“Wow!”. That was pretty much how we started our first few weeks in New Zealand. Every morning we would stumble out of bed, walk to the living room (they call it the lounge down here) and then look out the window and say “WOW!” as we were greeted with a spectacular view of Manukau Harbor. This was the morning ritual during our first sit in New Zealand. We were at our latest house sit in Titirangi, a suburb of Auckland. Sometimes we would wake up and look out to an absolutely gorgeous, sunny view. Next day might be fog and we couldn’t even see the water or even a 100 yards/meters away. Then the next day it might be pouring rain followed by a beautiful rainbow. And it was like a kaleidoscope that would change many times over the length of the day. They say you can experience all 4 seasons in a single day here in NZ, and its true. After more than a month, we never tired of just looking out the window of the lounge while we read, or looking out of the kitchen window as we prepared a meal.
New Zealand is an island nation located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Because of its remoteness, it was able to develop a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, and plant life. For example, other than bats, there are no native land mammals in NZ. There are no snakes in NZ either. Because it is so remote, NZ was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. It is believed the first people to reach NZ, people of Polynesian heritage, did not arrive until around 1275 A.D. Now, there are approximately 5 million people in New Zealand with around 1.7 million living in the Auckland area. NZ is composed of over 600 islands. The majority of the land mass is split into two islands, the North Island and the South Island. Auckland and Wellington (the largest city and the capital of NZ, respectively) are located on the North Island. Christchurch, the 3rd largest city in the country, is located on the Southern Island. The entire country is known for its natural beauty, but the South Island has locations that are often named by different travel and nature groups as being the most beautiful spots in the world. Our first month, July, was spent on the North Island.
New Zealand really is remote. To get here from Copenhagen, we had to take an hour flight to London, then a 9-hour flight to Hong Kong and then a 9-hour flight to Auckland. The time difference between the Pacific time zone in the States and New Zealand is a whopping 19 hours. I always used to think of New Zealand as being "right next" to Australia but, in fact, the distance from Sydney to Auckland is 1, 339 miles (2,155km). That’s roughly the same distance from Los Angeles to Dallas, Boston to Tampa or Copenhagen to Athens!
In many ways, we found New Zealand to be like a combination of NorCal/Oregon and Hawaii. Like the northwest coast of the U.S., it has beautiful beaches, forests and rocky, craggy coastlines with awesome coastal scenic drives. Believe it or not, there is even a grove of California Redwoods that were planted way back in 1901. Like Hawaii, it is green and lush. It has beautiful mountains, beaches, waterfalls and lots of rainbows. And it is full of people of Polynesian heritage. In fact, Auckland has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world. As in Hawaii, many indigenous words are used. For example, you will hear “kia ora” all over New Zealand. Much like you hear “aloha” throughout the Hawaiian islands. “Kia ora” is used as a warm and welcoming greeting. It is as prevalent in New Zealand as “aloha” is in Hawaii. You'll hear it wherever you go. You will hear everyone from the Prime Minister to the guy at the local “dairy” using it in day-to-day conversation (a “dairy” is what they call a convenience store down here). TV newscasters and radio hosts, more often than not, will start their broadcasts with “Kia ora!”.
“Kia ora” comes from the indigenous Māori language, te reo. In its simplest form, it means “hello”. But, just like “Aloha”, the words signify more than just a passing greeting. In its literal sense, ''ora" refers to a state of living, or being alive. When the word “kia” is used with “ora”, it changes “ora” from a noun to a verb, so rather than 'alive' it is 'living'. So, when you say “Kia ora” to someone, you are wishing the essence of life upon them.
"Kia ora" is a beautiful way to interact with, and show respect to, someone. As a Māori elder once put it, “It's really important to acknowledge a person. By using the words 'Kia Ora' we acknowledge not just them, but everything about them including where they come from and who they come from.”.
Our first house sit in New Zealand was in a suburb of Auckland called Titirangi. We were scheduled to be there from Jun 28-Aug 3. We would be looking after a single dog named Bella and would have use of the owner’s car. Titirangi is a relatively affluent town with a population of 3,500-4,000 people. The home owners, Chris and Wendi were super nice people who greeted us in grand style. Our first evening we found ourselves enjoying a view over Manukau Harbor and sipping champaign followed by a delicious dinner of Thai take out. Can’t ask for much more than that!
As I mentioned, the sit in Titirangi included the use of a car- a very nice car. It was a 1-year old Peugeot 3008 SUV. Part of the reason we got to use the car was because we were expected to take Bella the dog with us pretty much everywhere we went – and we did. Bella was with us 24x7 for the entire length of our sit and we always enjoyed her company. She was a super sweet dog and we miss her.
The house and car in Titirangi Janne, Bella & Auckland Greg & Bella beach bound
Having the use of the car afforded us the opportunity to explore the area. Due to weather, we didn’t explore quite as much as planned but we did make a few trips into Auckland and we also made a couple road trips. The best road trip we took was to hit a series of beaches along the western coast, north of Auckland/Titirangi. Highlights of our trip included Karekare Beach (and waterfall), Piha Beach and Bethells Beach, topped off with a stop at the Hallertau Brewery where we enjoyed some suds and an “entrée” (they call appetizers “entrées” in New Zealand – don’t ask me why).
Karekare: beautiful landscape, waterfall and beach.
Piha Beach
Speaking of road trips and driving, let’s talk about driving on the left side of the road. Driving on the left side of the road was something I was looking forward to but was also a a tiny bit anxious about. I had never tried it before and, it seemed to me, after driving solely on the right side of the road for nearly 40 years, I likely had hard coded some driving habits on my brain that could prove difficult to deviate from. Before we arrived in NZ, I asked friends and family for their take on driving on the left side of the road. The main “tips” received didn’t really amount to much. In a nut shell, “It’s a trip!” or “You’ll get used to it, you’ll do fine.” or “I could never do that – use public transportation.”. I pretty much got only 2 good pieces of information that were helpful. The first was that keeping to the left is hardest when you are entering a street with no other cars on it. You just naturally head to the right side of the road. If you do this, sooner or later you will see another car and they will be heading your way head on. The other piece of info I received came from my Dad, and it turned out to be solid. He cautioned me that one of the hardest things for him was to judge where the front left of your vehicle is. This proved to be very true.
I really wasn’t too worried about driving on the left side of the road. I’m a relatively coordinated guy and, in my opinion, a good driver. Literally millions of people have gone through this before me. Shouldn’t be too big of a deal. I just needed to remember to “keep left” and to look “right/left/right” instead of “left/right/left”. We were set to arrive in NZ for our first house sit on June 28 and the home owners were not leaving until the 30th. This would give me 2 days for the owner to let me take his car for a spin and get used to driving on the left side, with his assistance, before I was totally on my own.
Well, our flight from Denmark to London was delayed which caused us to miss our connection from London to Hong Kong. This ultimately resulted in us arriving in NZ on the 29th instead of the 30th. Long story short (too late), my first time driving on the left side of the road was trial by fire. The very first time I drove was on the morning of the 30th, just a little more than 24 hours after we arrived. I was, obviously, still a bit jet lagged and my mission was to drive the home owners to the Auckland airport in the rain and then drive back to the house on my own – completely on my own – there was no room for Janne in the car. All in all, it went OK. My greatest challenge was not keeping left. The greatest challenge was gauging where the front left of the car was and not veering too far to the left within my lane. The owners, Chris and Wendy, were both really cool about it and provided encouraging advice and kept calm as opposed to white knuckling it and fearing for their lives.
Driving on the left takes a LOT of thought at first. There are tons of things you don’t think about until you are actually doing it. Here are some examples. It starts as soon as you get in the car and sit behind the wheel. You reach over your left shoulder for the seat belt – nope, it’s over your right shoulder. You need to back up out of your parking place so you look over your right shoulder before backing up – nope, you need to look over your left shoulder. You are going to pull out onto the street so you turn on your blinker – nope, you probably just turned on the windshield wipers as most left drive cars have the blinkers switch on the right side of the steering wheel. Now that you know where the blinkers switch is, you have to remember that it is up for left and down for right and not the other way around like you are used to. OK, phew! You made the turn. You look up to the right to check your rearview mirror to see if there is anyone behind you – nope, the rearview mirror is up to the left (not up to the right).
Not only are you dealing with all of the things I just listed, but at the same time you are dealing with traffic signs that may be alien to you and you may not understand completely. If you are American, you will also be dealing with something that the rest of the world is used to but Americans rarely see: traffic circles - lots of traffic circles. Not only traffic circles, but traffic circles going clockwise instead of counter-clockwise.
It takes a while to get comfortable. As you start to feel more at ease, you try different things and that, inevitably, leads to new surprises. For example, you start to feel pretty good driving – you’re not constantly in deep concentration. You think, “OK, cool. Let’s turn on the radio.”. You reach for the power knob on the left side of the radio – nope. Doah! The power knob is on the right side of the radio and the volume is on the left. Ultimately, I have done fine (knock on wood). At the time of this writing, I have driven 5 different cars in NZ over a period of almost two months and I’m feeling very comfortable. That said, our next house sit will take driving on the left to the next level as the house sit includes the use of a car with a stick (manual transmission). I'm completely comfortable driving a stick but I will need to get used to the gear shift being on my left. I just hope 1st gear is up to the left and not up to the right!
More pictures and notes on our first 2 months in New Zealand are located in the “Gallery” section of this website.
Until next time, Kia Ora!
Greg, looking good young man. I love the north island. Has the best fish n chips ever on the drive from Auckland to palmerston north. If you make it to Wellington make sure you check out the beehive (parliament building).. good travels
Kia Ora,
I just wrote a rather long and erudite comment about your well well written and interesting blog, only to lose it before publishing.
So Hi,
See you soon!