editorial
FOR THE SECOND year running, the Larsons’ impromptu, crowd-avoiding Christmas holiday road trip was a resounding success. On Boxing Day in 2018, when an anticyclone stalled over the middle of the North Island, I found accommodation online in New Plymouth, and Ron and I took off the following day for blissfully uncongested Taranaki. This past December, we left Auckland on the 25th for Ohakune, our halfway stop for a late-booked jaunt to Wellington. (We’d had our family celebration earlier, as my sister was meeting her daughter and daughter’s Aussie boyfriend for a Canberra Christmas and NSW South Coast holiday. I thought buying a P2 Breathe Easy face mask for the trip was a bit extreme until she sent me an alarming video clip from the Kings Highway, with the orange glow…