Category: New Zealand Nuances
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New Zealand Nuance #10: Barefoot
Shoes are optional in New Zealand. That might seem like a strange statement but it’s true. While you may not think that seeing children running around the park or beach barefoot is anything unusual, seeing adults padding around the Pak N Save sans chausseurs can be quite the culture shock. Although the laidback nature of…
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New Zealand Nuance #9: Pharmacies
“But I did request it over a week ago,” you whine petulantly at the man behind the counter. “All repeat prescriptions must be requested at least seven days before they are collected and it is your responsibility to ensure you have enough medication to last until then,” droned them man, almost reciting verbatim the sign…
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New Zealand Nuance # 8: Rubbish
Just like in the UK, rubbish in New Zealand is sorted into landfill and recycling. Glass bottles must be kept separate and only certainly plastics can be recycled. Both landfill and recycling are emptied every other week. But they don’t have a food waste bin. This struck me as odd as I had considered New…
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New Zealand Nuance #7: Pākehā
Pākehā (par-kay-har) is a Maori language term for a white person of European decent and it apparently doesn’t matter if you’re a New Zealander or not. The word pākehā isn’t recognised in New Zealand law and in fact non-Māori New Zealanders tried to ban it’s use in the 1980’s. Over the past 40 years, the…
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New Zealand Nuance #6: The perils of crossing the road
In New Zealand if you are within 20 metres of a crossing and you don’t use it, you are guilty of the crime of jaywalking, the penalty for which is a $35 fine. If you are at a crossing and the pedestrian light is red and you cross anyway, you’re jaywalking. If you cross the…
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New Zealand Nuance #5: Train tickets
If you want to travel by train into Wellington from anywhere along the Kāpiti Line, you’ll either have to be organised enough to buy your ticket in advance from the ticket office at your local station (make sure you check the opening times as some of the smaller ticket offices are only open for a…
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New Zealand Nuance #4: Speeding
The default national speed limit in New Zealand is 100km per hour (62mph) or on some expressways it can rise to 110km per hour (68mph) and unlike the UK, it is pretty strictly enforced. You’d probably (but not always) get away with doing 80mph on a clear motorway or dual carriageway in the UK but…
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New Zealand Nuance #3: Remembrance Day
In the UK, our remembrance day is on the second Sunday of November. We also tend to observe a moment of silence for 2 minutes at 11am on 11 November. This date is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice which ended the First World War hostilities between Allied nations and Germany in 1918.…
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New Zealand Nuance #2: Easter
Unlike the UK which in comparison seems surprisingly liberal in relation to drinking and gambling, New Zealand has strict rules on alcohol and lottery ticket purchasing over Easter. Under New Zealand law, you can’t buy alcohol or a lottery ticket on Good Friday, Easter Sunday or Easter Monday; no exceptions. I wondered why the Pak…
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New Zealand Nuance #1: Flour
In the UK, it seems to be an unwritten rule that supermarket flour should be coloured coded. Plain flour will nearly always be in a red bag while self raising flour comes in a blue bag. In New Zealand, flour also appears to be colour coded expect that it’s the other way around. Plain flour…
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