Notes on New Zealand

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Of course, as we have written, South Island knocked us out, we should have stayed for at least 3 weeks. However, once you have seen it, you have seen it. We were punch drunk from all the views.

North Island was not so dramatic, but still has some great sights and here we would like to have travelled more.

Most towns are reasonably pretty but coming from Europe we could not get excited by them.

Then there are the people. The Kiwis are, like the Aussies, very friendly, and we met some great ones. Our biggest trouble was understanding them as their accent can be really strong. Sometimes they resorted to laughter after we kept asking them to repeat things. Pronunciation of the Maori place names is also difficult - no? - well, go on, you try pronouncing MATEMATEAONGO. No, you are not even close, we did better than that and they laughed us!

Food portions are massive and compare with the USA. We resorted to ordering starters only, and Michelle could not even finish one of these!

The cost of living is again cheaper than the UK and probably cheaper than Australia.

Many people have told us how fabulous New Zealand is, but it exceeded our expectations.

Could we live there? Well, maybe in Christchurch, but it is all a bit quiet for us. We are city people, also we could not put up with all this rugby.

Would we recommend it for a holiday? - ABSOLUTELY!!

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