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Some thoughts as we say goodbye to NZ

By Chelsea
We have been in New Zealand for 45 days...and it is now time to move on.


South East Asia here we come!

 Things we (Parker, Nathan and I) noticed:

More sheep than people
Many fields of long grass
Many fields of flowers
Lots of farms
New Zealanders have accents...similar to Australians but still different
Lots of different kinds of honey
Lots of train tracks but we didn't see many trains
Ketchup is called tomato sauce
Lots of campervans on the road
The water does go down the drain in the opposite direction!
No Big Dipper in the sky...the Southern Cross is most noticeable
It is very easy to see all of Orion in the sky
The ocean water is more turquoise than we expected
The Christchurch airport  has a giant chess game in the international departures area
The people are really friendly
Merino wool clothing is made here but it isn't any cheaper than home
No plastic bags in the grocery stores
Food in most grocery stores is expensive
Lots of paua shells and jade stones for sale
Always a maximum of a 2 hour drive from the mountains or the ocean
Look right first to cross the road because cars drive on the left
Lots of fun playgrounds with flying foxes (ziplines)
Clean
Fresh air


New foods we tried:

Pineapple lumps- chocolate treats
So many different kids of Whittaker's chocolate- our favourite was dark chocolate and peppermint.  Dad's favourite was coconut.
Chocolate fish
Mince pie
Meat pie
Kiwi Fish and chips
Fresh as...raspberry powder
Pavlova...it is the Christmas thing to do!
Real fruit ice cream

Our favourite towns: Akaroa and Wanaka
Our favourite beach:  Moeraki boulders (Chelsea), Cathedral cove (Nathan), Hot water Beach (Parker), Karekare (Dad) and Okains Bay Beach (Mom).  All beaches were super quiet.


Christmas was different but good:

No snow
Fresh eggs from hens for breakfast
Facetime with family and friends instead of seeing everyone in person
We used our socks as our stockings
Santa still found us!

Wild life we saw:

Pukeko birds
Weca birds- clever..kind of like raccoons back home
Tui birds ( known to us now as R2D2 birds because of the super cool sounds they make)
 Seal
Big snapper fish
Lots of rabbits
Possums (unfortunately, mostly roadkill)
...plus all the animals at the Auckland zoo
Oamaru is famous for its blue penguins and yellow-eyes penguins.  We were cozy most evenings and didn't venture out to the beach with the crowds to see them.

English is different:

Rent=hire
Trunk of car= boot
How are you going?
Sweet as..
Hello=Kia Ora
Welcome=Haerai mai















Comments

  1. naetgirlDecember 28, 2019 at 9:02 PM

    Chelsea that was a great wrap up of your stay in NZ. Very amusing!

    ReplyDelete

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