What outdoorsy type trip is in your dreams? I dream of going through Tuscany by horseback. Or
do the anthropological trip down East Africa through Southern Africa. Or getting a formal cabin in the jungles of Mexico right by some ruins. I also dream of canoeing the Nahanni River in northern canada. This last one I'm not capable on doing anymore - but I can still dream.
http://www.nahanni.com/tripsearch/?river=Nahanni+River
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In the summer, of course.
and take however much time I need to tour all of it, and in whatever capacity my body can withstand (not in the best of physical shape these days...) I've always liked hiking, but might have to make do with driving the country
Here are a couple of shots I took in 2009 when I was there:
as I wasn't confident enough to learn the rules. Sitting in the passenger seat with no steering wheel or controls was weird, but I got used to it quickly
Plus, I had my camera in hand and was practically hanging outside of the car half the time taking pics, so I hardly noticed the switched sides.
Quite a bit beyond my biking capabilities, though. I'd love to be able to do something like that. How long did you take for the whole trip?
I did recognize when you were in Christchurch from the cathedral images. The earthquakes destroyed a lot of that 
When I met my girlfriend there, we spent a few days on Waiheke Island, and I wouldn't mind taking a bike tour just of it. Probably wouldn't take more than a day or so, but could take longer what with all the stops at the wineries and microbreweries 
I spent nearly six months riding around NZ. I was hoping to find a way to stay there legally. There were places I hung around hoping to find work, but being a foreigner killed all opportunities. Christchurch was the place I wanted to live. I suppose you could say my bad luck in settling there saved my life ... but I won't 'cause it's a silly way of thinking.
The north of the North Island was mostly killer hills. I passed Superman beside the road with his bike, sobbing.
All in all I spent a year in the saddle - 6 mos in New Zealand. 3 mos in Australia. 3 mos in Europe.
at a time, and short of being really good at saving up to cover all the absent expenses (rent, utilities, etc) I don't really understand how they do it, financially. I think about the only way I could feasibly do even just a couple of months would be to win the lottery
You could probably immigrate there easier these days. Their immigration policy is about the same as most places, in that they want you to have work set up before you move in, but searching for it now is pretty easy. My kind of work (drafting) is easy to find, but my own life isn't set up for easy moving, especially to another continent!
I understand about the hills in the North. Waiheke island is grueling just walking it! Yet, I still saw people biking it, just not very many. They had pretty good bus service, so we usually took that (other than the time the bus driver dropped us off several km from our destination because he wasn't going that direction, and it was early evening; there are no street lights in the neighborhoods 
)
I have read (probably in the NZ Herald) that people are still moving out of Christchurch because of earthquake activity. The liquefaction they experienced was pretty severe, but I suppose you could always live on the outskirts of town. One thing about their cities is that you get into the country fast (as I'm sure you discovered.) There isn't much in the way of sprawl, other than around the bigger cities. There seemed to be a fair amount of sprawl around Auckland, but it's still so much less than what I'm used to (Houston.)
This was leaving Auckland to the south, I think. So, you can see a bit of sprawl here:
Though I recently heard on the BBC, New Zealand has had a big out flux of emigration - mainly from the Christchurch area. Mostly across the ditch to Aussie.
Riding south out of Auckland, I took smaller roads, but it was still congested. Once away from urban sprawl, it was lovely.
Taking off for long open-ended travel is no longer wise. Very little chance of finding work if settling down doesn't work out and having to return. Plus, the relatives that stored my few boxes of belongings have died. At least I tried. 
Moab's out thataways somewheres on the other side of those mountains...
It's the world's largest swimming pool, and is located in San Alfonso del Mar, Chile. More photos and info here: http://spluch.blogspot.com/2007/10/worlds-largest-swimming-pool.html
I would also like to visit and hike around the Patagonia while I'm there.
