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Section of our larder
People are encouraged to 'Buy Kiwi', all these products display the 'Made in New Zealand' badge (N)
Arrival and first week Both legs of the flight were smooth, and 27 hours after the first take-off on Monday 28th April, we landed in Auckland on Wednesday the 30th. The temperature was a warm 20 degrees, better than we were expecting. We walked through the terminal towards immigration, past exotic-sounding airlines such as “Fiji” and “Pacific Islands”, and got our work visas approved.
We had a very friendly taxi driver who took us to the marina and showed us his yacht(!) before dropping us in the ‘Three Kings’ area of Auckland where we met our new housemates Pamela, Ashleigh and Kahu, a Maori girl.
New Zealand became a British colony in 1840, although it gets its name from the Dutch explorers who went there (but didn’t land) in 1642, calling it “Nieuw Zeeland” (“New Sealand”). The first European to set foot there was Captain James Cook around 1770, who wrote remarkably kindly about the Maoris given that they put ten of his men into the cooking pot: “Notwithstanding they are cannibals, they are naturally of a good disposition”, he recorded.
Auckland is situated between two harbours, Waitemata and Manukau, and there are supposed to be
many sandy beaches and picturesque islands all around, but we have not had time to see them yet. In the centre there are parks and gardens as well as volcanic hills; we were surprised by how hilly the city is, and how green it is in the suburbs. Many houses are made of wood, and are much larger than you’d expect for their proximity to the city centre. Auckland is not the capital, but it contains more than a quarter of the total population (1.2m) whereas the capital Wellington has nearer to 400,000! And there are 40 million sheep. The name Auckland was obsequiously chosen by the first governor of New Zealand because that was the name of his commanding officer (Lord Auckland).
We did a mini-shop (teabags and milk) when we first arrived at one of the several convenience stores in the immediate area, which are called Dairies or Superettes. They are quite different to the UK, where shelf-labelling is everywhere; the products here, which can be a real hotch potch of stuff, are still sticker-gunned, but not all of them, so you have to ask the price, and some of the cans are rusty and look like
they have been around for years! The following day we got to an actual supermarket and had a good mooch because we’re sad and like spending time there, stocking up on the essentials (bread and beer) and eyeing up what we’d get next time (muffins and crumpets). NZ wine is more expensive than we thought, given that it’s only come down the road, and the cheapest seems to be Chilean, which has come from the other side of the world. There are some exotic-looking fruits which we can’t identify.
Near our house, we have a baker, a butcher and also a fishmonger, from whom we bought dinner on Friday, their ‘Special Number 1’ meal, consisting of 3 pieces of fried fish (freshly caught in local waters, and battered there and then) plus a portion of chips all for $5 (£2). Wrapped up in a newspaper - brilliant!
We opened a bank account and had our first meeting with a recruitment agency. There seems to be lots of the type of work that Paula is looking for, but finding one with Japanese could be tricky. Export work also seems to less common than expected, for a number of reasons,
and domestic sales roles without knowing the country could also be difficult, but for the moment we remain optimistic that we’ll find rewarding and enjoyable jobs.
On Sunday, with Paula not feeling so well, I went to the local church wondering whether it would be mostly non-white people there, like the time in Malawi when I and fellow-volunteer teacher Stefan were the only white people amongst 500 blacks. But it was a wide mix of people and a good service, like being back home except that we had Japanese rice crackers instead of bread at Communion, and obviously certain words are pronounced differently, like ‘heaven’ is ‘hiven’…similarly, people ask where we’re from and we say ‘British’ whereas Kiwis would say “Brutt-ush”; and I have to get used to being called ‘Nuck’…!
It is really like the UK here in some ways (they speak English, have rain, and drive on the left) but different too (use odd words such as “trundler” for shopping trolley, don’t believe in central heating, and have really odd-shaped plugs). Additionally, our street is well-endowed with palm trees, which is an exotic change from Wallasey, and the birds who reside therein often perform tropical-sounding calls
and songs which is a regular reminder that we’re a long way from Europe. Our house is in a cul-de-sac which leads us to make inevitable comparisons with Ramsey Street from
Neighbours (I wonder if Mike has finished with our ute…)
So our job hunt has now begun in earnest, as has our settling into this new country. It’s the place where a whistle was first used by a referee to control a sports game, where they’ve won more Olympic golds per capita than anywhere else and where there are quiz questions printed underneath beer bottle caps - how could we not come to love it?
The second week started with interviews for Nick (with Paula staying at home, still being a little unwell) at a couple of recruitment companies, both of which went well and one of them led to an interview with a food exporter a couple of days later, and the guy said he wanted to make a written offer the following week, so all well on that front at the moment, with another couple of irons in the fire.
We are becoming more familiar with Kiwi culture, recognising even more similarities with the
Nick assembles a piece of furniture
Paula says she didn't get married to still have to do DIY UK (for example, it’s one of the few other countries where the cars actually stop at zebra crossings) and yet more differences (the
Tongan Baptist Church springs to mind). Despite the fact that NZ wine is not cheap, we have felt the need to drink it regularly and there is always a great selection to choose from so, for example, we haven’t had to pick the one called ‘Cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush’ yet.
*****
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