Travelling between Australia and New Zealand? You start noticing the differences immediately. Like, the second you land, all the airport signs are in Māori and English. Even on our first train in Auckland, the announcements were in Māori first, then English. Street names too — you can really see the mix of cultures everywhere.
In NZ you often hear about Māori and Pākehā (basically people of white European background). But it does make you wonder how deep that respect for diversity actually goes. Like, do Māori people genuinely feel their culture and traditions are valued in everyday life? And what does all this mean for tourists like us?
It kinda feels weird to just show up in someone else’s country, enjoy the scenery, and make zero effort to understand the people, their history, or their culture. Feels like the bare minimum is at least trying to learn something.
Anyway, with that on our minds, it was time to leave Auckland. We picked up a rental car at the airport and started heading south, driving toward the Firth of Thames and the town with the same name. On the way we stopped at a shorebird centre near Miranda, then crossed into the Coromandel Peninsula and followed this amazing coastal road basically all the way around until we got to Whitianga and the B&B we’d booked.
Not gonna lie, the views were absolutely unreal. Especially driving right along the coast and then up through the mountains — proper main character travel moments.
But here’s the thing — I don’t even know what most of the place names we passed actually mean, and I still haven’t learned my first Māori word. Somehow that feels like it matters more here. It’s something I didn’t really think about as much when I was travelling in Australia, but here it just feels different