Wilcome to New Zuland, Australia’s siventh and most choicest state! Almost…they could have bun, they may as well have joined, it’s so eerily familiar that we’ve been all ‘suxes n sivins’! They’re dollar is sumular, the cash notes, the roads, the North island scenery, the Draconian alcohol laws, the ANZAC memorials, pavlovas and smashed avos are all virry famuluar. So much like home we even drove past a Mountain named ‘Bruce’.

The only difference so far is the comedic accent they’re all sticking wuth to great iffict! But everyone is just so lovely that it’s hard to find anything to write about. And besides, taking the puss out of someone doesn’t quite sound right and we don’t want to come across as ducks.

It’s really only a minor difference in the accents (a lot of people have assumed we’re locals, or at least ‘Willingtonians’), but what a dufference! I have no idea what they thunk of us when we walk into a winery and order a ‘six pack’ to take away or when you spill wine on your lap and ask if they have any chux out the back to help clean it up. Make sure you answer correctly when you’re asked if you think the wine your tasting is ‘bitter’ than the last one and be careful describing your chardonnay as being ‘buttery’. Lea also pointed out that they must have had the least confronting of the punk movements over here, with the youths of the time struggling to choose between ‘hot punk’ or a more ‘pastel punk’.

Another difference is that all the fush n chups restaurants seem to be attached to Chinese restaurants. One can’t help but wonder which came first?? Did it start with a few dum sums and escalate from there?? Or vice versa? I guess it’s a bit chucken or the igg. (NB: ‘Chicken’ is what you do before boarding a plane over here.)

We flew in to Napier first, over the rugged country side, a patchwork of mountains and rivers that had cut beautiful valleys into the land. I’m not sure what they are called, but I think they’re gorgeous…

Napier is a cute seaside town full of art deco buildings ‘thanks’ to being razed by an earthquake in the early 30’s. And it didn’t take long for us to start enjoying the sumple pleasures in life, like screaming with delight when ‘Slice of Heaven’ plays on the car radio and the many pre-midday wine tastings being socially acceptable.

We caught up with the lovely Asha, vusuted some stunning wineries, had great dunner and tramped drove to the top of the Te Mata peak (not sure how that’s pronounced, but I guess you say tomato…I say Te Mata) before lunching in the Craggy Range vineyard below.

Next stop was Martinborough, a tiny country town surrounded by vineyards all within walking distance. Thus doesn’t really sound like our kind of town so we weren’t sure if we would like it there, but as it turns out, we dud. We perficted our own form of tramping as we drunkenly stumbled from winery to winery while watching others do the same on bike. We had’t seen this many ‘puss hids’ on bikes since….Rotto I giss??

Final location for North Island take 1, was The Wundy Sutty of Willington. We really enjoyed our two nights here, a thriving mitropolis with more cafes and restaurants per head than NY NY. And I thunk we managed to vusut thim all!!!

There are also more sheep per man in NZ than anywhere else in the world. And it’s noticeable! And to be fair to the stereotypes, they are quite pritty.

Fun fakt: the term “you beauty” actually started in NZ as “ewe beauty”, traditionally exclaimed by a farmer upon finding that spicial mimber of the flock. The phrase leverages the other famous exclamation of “eureka’, the dufference being instid of a fat guy yelling while inside a bath…he’s in…NZ…and there’s a sheep involved.