Australia and New Zealand

Australians love their sports teams, the coast, the outback and lounging about with friends and families on the beach. For those coast lovers there are the Whitsunday Islands, the Ningaloo reef and the Great Barrier Reef. Sport lovers meet nature lovers here with divers, kayakers, surfboarders and sailors taking their time out enjoying the sea where you can find turtles, dolphins and whale sharks. The Australians know a lot about their sports even if they have never played them and discussions about Australian cricket and rugby teams are always heated. Almost as heated as the outback where some citizens choose to escape for long months in the vast space where you can travel continuously without coming across any modern trappings of life. How relaxing, and still how much more when the landscape captures the bright and beautiful colours of yellow, red and tangerine against a fierce blue sky like at Uluru, famed for its desert sunsets. Many Australians feel a great loyalty to this land despite their different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They see it as a country shaped by the world they live in as environmental concerns affect the country perhaps in a way it has not affected others yet in the form of water restrictions in a desert land where there is a growing lack of water.

New Zealand offers the same impressive landscapes as Australia but is perhaps a little less flat and a little more thundering. Such thunder influenced Peter Jackson's film making for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which is still very much revered in Wellington. Of course the tourists came in their droves to see the real country behind the film, that is the New Zealand landscapes, and are being welcomed by the Department of Conversation who have come up with nine walks to best display New Zealand's charm, like the Milford Track, Routeburn Track and Abel Tasman Coast Track. 2.2 million of them visited in 2007 up from 1.6 million in 1999 and overcrowding has become a problem along with environmental damage at sites like the Franz Joseph Glacier. A result is the new ‘eco' and sustainable produce trend. It can't be stressed enough just how good New Zealand wine and beer is and like in Australia dining can be world class. The rugby teams can also compete against each other, but the Blacks are a really cherished part of New Zealand culture and national identity. They are the most successful rugby team with a winning rate of 74%. Other parts of modern life that affect every day New Zealanders include rising house prices, fixed-net fishing and petrol prices just to name a few.