Amazing stuff about NZ
 

It has no snakes in the wild...apparently little or none in captivity either such is their danger to the local fauna.

There is only one indigenous mammal...a bat.

Trout apparently cannot be commercialy sold..its illegal to do so so I am told.

The most dangerous thing in NZ is the 'shitedriver'. A noisy vermin, alas spread throughout the country and is found on most highways. It can be fatal and will cause huge irritation when it gets too close to you. Easily avoided by staying indoors or returning from whence I came.

Can you add ought?

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Wild pigs

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...are right up there for being dangerous.

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Back in the old days 'the New Zealand death' was from river crossing. Obviously as a few more bridges (and roads) were built, and shitedrivers were accidentally released into the wild then "the New Zealand" death became something else.

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There's 80 million possums :blink:

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That apparently started as 3 in the Mt Bruce wild life park area......back in 1930 odd. They are protected in Oz, but as they have no natural predators in NZ AND the fact that the eucalyptas (sp) trees in Oz act as some kind of fertility suppresant that they are not exposed to here are some of the reasons there are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many here.

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That the birds were crazy.
Bloody huge moas
Flightless Parrots
Kiwis with a remarkable olfactory system
Huge.HUGE hawks

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The kiwi can live to be 40 and is the only bird with whiskers. It's eggs are HUGE...bloody ginormous!!!!!

The ruru or morepork is highly revered by maori and is known as the priest of the forest.

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The dutch found it afore Cpt Cook back in about 1350. For some reason they did one and scarpered. Maybe it was the shite driving?

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The fresh pineapples are topless and not allowed to be sold with the leaves on. :blink:

If you park your car on the wrong side of the road, facing the oncoming traffic, you are likely to incur a rather hefty fine. :o

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Ginger crunch
The right turn rule
Laundries
The bush
feijoa cake
feijoa wine
suavignon blanc
snapper

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Its also illegal in the UK but you rarely get a fine..

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In the north west of the north island 90 mile beach is infact only 65 mile long, hence the reason it gets so terribly crowded.

You need a permit to visit kapiti island.

My mate swam from waikanae to Kapiti and on the way was joined by a large school of dolphins who swam with him for 30 minutes.

There is a dolphin up on the east coast (hawkes bay way) who swims and plays daily with sightseers. Which is nice. He's there every day.

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NZ coastal waters contain 50% of ALL the world's whales, dolphins and porpoises. It holds a similarly huge count of the world's albatrosses who chose to nest here when they are not perambulating the southern seas.

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Moko- http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/...mahia-dolphin/

There have been a few such friendly dolphins over NZ recent history and the sad thing is they tend to die in the end. Moko has become a wee legend in HB and I must admit as a rural TA I **LOVED** reading kids' stories on mon morning about swimming with her- little bare foot kids living in sheds in the middle of nowhere, living a life that by UK standards would be considered 'poor' and yet spending their weekends swimming with dolphins and diving for crayfish and paua for supper.

There, that's something AMAZING about NZ- the lifestyle forces you to change your perspective and redefine 'wealth'. Those that don't never quite 'get' the Kiwi thing and either leave or stay unhappy.

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you're right about redefining wealth...I thought I'd die without the convenience of M&S and the like. Without a million stores selling some must have bit of tat.
Being in NZ makes you realise that doesn't matter.
I can live without ikea but I could n't live with out beaches and moutains and bush and family

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You can employ a minor to serve in a restaurant bar !!! If you want to you can buy your child as much alcohol as you like in a bar and if you don't have any food available you cannot legaly serve booze in a bar......

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Is that a fact? Because I find that quite hard to believe! Whales are most certainly migratory and travel a long way between feeding and breeding grounds and some pass by here on the way to Antartica, I don't think too many of them actually stay. We only get a few types through here too, there are heaps more over the other side of the pacific, Central America, Mexico, Baja California.

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I googled it...apparently so! Or was it a wind up! Not really a wind up subject so it may be true. One of our stats that's good news for a change aye?

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79,999,998 After last night at our house:thumbup:

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shame their not edible!

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the buying your child booze is also legal in the uk (scottish license though not sure about english) from age of 5 kids are allowed to drink certain kinds of alcahol aslong as parents give permission... this was a question that came up in my licencing exam

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Only in Scotland. In England you can buy beer, wine or perry for a 16 or 17 year old with food but not younger. Although you can let your kid have alcohol at home once over 5......

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But they are! There has been talk about marketing possum meat to the Chinese, I don't know how far this has been taken, not far enough if we still have 80,000,000 obviously. I don't think they will be successfully marketed to the local population here though! They've never managed to sell us rabbit meat, not with any real success anyway and rabbits are/were a huge problem.

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I saw my dog swallow a possum whole (admittedly it had been dead for several weeks so was somewhat pre-digested), so it must be palatable on some level. Maybe you could process them into dog food using some sort of mulching machine?

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Sorry I've got to ask, what size dog was that?!!

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Never mind what size - it must have been sick surely? Dead for a couple of weeks?!:eek:

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Have you tried the meat? I usually say if you can curry it, it's good eating;)

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Oh no I don't think I could, nor could I eat any meat I haven't grown up with, no dogs, cats, snakes, monkey etc. I'm just too long in the tooth for those sorts of new experiences. We are off to Hong Kong next week so will have to make sure I read the menus carefully!!

Currying meat does work wonders so I am told.....

People do eat it in Nz though, however I think you need to have quite a long beard and wear shorts pants all year round, drive a ute, live in the bush etc

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My cousin fed possum to his family a few years back when they were a bit hard up...they don't remember it fondly :(

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Land based mammal? There are a few more that bask in the sun on our shores.

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Possum pie? Apparently there is a place that sells them but I have yet to find it.

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Yes only one land based mammal...that's indigenous...there are none others, so I am told.

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I'll give it a go if you can find out where they're sold:D Only possums I see have been sprayed across the road and don't look particularly appetising:rofl:

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We saw one on the South Island with a white line painted over it!!
Wish I'd stopped to take a photo.

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:rofl::rofl:

Presumably now there's a possum sized gap in the line...

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He is quite a small dog, with a very small brain. The possum was very old and mummified so not too much to go down. The other funny thing is he swallowed it while swimming around in a pond because he knew if I caught him, I'd take it away. My mate who I was out mountain biking with was p1ssing himself.
And, he (the dog) didn't chunder

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I'm sure Possum's edible, only problem is the 1080 poison that's quite widely used.

I think there's a popular wild foods festival at Hokitika in late summer, they're sure to eat possum there.

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