New Zealand Observations

So while Australia is one giant cash only society, I am told that New Zealand was the country that actually invented the EFTPOS (debit equivalent) technology and so plastic cards are accepted everywhere!  I made the mistake of taking out too much cash at the first ATM before I knew of this and now 10 days later I have made no more withdrawals and still have more than 60% of what I withdrew on day one.  (I can't believe I'm actually disappointed to have cash leftover!)

Petrol/gas here is almost $9 NZD (or approx $7 USD) a gallon, but they use the liter of course.  And I have wisely chosen to try to drive and see EVERYTHING on both islands.  About 2,500 km +.  Enough said?

In the summer time it sounds like the hole in the ozone layer might have a larger effect here in NZ than in Australia.  People have told me that I would get a sunburn in only 10 minutes outside here without protection.  I flinched hearing this and they said, "Well you would just wear sunscreen every day and be ok."  And I questioned, "What if I forgot to put it on one morning?" to which they responded "You never would."  It seems it is just a way of life here.  There are compulsory sun hats that all school children must wear.  And kids swim in long sleeve rash guards to prevent sunburn too.

So while I hear that NZ is a healthy country (retirees seem to just go on hikes all the time!!  No one sits around in a nursing home!), two of its main health concerns are skin cancer and diabetes.  See the above paragraph for skin cancer explanation and the high rates of diabetes and obesity apparently come from the genetic influence of the ancestors of the Māori people who hailed from Polynesian islands generations ago.

A word on pronunciation:  the letters "Wh" together are pronounced as an "f" sound.  So Whanganui sounds like Fanganui and Whakapapa is Fakapapa.  Really.  Yesterday I drove by Whatawhata too and could only smile.  I also learned that Kiwis (a person from New Zealand) have a sense of humor.  When vanity license plates were first allowed the most popular ones were a "play on pronunciation".  See if you can figure these out!

1. Wha Q

2. Wha Cup

3. Wha Cof

Deer farming is quite popular here.  I can't begin to count how many giant pens/pastures/fields I have seen with hundreds of deer fenced in.  It's crazy to me.  I heard that most of the meat is actually exported to Europe.  Why doesn't the US do this to control our deer population?

I forgot to mention this while in Australia, but toilets and showers tend to be in separate rooms in both countries.  It's very practical actually so that the use of one does not prohibit the use of the other by another person, but not very practical when the sink is not also in the room with the toilet!  And speaking again of toilets, people have asked me if the toilets do in fact flush in the opposite direction, but sadly I can't really tell.  Toilets here tend to flush with a giant gush of water from all directions and a neat spiral never seems to form at all.  It's just a big whoosh of water... No spinning or spiraling that I can see.  

On the topic of bathrooms, one thing I will not miss about NZ when I leave are the separate 'knobs' for hot water and cold water at the tap.  I have almost simultaneously frozen and scalded my hands here!  It's just so much easier to create the right temperature water at the sink or the shower when you only have one handle to adjust!  Did we used to have plumbing fixtures like that in the US and have we just updated them?  I actually heard from someone in Australia of their opinion that in America things are just "done right" which perplexed me.  However then, his example was that in our airports we make escalators that are wide enough to fit our luggage too.  Inside I just wondered if it's because they are designed for our larger bodies, but perhaps to that list I would add more user-friendly faucets!

Interesting fact about NZ that I first learned in Australia: There are about 8 million Kiwi or New Zealand citizens in the world today, but only 4 or 5 million of them actually choose to live in NZ.  The rest live abroad, most popularly in Australia.  And then Australia likes to claim all the "famous" Kiwis as Australian.  Ever heard of Russell Crowe?

I learned first from my host in Christchurch and was reminded again at the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand in Wellington that there are no native mammals to New Zealand except for bats.  New Zealand has only been inhabited by people for the last 800 years or so and it was only much more recent in the last 200 years that it was "settled" as it's referred to with modern day towns being developed.  In the late 1800s up until 1950 I read, there were organized "Acclimatization Societies" that would purposefully import live animals, foods, and plants from Europe to make NZ more familiar feeling to the new settlers.  Sweet potato, deer, frogs, possum, rabbit ...everything came over!  Weasels and other predators of rabbits had to actually be brought over when the rabbit population first ballooned out of control unchecked.  That's what happens when you mess with a delicate ecosystem with its own biodiversity!

And finally, Beth, you would love it here with all the birds. So so so many types and I'm afraid I haven't had the time to stop to photograph them all, but one kind is worth mentioning.  The Kea bird is a type of parrot I believe.  At first I liked them.  Learning about native species always interests me and they have a pretty distinctive call (albeit annoying to me now!) that I enjoyed being able to recognize.  Then I heard some stories about them.  They will actually attack you as a hiker once they know you have food on the trail.  We were fortunately not bothered (we kept our eating to the huts), but I heard a story where kea birds actually locked two hikers in a hut for two days after learning how the lock mechanism worked by observing the hikers use it!  They are apparently one of the most intelligent species of birds!  I haven't seen or heard one up here on the north island yet so they might only be on the south island... My fingers are crossed at least!