Down the West Coast (The Second Best Coast in the Southern Hemisphere)

Wow, so I haven't even really gotten into my trip on here, have I?
Let's remedy that.
So that first day, after leaving Picton, we drove to the Abel Tasman National Park. This is New Zealand's smallest national park (for a small country, it sure has a lot of them!), but it is very popular-- it has a 3-day walking trail to go right through it, as well as lots of other walking and kayaking opportunities. We had lots of options for the next day, which was a non-driving day to spend exploring the Park, and 19 of us from the bus got together to take a trip on a catamaran around it. Of course, whereas the day before had been gorgeous, sunny, and hot, the next day was quite cold and cloudy. Nevertheless we went out on the boat and had a good, if chilly, time looking at the beautiful scenery of the Abel Tasman. Unfortunately my greatest desire-- to see a penguin in the wild-- was not realized, but we did see some seals. Here's Split Apple rock, which one of the people on the boat swam out to just to get a picture standing in the middle-- you couldn't have paid me to get in that water!
The next day we left bright and early to start our drive down the West Coast. We were now entering one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world. Sparsely populated by people, that is. Having spent most of my time in New Zealand in Wellington, I hadn't quite believed up till now that there are somewhere in the area of 40 million sheep in this country. I started to believe it on that drive. We passed pasture after pasture after pasture filled with sheep-- and we all enjoyed when our driver honked at them so we could classify the sheep as "sprinters" or "long distance runners."
But it was hard to become bored with sitting on a bus when a 45-minute walking stop yielded this kind of view (those are the Southern Alps coming into view in the background):
It was also on this drive that we began to experience two phenomena: The "Engineering Marvels" and the Second Bests.
First, the Engineering Marvels. As most of the roads are in New Zealand, we were driving predominately on single carriageways, winding through mountains and over rivers. The Engineering Marvels were usually bridges... one memorable one was a one-way bridge with a railway crossing right in front of it. In order to see if someone was coming the other way and it was safe to cross the bridge, you had to drive ONTO the railway crossing. Only in an area with as little traffic as this could such a bridge exist (traffic was so scarce that, like in the Northern Territory in Australia, almost every passing driver exchanged a wave and smile with our driver).

The example I most clearly remember of the Second Bests was also, in fact, a one way bridge. We were just winding around a corner when Mambo (our driver) turned on the microphone. "You guys don't want to miss this! We're just coming up to the second longest one-way bridge... in the Southern Hemisphere!" Soon after driving over that wondrous monument I realized that this was not a one-off thing... we soon started to pass lots of things that were the "second best," "second tallest," or "second biggest," of whatever it was... but only in the Southern Hemisphere. Mambo would frequently start describing something as the "second most," and after an optimistic pause someone would prompt him to add resignedly "in the Southern Hemisphere." Apparently this running joke had started on the trip in the North Island... on a slow day with a lack of landmarks Mambo had tried to get people psyched up about the Second Best Peat Bog in the Southern Hemisphere, but a passenger had called his bluff. Sure, maybe some of the accolades he gave to landmarks were real-- these things are surprisingly difficult to google, I know because I just tried-- but some of them were surely made up by bored tour guides driving the same road for the umpteenth time.
But, upon reflection, I've found the Second Best phenomenon to be as good as any to explain Tall Poppy Syndrome, which I briefly mentioned in a previous post and was asked for clarification on. The OED defines Tall Poppy Syndrome as "orig. and chiefly Austral. a perceived tendency to disparage prominent or successful people."* Basically, Kiwis don't talk themselves up. They don't brag, they don't laud their own accomplishments, and if they do become successful they can bet that there will be plenty of people around them to tear them down. As it was just explained to me, if you're the tallest poppy that's great, because you're obviously good at what you do-- but it's also very easy for someone to come around with shears and lop your head off.
While I usually say things like this through observation, Tall Poppy Syndrome is something I've been told about more than I've actually observed-- I guess it takes a keener reporter than I am to observe the lack of bragging. But this Second Best thing made me realize that it really is true. I mean, if these facts were being made up, why weren't they the longest bridges and the best peat bogs? Or maybe the second best in the world instead of just the Southern Hemisphere. New Zealanders won't say that their country is the best at anything, the most beautiful.** Sure, they're proud of it, but they draw the line at bragging. Wellingtonians love their city, and they'll tear apart Auckland (their main rival) any day of the week. But they're only praising themselves through criticizing others... rarely will you hear someone talk about how much they love Wellington, how beautiful the harbour is and how great the cafes are-- you'll just hear about City X's severe deficiency in cafes.
So I guess it was just too much to ask to cross the longest one-way bridge in the Southern Hemisphere. After all, what if someone tried to one-up it? Much safer to be in second place.

At the end of our trip, by the way, we all chipped in to get Mambo the Second Best t-shirt in the Southern Hemsiphere proclaiming him the Second Best Stray Driver in the Southern Hemisphere. Wouldn't want the other drivers to lop off his head, after all.

*The Australian bit of this definition drew anger from Tams and the response that New Zealanders are even better at being un-self-confident than Australians.
** Except perhaps rugby. And they will readily admit that they're better than the Australians at everything.