Opinion by Jeremy Elwood

I’ve been doing a lot of travelling recently with trips to Vancouver and back and now down to Queenstown. Unlike many people, my flights have all taken off and landed on time, which is testament to the good sense of booking with a reputable airline, and the willingness of our national carrier to spend up on its fuel card in order to maintain a reliable service.

Queenstown is beautiful, as always, but there is a distinct lack of the white stuff which maintains the local winter economy. Add to that the fact that many travellers simply haven’t been able to get here and the knock on effect from Christchurch, and you have to feel for the tourism sector down here. Maybe some enterprising kiwi inventor can figure out a way to jerry rig the snowmaking machines to suck volcanic ash out of the sky and refine it into something you can ski on but until then local bars are just going to have to keep serving during the day.

The upside of Air New Zealand flying at a reduced altitude is that if you can get on a flight, you’re going to get some of the most spectacular scenery en route. It feels more like one of those DC3 scenic tours, flying the length of the country at what looks like mountain peak level, with clear views under the cloud level. If this volcano keeps disrupting our air space, there might be a market for selling off round trip sightseeing tours on Grabaseat yet.

As for Vancouver, the big news while I was there was the aftermath of the Stanley Cup Ice Hockey defeat. Far be it for me to draw any comparison between what could happen if we get knocked out of our own big sporting tournament later this year, but when a nation cares so deeply about a hard hitting contact sport which frankly most of the world can’t understand, the riots which occurred in Vancouver should sound a few warning bells for us. They were a very Canadian riot; the town burned for one night, and then in the light of the next morning, a large number of people came back in to help clean up, and write apology notes all over damaged buildings. I can imagine the kiwi version would be to trash Queen Street, and then set up a sausage sizzle to help pay for the repairs. The news quickly moved from the riots themselves to the identity of the young couple snapped making out in the midst of the riot police and burning vehicles. Turns out the bloke in that now-famous photo is an Australian up and coming standup comedian. Who says the world isn’t predictable?

I head off on another big trip next week, with six weeks planned across North America. It’ll take more than a volcanic eruption, inclement weather or civil unrest to prevent me hitting Gold status on my air miles programme. 

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