It is well-known that Aussies and Kiwis speak with a characteristic accent. Just a few examples that I've heard or seen on our trip:
On a TV business show that we were watching in Auckland, a woman was describing how a company was going to use the proceeds of a share offering to reduce "net bank debt". How I heard it, though, was as "nit bank dit". This is more or less how the letter “e” is pronounced, as in saying NZ (en zed, but as Kiwi’s say it, “in zid”). The accent was unique, but not too difficult to catch on to.
Many, many of the towns, especially on the North Island, have Maori origins with names that are difficult to remember, unusual to pronounce and confusingly similar, at least to our ears. Finding a specific one on a map is a challenge. We finally got into the habit of referring to "that town that starts with an A", and the like.
As just one example, as we were leaving Rotorua, there were several small towns which went this way: Rotorua, Rotokawa, Ruato, Rotoiti and Rotoma, all within a distance of 20 km. Further along, there is Whakatane, Waingarara and Waiotahi. And then there's the puzzle about how to pronounce Hgongotaha. Suffice it to say, when we run into places like Hamilton and Cambridge and (on the South Island), places like Christchurch, Invercargill, Dunedin and Nelson, navigation seems easier.
We've been told that any name with a "wh" in it has that part of the name pronounced as "f". So "Mangawhai" is, we believe, pronounced "mangafay". There are many names with "wh" letters in them.
There are also untold numbers of place names starting with “w”, and not just easy ones like Wellington. By the end of our trip we were as confused as we were in the beginning.
Judder bars - these are what we know as rumble strips or speed bars or speed bumps. In NZ, the "judder bars" are serious enough to take the undercarriage out of your vehicle if you are unwise enough not to slow down. We encountered some in Franz Josef that were river rocks embedded in concrete.
Road construction is referred to as "works". You "give way" rather than "yield" and if there is a flagperson, you are supposed to "stop when requested". There are many road projects in the "works". In fact, I think NZ must have most of the orange safety pylons produced in the Western World. There were a few roads where travel for us was slowed down to 30 km/hr around and up and down very winding roads. What NZ probably really needs is a good supply of dynamite and some large earth movers to build some straighter roads. It’s made me wonder if NZ could cut their asphalt costs in half if they could straighten out their roads. I'm sure that all the wiggles in their roads must at least double the distance. But I digress.
Hot and cold water taps are often reversed, at least most of them seem to be. Maybe that’s just the “older installations”. Some of the newer places seem to have the hot and cold in the “normal” places.
Light switches are switched on by clicking them down, not up. There’s the left side driving, of course. Wall outlets are all switched individually with small switches on the wall outlet itself.
Camping is different. I’ll call it “camping” but it’s quite foreign to my kind of camping, but then I’ve never stayed at a KOA Kampground, so what do I know? I’ll write a separate post or two about “camping” later on.
Warning signs on the highways are big exclamation points. Some other highway warning signs are unusual and we have some pictures. You might encounter a herd (flock?) of sheep at any time.
Before coming to NZ, I was specifically warned about two things: the narrow, twisting roads (and they were) and the sandflies. The flies seem much like our Canadian blackflies and they are really quite bad plus they are almost everywhere. I guess that’s one good thing to say for high winds!
If you’re a pedestrian, you should be aware that vehicles don’t stop for you anywhere, with two exceptions: at controlled intersections with walk lights and at special “lollypop” crossings. Everywhere else, yer on yer own. Having been pedestrians in NYC and watched how aggressive they are there, the contrast was quite striking. Pedestrians here are very well behaved. Must be a form of behavioural natural selection.
Liquor laws are a bit different in that there are no state or government-owned booze stores (so we were told). You can buy your supplies of wine and beer at any grocery store or at independent liquor stores. The nice thing is that at most grocery stores, you can often find stuff on sale! I found beer more expensive than I was used to but wine was not bad in price and was often on special. Beer is less common in cans. Apparently cans have been decreasing in popularity to bottles in the past 10-15 years.
New Zealand has done away with the penny and the five-cent piece. The smallest coin you will see is the dime. A process called “Swedish rounding” is used to bring sale amounts to the nearest 10 cents. New Zealand also has a $1 coin and a $2 coin. They don’t have any special name for these coins the way we do in Canada. The $1 coin has the Kiwi on it, but I guess there is a limit to how many things you can call a kiwi in a country this size!
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