If Australia, as a nation, is negotiating late adolescence, cocksure but fragile, striving to establish its identity, then New Zealand is a child: clear-eyed, blemish-free, with a steady, candid gaze.
My introduction to this gigantic adult playground came by way of a promotional video, shown by Air New Zealand on the flight from London to Auckland and starring the country’s Prime Minister, gutsy, trouser-clad Helen Clark. The no-nonsense name suits Ms Clark, who has the aura of a strict but fair headmistress. In an impressively gung-ho fashion, she tackles a series of stomach-churning activities available to visitors – a 100-metre abseil into the Lost World caves at Waitomo on the North Island, a ride on the Hamilton jetboat, complete with 360-degree spins, and an exhausting-looking glacier hike – that leave her male companion looking weak and almost tearful.
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