shelloid

oh yeah, another thing I've found really cool is how friendly my neighbours are. Yes it might just be y particular neighbourhood, but really so friendly.

We've been in our house for 7 months and are good friends with one set of neighbours and regularly meet up for dinner / BBQ / drinks. We regularly chat with about 4 other sets of neighbours.

In the UK we were in our last property for 4 years and we spoke to one set of neighbours once and another neighbour maybe twice the whole time we were there. This was in a block of flats in London. Most of the people in the block avoided us because we would say hello in the hallway - I think it scared them!

Expat Kiwi

New Zealand is really, really cool because...

it had the world's first transgender MP.
it stuck to its anti nuclear stance.
Kiwis can go live in Australia and vice versa.
you can drive/walk down the road and say "I know him/her" about most of the people you see.
whanau underpins everything and is the bedrock of society.

BEVS

We are looking into the bee hive thing at the moment & we are always putting the feelers out to buy into a home kill or game meat - pig / deer / duck or swap eggs or something for a much longed for trout. Am rubbish at catching the things.
People seem to really want my duck's eggs for baking, ( shop cake is cardboard) so I get to swap for organic rhubarb ( yuk - husband likes it ) and last time I swapped for freshly caught & smoked fish which I turned into pate.

Don't get me wrong . If I could source organic fresh food stuff at a price I can afford, I'd not be spending as much time as I do on doing all the above. Same goes for supermarkets really. If the foodstuff was of a quality I felt was OK , I'd buy their stuff more but it just ain't for a variety of reasons, although it has improved no end in the past 6 plus years.

Back on topic......

NZ , where I live, is cool because I can see the Milky Way in all it's glory from my section, even though it is upside down and back to front. That's best done on a cool night.

My piece of NZ is cool because my neighbour will swap fresh killed wild duck for a few beers or just as a gift.

NZ where I live is cool ( or hot ) because I can grow melons and tomatoes outside if I want to. The summer is hot and dry and the ground bakes to bricks ( bit like the med) so if I remember to irrigate and that is allowed ( water restraints) I can grow these outside of a greenhouse.

Biddy

My parents come out once a year for 6 weeks or so. On their 2nd visit we did a big shop at our local Big Save - armchairs, bed etc.
On their 3rd visit we went back to Big save to get a few more things for their Granny flat and after approx 10 seconds of brain cog turning the male sales assistant greeted my Mum by name and asked her how the bed and sofa etc were and how the weather was back in the UK etc. Like they were long lost friends!

I love the attitude of 99% of people I meet and love the chattyness in shops and reckon it's pretty genuine.

Browner_

You cycle in NZ? With all those druggies, drunks and texters coming up behind you? Rather you than me.

londonescapee

Explain how this differs to pretty much any other country in, well, the whole world? The way some of you lot go on about driving standards is ridiculous. There are far worse places than NZ for driving.

I've cycled every day pretty much into work and people give me way more room here than they ever did in the UK - and they let me out too. Big up all the cycling crew

Expat Kiwi

Is there a beekeepers club in your district? People are usually very generous and will probably offer you all kinds of used equipment, show you the ropes etc. If you really get into it there's a bit of money to be made from honey, beeswax, propolis (sp?) pollinating crops etc, but you'd need to have a fair few hives and means of transporting them around the place..

I've been pleasantly surprised at the amount of organic food over here, there's an organic farmers market that we go to most weekends which does a decent range of produce but never costs us less than $40 a visit. Plus Aldi have a good organic range, including some delicious Fairtrade organic chocolate at a very reasonable price - couple of dollars a bar I think it is .

expatasia

That reminds me of the following from my holiday in NZ a few years back - we'd been staying in one of those convenient motels (outside Christchurch) and for some reason we drove out of the place without settling the bill or bidding farewell

Dawned on us later of course so we went back to the place in the afternoon to settle up, the bloke (a Mr Roper - not like the grumpy one from that old British comedy ) greeted us without due concern saying something like 'It's only money' and seemed even embarrassed to take our cash for the room.

BEVS

I've thought of another one

NZ is really cool because of the birdlife. Fantails, Tuis, Waxeyes, Keas and the wonderful deep forest green Kakapos to name a few.

BEVS

There was a weekend workshop locally a few weekends ago , but we had to miss out on that one because my husband was purloined to work on a charity build by his boss. Said boss was conspicuous by his absence. Maybe he went on the workshop.

I'm asking around at the moment to see who has what locally. Husband is quite keen on the idea.

RobDon

Ditto what FP says!

Genesis

And another. I rang MAF with an enquiry. The dept could not answer my question and thus took a message. They rang me back witin 10 minutes.

Expat Kiwi

I've thought of another one too, it's a great place to bring up the kids


Bullrush!

Genesis

Only half of us on P? Thought it was more than that.

That was a very funny look at kiwi life.

bourbon-biscuit

Beg to differ, customer service in Australia has a loooooooooong way to go to beat or even catch up with NZ's

I have so many little stories of the day to day nice things that make living in NZ so pleasant; it's cool because the people here are generally friendly and trusting and family orientated. Actually, the family orientated thing sometimes gets on my wick- like if I go to classical concert I want British style SILENCE to enjoy it in, not an inclusive child friendly atmosphere. Oh well, I just have to chill out a bit more

One of the coolest things about NZ is how you get a second chance and it's easy to get a leg up by virtue of the population size. That and turquoise ocean and sandy, deserted beaches to enjoy all summer long (and it's actually long).

Today when I put the washing out I heard my first cicada in the garden ... that's cool about NZ, cicadas in summer