Antipodean Anecdotes 5: NZ uncovered

Kia ora! Okay, this last section of my antipodean anecdotes won't be complete if I didn't talk about New Zealand. I had problems getting to NZ because my flight from Sydney to Christchurch was cancelled at the very last moment, so I was put on a flight the next morning, so that did put me behind schedule. Also, the flight was to Queenstown instead of Christchurch - I was meant to have flown into Christchurch and out of Queenstown, so that meant I didn't get to see Christchurch and got to see a lot of Queenstown. I did plan the entire trip to NZ South Island because neither my partner nor I have ever set foot in NZ, so it was interesting for me to see how the NZ I experienced had matched up with what I researched on the internet. So I thought I'd do a little Q&A piece to help someone who may be in that same position.

Visiting the glacial lake at Mt Cook.

Q: A lot of people say food in NZ is expensive because they have to import practically everything - is that true?

A: Actually it wasn't that bad. I wouldn't call it cheap either but it was somewhere in the middle. NZ is a fairly rich, first world country, so you don't go there looking for bargains - there are none to be had. But there are many countries which you will find far more expensive: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark come to mind, but actually even Australia wasn't that cheap. I was pleasantly surprised that food was really quite reasonably priced: for example, paying NZ$4.50 (£2.45, S$4.35) for a huge portion of fish & chips in Oamaru was incredible. We took the fish & chips to the beach and ate it facing the Pacific Ocean. We even went to a couple of restaurants and paid just NZ$30 for a steak dinner for two at Te Anau. That's NZ$15 (£8.10, S$14.50) each for a stunningly good steak. Sure you could go to even more expensive restaurants to push the boat out and spend a lot more on a meal, but I don't think we did too badly throughout the week we were there. Just beware that some of the more touristy places will charge you a lot more for food, whist places catering for locals will be far more reasonably priced - but you're going to get that anywhere in the world you go.

Q: What about NZ supermarkets, are they any good?

A: Well, I found them bland. Practically everything is imported apart from some local produce (diary products, lamb, wines, honey, kiwi fruits etc) but the local culture tends to be really quite English. A lot of British people say that going to NZ is like going to the UK in the 1950s, well the supermarkets reflect that. Being in the Asian-Pacific region doesn't really make NZ supermarkets that much more interesting - you won't find that many Asian products in there and well, that's because they are catering for the local tastes which is really quite bland. I asked a local what their favourite local dish was and she said, "fish & chips". And I was like, "yeah but you took that from the British, that's not specifically from New Zealand." She smirked, "yes that may be the case, but that's what our favourite local dish is regardless." So if you have a choice between buying a bag of locally grown kiwi fruits or an imported mango, always go for the local option. But good grief, I still can't get over the fact that food in NZ is more expensive than in the UK. Perhaps I am taking for granted just how cheap food is here in the UK, but supermarkets in the US, Australia and NZ are a lot more expensive. You can always save money by buying food to cook if you are staying somewhere with a kitchen, but don't expect much from the supermarkets there. The big NZ chains that I visited include New World, Pak 'n Save, Four Square and Freshchoice.

Q: How did you get around NZ?

A: We rented a car and fortunately my partner's an excellent drive whilst I am a terrible navigator who keeps falling asleep. NZ is actually pretty darn big and public transport is quite limited. My AirBNB host works at Oamaru train station and he said the trains only run through Oamaru only twice a day. Buses are pretty infrequent as well, so people either book a package tour where transport is all arranged for them, or they rent a car and enjoy having more flexibility when it comes to say, "oh that spot looks lovely, let's pull over for some photos." Renting a car wasn't that cheap but it didn't break the bank either - I would say the same thing about petrol. A popular option is a campervan (also known as a motorhome or a caravan) but I had been warned that those things just guzzle so much fuel that you would spend a fortune on petrol. Besides, they aren't that comfortable to sleep in either and it would be a force economy if you think you're saving money on accommodation. The country roads of NZ are scenic and of good quality - but the towns are really far apart and you need to plan your trips wisely to avoid punishing schedules where you end up driving for too many hours. There are no huge highways in South Island NZ, just narrow country roads: one lane in each direction, because there are so few people and cars in NZ. Just make sure you load the right maps onto your phone to avoid getting lost, a big map of south Island New Zealand is never going to contain enough detail to help you find a particular address in a small town. The most expensive thing for your NZ holiday is probably going to be your flight really.

Q: What about accommodation?

A: I did the AirBNB thing in NZ and was pleased with the quality of accommodation I got - I didn't always choose the cheapest options but you get what you pay for. I chose the options with the best reviews and all of my experiences were really good. Such is the power of peer reviews: I did look at hotels as well and I would say the prices are about the same. My cost of the AirBNBs ranged from £40 to £90 and I must say, the best one was the £90 place in Lake Tekapo (you get what you pay for) but the guy who charged us only £40 in Oamaru wasn't too shabby either - the only thing was that his house felt so incredibly cold because it was huge and he wasn't going to try to heat the whole house up otherwise he would have a massive heating bill. Most Kiwis have huge houses! Staying in the city center would come at a premium: for example, if you want something smack in the middle of downtown Queenstown, then yeah that wouldn't be cheap. But as we had a car, we got a very pleasant AirBNB place rather close to the airport: not only was it a lot cheaper, the place was so pleasant and still just like 10 minutes drive into town. So in terms of prices, it is pretty much on par with what you'll pay in any European city - bear in mind that there were some cheaper options, I just refused to go for them.

Q: What was the best fun thing you did in South Island NZ?

A: Different things would appeal to different people, but for me, there were two things that did stand out. Firstly, skiing in Cardrona was very good - it was not a big resort compared to what I am more used to in Europe, but for a day of skiing, it was just nice. The ski hire there was extremely well organized, much better than anywhere else in Europe I have ever been. You go to one counter, speak to a member of staff and you paid just once - then with your smart card, you go round and collect everything you need. Whereas in your typical European ski resort, you have to queue to get your ski pass and then queue again to get your ski rental. It wasn't cheap though, I spent about £95 a day skiing at Cardrona whilst I would typically spend between £60 - £70 in a European ski resort, so that makes skiing in NZ more expensive than in Europe. But hey, the parking was free (rarely the case in Europe), the food was pretty decent and it wasn't overpriced, snow conditions were good, it wasn't crowded, there was free wifi in the resort and the staff were incredibly nice. Forget those ludicrously expensive helicopter excursions to see the glaciers, skiing is the best way to enjoy the snow capped mountains of NZ! The second best thing we did was penguin spotting in Oamaru, we had arrived a bit too late to see them come in from the sea at dusk but a friendly local told us to simply walk up and down the seafront and it was fairly easy to spot them. The little blue penguins were extremely cute: it was such a relief and delight to have been able to see them like that after I had abandoned all hope of seeing them after our initial flight to NZ was canceled.

Q: And what was the most disappointing thing(s) in contrast?

A: This is just my personal opinion (one not shared by my partner) but I was somewhat disappointed with the glowworm cave tour in Te Anau lake. Perhaps my expectations were a bit too high, but they didn't glow as much as I thought they would and the actual cave tour was somewhat short - you spend more time getting to the cave and then waiting around to go into the actual cave itself. I have no idea why it received such high ratings on Tripadvisor, but I suppose you can't expect glowworms to emit that much light so my initial expectations may have been wrong. The tour itself wasn't cheap at NZ$83 (£45 or S$80.65) but there wasn't that much to do in that neck of the woods anyway apart from going to Milford Sound itself. Milford Sound was pretty awesome, but I was disappointed that the cruise itself didn't really go very far once I had a sense of orientation, given the number of hours we had on the boat (it was an overnight cruise), we didn't go that far at all. I didn't sleep well on that cruise as well given that we had noisy neighbours. That cruise was quite expensive as well at NZ$329 (£178.20 or S$319.70). Perhaps my expectations are higher when I pay that much money And I suppose, the first time you see a lake like lake Tekapo, your jaw drops, you stop the car and take a million selfies. But by the tenth beautiful lake like that, you can't even be asked to take your phone out of your pocket: law of diminishing returns does kick in even with the stunning scenery. Another aspect of NZ that I didn't get to see was the Maori culture - I was told that sadly, there was barely any in that part of the South Island and that I would see a lot more of that in the North Island.

Q: What are the people like?

A: Wonderful. The people of NZ are genuinely friendly - certainly one of the most friendly nations in the world! Especially in the smaller towns, people just love talking to you and they are genuinely interested in their visitors. I suppose this has much to do with the way NZ is so isolated from the rest of the world and being in a small town in south Island rather than a big city like Auckland, Christchurch or Wellington makes that sense of loneliness and isolation even more acute. Hence when you come from halfway across the world to visit them, they are happy to chat with you. Of course, being an English-speaking country, there was no language barrier. Doing the AirBNB thing meant seeing up close and personal how the locals lived and even when I was getting food from the shops, the local shopkeepers are very talkative and happy to chat. I did get lost twice - in Oamaru and Albert Town - I had foolishly forgotten to load the relevant maps onto my phone. Duh. The man in Oamaru said, "oh I am jogging, let me hop in the car with you and I'll go to the address with you, then I'll jog home. Don't worry it is not a problem at all." When we realized we had drive quite a long way to get to the address, we offered to drive him back to town but he insisted on jogging back. That's how nice the people are.

Q: Were there any aspects of NZ that took you by surprise?

A: Hmmm. I was surprised how much it resembled the UK in so many ways. Everything from the street names to the landscape to the people reminded me a lot of Scotland. I thought it might have more of a character of its own but really, the early settlers tried hard to recreate Britain in New Zealand and they pretty much succeeded. Yes some places have Maori place names, but I didn't even meet a single Maori person whilst I was there - they were all extremely English in their ways. By that token, it made NZ rather boring for me I'm afraid. I was also surprised by the number of Chinese shops there were everywhere - these are Chinese shops, staffed by Mandarin speaking people but they catered almost exclusively to the Chinese tourists and the locals just wouldn't shop there. NZ does get a lot of Chinese tourists there, but I was surprised at just how there seemed to be one set of shops for the Chinese tourists where they could spend loads of money without having to speak or read any English and another set of shops for tourists from everywhere else. Oh and in spite of the presence of all these Chinese shops, I barely had any Asian food in NZ! I had so much excellent Asian food in Australia but the quality of the Chinese restaurants in NZ were disappointing and they were relatively expensive too. Finally, I thought the place was going to be full of sheep everywhere - but no, there weren't as many as I thought!

Q: Was it cold? Did you need winter clothing?

A: Oh yes. I was in NZ in spring and it did get down to below zero at night in some more sheltered, inland locations and the temperature barely crept about 10 degrees in the day. When we were at Cardrona, it was -5 degrees so certainly winter clothing was necessary. And of course, if you were to visit NZ in the winter, it would be even colder and you should go prepared. It was quite a contrast from Australia, where it was considerably warmer. It was also rather wet and we did encounter quite a bit of rain, so I was glad I had my umbrella with me. Be prepared for the relentless rain in NZ!

Q: Some people have said that NZ is boring - do you think this is true?

A: Again, it depends what you're looking for in a holiday. Let's put it this way, unless staring at a lake or mountain and doing absolutely nothing is your idea of a perfect holiday, then when you get to NZ you have to spend a lot of money to do fun things. Allow me to give you an example, this wasn't one thing I was planning to do but I stumbled upon it by accident as we passed by. We drove by Arthurs Point where they operate the Shotover Jet Boat ride - we parked and hung round for a while, it looked kinda fun but I balked the price: NZ$149 per adult. We stood by Edith Cavell bridge and watched the jet boats zip by and realized that it was probably an incredibly quick way to burn through NZ$149. And then they try to sell you optional extras like photos and videos - none of it was cheap. Having spent about the same for a day's skiing in Cardrona, we realized that it was probably not worth the money and if we were to spend that kind of money, we would rather go skiing for another day at a different ski resort - at least that would give us a whole day's worth of skiing rather than just a few very short minutes of fun. If you were to say yes to every fun thing you stumble across in NZ without thinking about money, then of course you'll have a much more fun time there but you'll also end up spending an insane amount of money. To be fair to the Shotover Jet, I will invite you watch the video below and you be the judge.

Another example was when we went to the glacial lake at Mount Cook - there was a rather expensive and short boat ride to take you to the middle of the lake where you can come really close to the icebergs in the glacial lake. It had great reviews on Tripadvisor but again, I balked at the price. Ouch. NZ$170 - that was even more than the Shotover Jet. But in the pictures, they showed the boats going right up to crystal blue icebergs that looked absolutely magical, like a scene right out of Frozen. Then I found out, oh it is free to just drive up to the lake, park near the shore than take a hike to the shoreline where you can still see the icebergs - you just won't be able to touch them. I settled for the free option and I was glad I did - perhaps it was a particularly hot day but the icebergs looked tiny compared to the photos on the internet. I'm sure the size of the icebergs will vary with the seasons and the weather, but I was so relieved I did not pay for that expensive boat ride. Would it have been fun? Yeah I'm sure it would have been, but was it going to be worth NZ$170? I doubt it somehow. Many people just pay for such fun things to do on the basis of "when am I next going to be in NZ?" And if you're filthy rich, then why not? The thing is though, if you do say no to everything that is expensive, then you're going to find NZ boring. You need to spend a fair amount of money on fun activities to do and simply pick the ones that you like the most. You can't say no to everything but by that same token, you can't say yes to everything either: do your research and plan to say yes to about 50% or so of the options. I did warn you that NZ was not a cheap destination!

Q: So would you recommend that I go to NZ too?

A: Tough question. It really depends on what you want to do. I never really had a grand desire to visit NZ and whilst I found certain aspects of NZ interesting, the culture was so hideously dull. The only country which I found equally dull was Ireland and that's because I am British, I already live in England. When I go abroad, the first thing I want is to hear a different language, I fucking hate going to English speaking countries. I'm so much happier going to a country like Russia where hardly anyone speaks any English than to go to an English speaking country where people are generally monolingual - thus by that token, I found NZ culturally vapid, it was incredibly dull and uninspired. Yes the mountains and the lakes were pretty, but you will be hemorrhaging money at an insane rate to ensure that you had a fun thing to do every few hours. Compare that to going to somewhere like Bulgaria, where I even enjoyed going to the supermarket because all the labels were in Bulgarian and even just reading the names of the different kinds of fruits and vegetables was extremely fun and educational for me. In contrast, a visit to an Kiwi supermarket was dull, dull, dull. So in conclusion, with all things considered, NZ really wasn't for me at all - I only went because my partner (who is currently based in Brisbane) wanted a holiday and if I didn't go to NZ when I was in Australia, I might never ever go. It is pretty much a case of, "been there, done that, got the T-shirt, never going back" for me. That's just how I feel about NZ, but maybe you're not as hung up on the issue of NZ being a culturally vapid country and the mountains are enough to fascinate you.

So there you go - that's my Q&A of NZ. What about your experiences? Have you ever been to NZ before? What were your impressions of NZ? Have I totally put you off visiting NZ? And would I have had a different experience if I had gone to the North Island instead? Let me know what you think please and leave a comment below. Many thanks for reading.