Dragos Manac [.biz] · 2011 February 24

New Zealand, the land of the kiwis!

I will start my Fussy Traveler series with a description of New Zealand – just before I leave this beautiful place. Mind my fussy comments – they were added for enhanced dramatic effect!

New Zealand – The basics

New Zealand is an island in the Pacific Ocean, between Australia and Antarctica, in the Southern hemisphere, which makes it painfully far away from the rest of the world. It’s the size of England and inhabited by 4 million people, called Kiwis, just as their national birds. Similar to the birds, the Kiwis are fun, short, round and unable to fly by themselves.

The Dutch first discovered and named the island, but the Brits finished the job in the early 1800. Maori, the local population, beat everyone by at least 500 years in occupying the land. Then they sold it for some guns and candy to the Brits, notorious for their negotiation skills.

Nowadays, New Zealand is part of the Commonwealth, ruled in theory by the Queen and in practice by their prime minister – a guy who appears weekly at the morning TV show to keep the Kiwis informed. Everyone lives a quiet and peaceful life and people seem very happy – mostly because they are so remote from the rest of the world and there is not much for them to do all day. I saw a region in which voters had to choose among candidates from the Legalize Marijuana Party, from the Pirate Party and a homeless guy. You can imagine the level of political wrestling that goes on.

For the impatient traveler, the very short version: New Zealand is just like the Unites States of America, but it totally lacks the drama, which makes it the nicest or most boring place to live in.

Kiwis drive on the wrong left side of the road. They chose to use the metric system, which is both smart and useful. The local currency is the New Zealand Dollar, or NZD, one of which can buy you half a Euro or 3/4 US Dollars, or an Australian dollar – this is an exchange rate rule-of-thumb, it might actually vary quite a lot by the time you read this article.

For New Zealanders, the Australians, or Aussies (read: Ozzies) are the main competitors. As a bus driver sung: Kiwis do everything better than Aussies – and Kiwis play better rugby too. Rugby, in various incarnations, is the most popular sport. The national rugby team is known as the All Blacks – a bunch of well-fed guys you would go to great lengths not to offend.

Australians and New Zealanders have they own power socket in a smart move to keep things complicated for travelers. All the power sockets have an on/off switch. You can see the same level of ingenuity and care for resources applied in numerous areas.

The time zone is UTC+12. The day starts here for the whole world, so you will be living in the future. Jet lag is a buzz kill if not addressed properly and fast – sleep all day until you are in sync with the local time.

Wellington is the administrative capital, but Auckland is the biggest city, counting for a third of the whole population – 4 million people living in a territory larger than England. Other important cities are Christchurch, Hamilton, Nelson and some others spread over two main islands intuitively named the North and the South Island.

Kiwis speak what you could call a very special dialect of the English language, with an accent worse than you would hear in the farthest regions of England itself. Still, it never ceases to sound funny or friendly. When it comes to accents, Australians aren’t better either. Maori is the second official language and it sounds cool (and meaningful if you can actually understand it). The French speaking population has been almost extinguished about 150 years ago.

Prices, cost of visiting New Zealand

New Zealand is a pretty expensive place to visit. It might be a direct cause of it’s remoteness or perhaps its small size. Expect to pay:

15-25 NZD for breakfast
75-150 NZD for a decent hotel room
30-50 NZD for lunch or dinner
3-5 NZD per local bus trip, 15-25 NZD for a one way shuttle
40+ NZD for renting a small car per day
100 NZD+ for a decent tourist tour

Aside from accommodation, you need about 100 NZD per day as a minimum budget – with 70 NZD being an absolute minimum.

Multiply that by 0.5 to get the price in EUR or 0.75 for the price in USD.

New Zealand Accessibility

Air New Zealand is the local airline. Their services are one of the best in the world. They are part of the Star Alliance, which means the best prices you will get from Europe are for Lufthansa flights. Lufthansa is a great airline if you grew up in an army camp. Otherwise, it is kind of horrible if you are the fussy type.

Jet Star is a low cost company great for internal flights. The services are excellent and normal people can actually fit in their chairs.

Buses are always a good option, offering civilized travel conditions and pricing, but I would only recommend them for short distances; Otherwise, it just takes too much time and air travel is more effective.

Renting a car or a van is always a good, affordable option, unless you have no experience in driving on the wrong left side, in which case you may end up thrilling or killing yourself.

The infrastructure overall is very well developed, but because of the scarce population not all the places are easily connected through roads or rail tracks.

Weather in New Zealand

The weather is pretty nice, similar to the Mediterranean climate. August is in the middle of the winter, which means that there is lots of rain and rare frosting. January to March is, obviously, summer – and then you get temperatures in the 20-30 Celsius degrees area, about 75-90 Fahrenheit degrees (due to the simple and logical way of translating C to F). Hence New Zealand is a great place in which to spend your Northern winter time. Ideally, go to New Zealand between January and April.

Earthquakes are common in the South Island, since it is the battle ground of two tectonic plaques. I luckily missed the latest Christchurch quake by two days.

Also in the unexpected department: New Zealand is one a the few places where you can surf and board the same day. Choosing your clothes can be a bit tricky as well, since they sometimes have all the seasons jammed up into one day.

Kiwi Friendliness

Kiwis are very friendly people, open and chatty. Nothing is usually very formal and everyone seems to have a good time. It’s pretty usual to have people cracking jokes at you.

In Auckland you can find a very mixed population – many Asians, Indians and Europeans, but not so much in the rest of the country.

Women are not stunners, but not ogress either. If you like the practical/hiker type of woman, this might be the place to go. Many of them are quite well-fed (I hope that did not sound offensive to anyone :)

Maori Tribe

New Zealand’s Entertainment

People seem to be hard 9-5-ers and then be completely off. Outdoor activities are very very popular (biking, hiking, swimming, gliding etc). Sailing is especially popular since boat ownership is also very common.

The club/party scene is probably at the opposite corner from Ibiza. On weekends people tend to go out a lot more. Some have bad public reactions to alcohol, so at times it gets creepy and/or funny. The police has very mild interventions, relying on good advice more than fines or weapons. Overall all New Zealand is very safe for visitors.

There is a ton of things to do, even for the fussiest of us. Boat trips to islands close-by, wine tastings, helicopter tours, thermal baths, themed tours are all activities that fill you with excitement and put you in a good mood. Prepare to shell out some serious money for some of them. You will constantly get good quality services, excellent bank for your buck. I have never walked into tourist traps, which is unusual.

Food in New Zealand

A huge selection of international restaurants is available. Asian restaurants are very popular and, as usual, quite cheap. There is no local cuisine, but there are some popular local types of food, like the Pavlova. Lots of fish and sea food for which you don’t pay a premium. You should try the traditional Maori food, prepared the Hangi way: cooked on steaming rocks in a pit oven. Also, you can try a ton of exotic fruits, most of which I cannot even name.

Cigar availability in New Zealand

This is one field in which New Zealand lacks a lot. Tobacco is expensive, 15 NZD for a pack of cigarettes. Cigars are extremely tough to come across. To put it mildly, it is way easier to buy weed and, by the smell of it, a lot more popular. The regular cheap cigars can be found anywhere, but are overpriced. Cuban cigars are 2-3 times more expensive than in most of the fancy shops in the world. Due to the weather and humidity conditions here, they are reasonably well kept. When it comes to cigars in New Zealand there is only one thing to remember: Bring your own!

Internet and telecommunications in New Zealand

There are a few standard GSM operators, Vodafone being the biggest of them. The international prefix is +64. Lose the first 0 in local numbers when dialing from abroad. Remote locations usually don’t have network coverage.

Internet connections are slow and expensive. Only a few coffee shops offer free wireless. Hotels usually charge for Internet, from 10 to 25 NZD per day. Traffic is usually capped and you pay for time, transfer or both. Internet cafes are popular. You can buy an unlocked 3G stick for 80-100 NZD with 2GB of data included. For 80 NZD you can get a crappy unlocked phone and 20 NZD prepay credit. Calls are quite expensive, close to 1 NZD per minute.

New Zealand’s Business Climate

With less people than Miami, New Zealand is a small market in itself. A per capita GDP of about $30,000, qualifies Kiwis as well-off customers. The economy relies a lot on international trade. Business conditions are excellent: Along with Singapore, New Zealand constantly rates as the best country to do business in. The authorities make it very easy to incorporate and run your business. All the systems are online, perfectly built and easy to use – a real example of what can be done when the state truly wants to help businesses. Taxation is simple and gradual. Double taxation treaties are in place, but just with 35 countries.

The NZD is closely related to the USD and one of the top 10 traded currencies on the Forex. Hence, it is quite volatile and may be considered a bit risky. Plus, you always have to exchange it to more popular currencies – at a cost. Opening a bank account is easy, but you should be aware of the quite steep fees for all the transactions.

The local card is called EFTPOS and doesn’t work online or internationally. Credit or debit cards work everywhere, but all have a fee of at least 2% for transactions. Accounts in international currencies require a deposit of at least 10,000 NZD with any of the local banks. You need to be present in person to be able to open an account. Overall, banking services are a bit of a headache.

My top 7 New Zealand experiences

Tour of the Auckland Tower, 326m/1000ft in height. The highest deck is 220m above ground level. You can walk around it, outside, in the air, or bungee jump. My life insurance doesn’t cover this, so I passed the opportunity.
Helicopter tour. Around the town, to the volcanoes or the glaciers. I had a city tour just to check my level of comfort. It started at terror and worked its way up to fun.
Maori village tour. Obviously staged, but still scary. I got to see a traditional village, a show, a haka (traditional war dance) and taste some good food. Funny and entertaining.
Christchurch’s botanical gardens. One of the green houses hosted hundreds of petunias. The most beautiful flowers I have ever seen.
Bathing in one of the Pacific bays. Hundreds of beaches await you and at 21 Celsius degrees the water is warm enough.
Free falling, which is just like sky diving. You fly, except you don’t fall, but get blown up by a huge air stream. Physically demanding and it ruins your face and hair.
Waiheke island tour which included visiting the open air art and then wine tasting at one of the local vineyards. Amazingly pleasant.

Total cost: < 350 NZD for all of the above, transportation to the site, tickets and drinks included. Multiply that by 0.5 to get the price in EUR or 0.75 for the price in USD.

Wrapping up

You should visit New Zealand at least once. You will definitely love it! The 20 hours+ flight is an absolute killer. There is plenty to do in the kiwi land, as long as you budget it right and prepare in advance.

Kia Ora! The Maori expression for We will eat you for dinner! or Good day! – I always mix them up.