captain James Cook arrived in NZ the first time around 1769.
• The highest mountains in NZ are all on the South Island in the Southern Alps.
• They have mountains with glaciers on them!

This completely derailed my fact-finding mission. Of course I had to know how high the highest mountain is there! Being from Colorado I am a somewhat of a mountain snob and what others sometimes call mountains look like hills to me.

The tallest mountain is Aoraki/Mount Cook at 12,319 ft. Not bad – and apparently still growing about ¼ inch per year. But the Southern Alps are also battered by something called the Roaring Forties. These are (apparently) westerly winds that tear around the open waters at about the 45°S latitude picking up momentum in the open waters – and lucky NZ is the first land mass in the way.

Aoraki means "Cloud Piercer" in Maori.

This is fantastic - I'm going someplace with colorful names like Kiwi and Cloud Piercer and Roaring Forties!

PS - It's interesting that the mountain has a Maori name and a British name. I will have to find out more about this history. I also came across a "fact" that the Kiwis are fiercely competitive with the Aussies. I wonder if this is like the Avs fans think we have a rivalry with the Red Wings. The Red Wings couldn't care less... And I wonder if this is some business-person's interpretation.