Some notes on New Zealand

Yesterday we arrived back from our sabbatical in New Zealand after 5 weeks. I will write a dedicated post about our travels separately, in the meantime, here are a couple observations and appreciation.

Cashless

New Zealand is a truly cashless country. In our 5 weeks we have not taken out cash a single time and paid by card everything everywhere - from coffees, meals and groceries to donations at conservation areas and even food at remote huts. It was freeing; first week or two we were worried about not having any cash at our disposal but by the end of our travels we grew used to it. Our wallets stayed in our bags for better part of our travels as phones were all we needed.

First stop when we got back home to Berlin was to grab a coffee in the morning at Zazza. Their card reader wasn’t working. As a regulars, we were told to pay next time but it made me appreciate the cashless situation in New Zealand. A card reader not working is not the same thing as a place not accepting card payments (the former still being quite common in Europe) but it was a harsh return to reality.

Department of Conservation

Department of Conservation (DOC) is a public service department taking care of conservation of New Zealand’s natural and historical heritage. Their website is one of the best government services/websites I have seen, right there with gov.uk design system. The website provides comprehensive list and map of places to go, things to do, accommodation (huts and lodges) and much more.

We relied heavily on DOC when planning our days for walks, hikes, and places to visit.¹ The website is clean and simple, with all content being straight on point with zero SEO-fluff. A great example of how this looks like is the page for Kepler Track (one of the Great Walks - set of the popular tramping tracks maintained by DOC). At a glimpse the page provides all the information one might need - map, elevation profile, seasonal restrictions, packing list, and more. What is more, there are up to date restrictions (such as closures due to bad weather), direct links to book huts, and for popular tracks even official videos.

I can’t express enough how awesome this is. All the information for hikes and nature one might need, in one place, official. I wish we had something similar in the Czech Republic to make the nature and hikes more accessible to travelers.

Recycling

The general rubbish bins in New Zealand are marked as landfill. It’s a subtle difference but one that I noticed every time we were throwing out trash. I think the difference in wording is a clever way to draw attention to the fact that the trash is here to stay, for years, and nudge more people into recycling. If all trash bins specified where the trash goes (e.g. landfill, recycling plant, or composting plant) maybe we would see more people being thoughtful about recycling.

Plastic recycling in New Zealand is a whole another story unfortunately. The plastic packaging is classified in 5 categories (numbered 1-5) with different categories having different rules. Class 1 and 2 goes into recycling bins. Sometimes we saw recycling bins that specified the classes of plastic that can go in them directly. Class 4 are soft plastics (e.g. empty bag of crisps) and these must be returned back at stores. Unfortunately, not all stores have bins for soft plastics and not all soft plastics can be recycled this way. The whole plastic recycling situation was confusing at best and I hope that next time we go to New Zealand there government will figure out a better approach.