Home again, home again, jiggity jig, I had a great time but I'm a fat pig.
Excellent trip! Some of our highlights included a canopy tour ziplining through a forest that is being restored and cleared of "noxious pests" (non-native predators), a day trip to Milford sound, the amazing Wai-o-Tapu thermal display, hiking to a glacier, seeing Kauri trees, DH's bungie jump (shudder), and lots (and lots and lots) of really delicious not on the diet menu food. We met a renaissance man, a sculptor who had built his own railroad so he could transport clay and wood for his pottery. We rented a campervan for travel and lodging, and perhaps my favorite moment was coming across a small roadside farm of free range pigs and chickens. The owner was a charming if filthy man with unshod hobbit feet who came out to greet us when we stopped to take a picture, and let me cuddle a little piglet smaller than a cantaloupe which promptly fell asleep in my arms. I'd say I could have stayed home to do that, but somehow I couldn't. While New Zealand may be the most tourist oriented country in the world, there were still nooks and crannies of real and unusual people everywhere we went.
Amusing, the "worst" thing that happened to me was that Outlook wanted me to update my email app on my phone, and the moment I did, it had a heart attack over my identity and refused to let me look at my mail for nearly a month. (A gift in disguise, DH was obsessed with getting free wifi and I let the whole thing go, marvelous!!)
Honestly, being cut off from the "real world" of horrible things I can do nothing about was ... actually it was eye-opening. I was a happy person for three weeks. We had problems but they were human sized problems; I find myself extremely reluctant to take up the "public duty" of anxious, guilt-ridden attentiveness to the world's misery again.