Queen Charlotte's 'Blasted' View!

It is rumoured that the Maoris have 35 names in their language for various shades of green, the Eskimos have 27 words for snow, the Germans have 30 words for sausauge, the french have 20 words for surrender and the Americans have one word for anything that is better than average - awesome. Well I think it's high time the English, nay the British, get involved. I think we should invent several names for rain. We've already got rain, drizzle, spitting and that rain that gets you really wet when it's not really raining at all. We should be able to come up with names for them all. For example, there's that rain that comes at you sideways and the rain that literally comes down in droplets the size of a bucket and then of course is the rain that comes down when the sun is shining.

I'm rambling I know, but there is a point I assure you. I hark back to the Maoris and their shades of green. Of course I've made this up completely, but I bet you believed it at least for a second and it wouldn't be hard to see why when you look at how lush and green their country is. It is apparent from talking to anyone from New Zealand that they have a deep love of their country and a pride that is ingrained from birth.

Well bully for them! Our countryside may pale in comparison to theirs on many levels, mainly the sheer enromity and scale of their landscape. Whilst the most beautiful parts of ours nestles quietly but unashamedly in little pockets scattered to the seven corners. Their's flaunts itself at every opportunity, like a street whore with passing cars. Get me and my waxing lyrical.

But at least we can find our way around ours! Yes that's right, they're not as bloody perfect as they would have us believe, whilst globe trotting and singing the praises of their homeland. The truth is they're only globetrotting because they got lost on a tramp, or hike as we like to call it.

Having just returned from what should have been a ninety minute walk which in the end took nearly four hours I feel it's time to complain about the country that has so kindly allowed us to visit. Get some decent bloody maps! Of course they have maps, and of course they have decent ones, but not the kind we're looking for. Let me explain. In the UK we are lucky to have Ordnance Survey from which one could find the preverbial needle in a haystack, if given the correct coordinates. Well NZ has something similar as you would expect, but to buy one for every inch of the country would cost a small fortune and I'm not about to let Jane start spending my inheritence willy nilly. What they don't have that we do in England is a good book of walks, which merges topographical information and images at key stages of the walk with details of flora and fauna and any other tit bits of note.

The map we used in the afore mentioned walk had none of this. What it did have was a time scale to our chosen destination - Queen Charlotte View - from a car park in Picton, on the Marlborough Sounds. What wasn't plain was to which car park the map referred, the level of ascent or what Queen Charlotte View had to offer. As you may have guessed, we navigated from the wrong car park, up a slope that would have killed a teenage mountain goat, only to find that whatever view there had been in the past was completely obliterated by trees and bushes. Damn them pesky map makers. In fairness, the views on the way were absolutely stunning, but were marred drastically by the iron lung I had to carry to get me up there. Hey ho.

So what I think I'm trying to say is that Ordnance Survey rocks. No that's not it. New Zealand sucks! No that's not it either. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? No.

What I think I'm trying to say is that we take far too much for granted in old blighty and are only too eager to hear how wonderful other places are from visiting parties. It seems to be in our nature to whinge about the weather, the government, work, our rubbish football teams and the price of gallon of petrol. We need to shout about the things that are uniquely british; modesty (I hope the irony isn't lost), the BBC, Sunday lunches, a good cup of tea, our sense of humour, history and of course bloody good maps, to name but a few.

I guess what I'm tryingto say is, no matter how glossy and exotic far flung places may seem. To me there is no place like home.