When in New Zealand...

What we noticed that is different here in NZ...

Driving curiosities...
Ok, the obvious, they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right blah, blah, blah, but that's not all... I don't think we saw a stop light in the South Island for over a week and then we only saw a few when we hit Christchurch.  Turning circles are everywhere and easy to maneuver because the signage is so good and because Rachele and I are the perfect back seat drivers!  Most bridges in the rural areas are one way bridges, with one direction having the right of way, while the other side "gives way".  This generally works!  Big warning: you must drive under the speed limit!  There is only a 4 km grace, strictly enforced on holidays, and we got a ticket for going 12 km (7 mph) above the speed limit...ouch!  Set your cruise control for 99 km if the speed limit is 100 km, which really is the only speed limit in NZ except when you enter the towns.  Oh and make sure you have plenty of gas for those rural areas because stations can be few and far between (especially in the middle of the South Island from Wanaka through Arthur's Pass).  The car must be unlocked to open the tank and our chip cards don't seem to work at the pumps without a PIN, so pump, then pay inside. While they drive cars on the left on the highways, all boaters must comply with international boating standards so boaters drive on the right, and the wheels on the jetboats are on the left like our cars.  Drive into hotels and parking centers from the first (left) entrance that you come to or you will be going in on the exit side...and don't turn on your windshield wipers every time you think you are hitting the turning signal with your left hand; yep use your right hand to signal.  Got that?

Oh, remember some of the fun names to rent from other than Avis or Hertz...Wicked (for wilder travelers)!, Kiwi and Maui for campers, Jucy for cars, campers and vans, and Europecar.  We had a full size car and it worked, but it had low sides and a lot of the roads we were on were rocks and bumpy and it's super easy to rub your low tires on the left when parallel parking...it would have been better to have a SUV.  And remember it's easy to trade cars at the ferry if you don't want to pay to transport them.  No extra fee, just arrange it beforehand per online instructions.

Bathroom/plumbing curiosities...
Free public toilets are in every city center and marked with a blue sign and usually have running water and toilet paper, except for that one time when we found a public toilet that looked like a giant round tube sitting by itself in a field...suggestion: always have TP in your car and wet wipes in your bag.  It's very common to find sinks with separate hot and cold faucets like 1960's America and every toilet has two buttons to flush, for "small loads" and bigger ones.  And in some places, toilets are art!  We even came across a combination washer and dryer in one place we stayed...never saw that before.

Electricity curiosities...
Of course, bring your NZ adapter plug to charge, but also remember to turn on those small buttons next to the outlet to actually get electricity to the outlet.  Because of this, those large modern multi-country adapters are usually impossible to use because they interfere with the on/off switch.  Use those individual single country adapters.  iPhones, cameras, etc usually don't need those heavy converters because they work with both 110 and 220 voltage.

Pronunciation curiosities...
Can't figure out them all, but the "e" seems to always be a long e like in "veer", so the word "very" is pronounced "veery".  Lever is leever.  This is very different sounding than United Kingdom accents.  I think this is because everyone is from all over the United Kingdom and when you combine that with Maori, it is just different. I think "wh" sounds like an "f" (all the Maori words seem to start with wh) and "g" in the middle of the word sounds like "t".  Paihia is pronounced like "Pie-here" so the "a" in NZ doesn't sound like what we think an "a" should sound like. The words therefore are impossible to pronounce and we have to listen with both ears to understand.  Rachele pointed out that to them, we are the ones with the accent...LOL!  Other than the funny pronunciation, it seems more like America here than any place we've traveled, definitely more so than the United Kingdom which does seem like a foreign country.

Food curiosities...
No surprise, lamb is about $7 US a pound and very fresh...that's what we're having for dinner on the porch tonight, grilled and covered in a fresh garlic and peach mango chutney.  Everything else seems the same for the most part.  I've talked about food in an earlier blog, but the shout out to the lamb's sacrifice bears a re-mention!

People curiosities...
Very little diversity here in NZ that we could tell. Most have English, Scottish or Irish roots (or Maori in the North Island) and it seems like a vibrant, youthful, healthy group of people. No obesity, not much smoking, seemingly stress free, extremely friendly.  People recycle, compost and feed their farm animals all leftovers. The English feel very at home here and there are many transplants...similar roots and philosophies and much better weather. Other than Asian tourists in Queenstown and Rotorua, we've seen few Asians and can count on our hands the number of black residents/tourists we have seen.  Most diversity is from Polynesian roots I would guess.  Last but not least, to a Kiwi, America is not the center of the Universe...in fact, other than knowing that Trump may be the next GOP candidate, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in what we're doing, other than what they see of American TV.  Too busy just living their lives and being happy to be doing it down here!