New Zealand: First impressions
Friday, 30 January
I hope my next few blogs will be a little more structured. I’m aiming to share the names of towns and favourite spots throughout which hopefully gives you (and me once I read this back) a sense of the path I took to explore this amazing country.
Firstly, let me get a little moan out of my system. My very first impression of New Zealand was before I had left Melbourne airport. I was already under the cosh as I had forgotten to apply for a visitor visa. I am not sure I can blame anyone for that but they do cost $127 (Aussie dollars that is). This is 4x as much as an Australian visa and it takes twice as long to process. At a time when I had started to become increasingly conscious of my dwindling budget I had put it to the back of my mind until the last minute. Thankfully, the visa arrived 5 hours before my flight was due to take off.
Feeling a little relieved (but only as relieved as one can be heading into an airport), I strode up to the check-in desk and threw my rucksack on to the conveyor belt. I was handed my passport back and was about to head to security when the airline agent called me back. He told me that I had to show him my booking for my return flight. Feeling a little bemused, I told him I hadn’t booked one because I hadn’t decided when was going to head back to the UK yet. He replied, sardonically, ‘you can try and get through security but they’ll probably just send you back here’. So, apparently, you have to book a flight out of NZ in order to get into NZ?! I’m not sure how I feel about this policy. It’s like they’re saying ‘Oh hey, yes, please come and enjoy our beautiful country, but only for a specific amount of time and just make sure that you clear out soon right?’ Well, fine, maybe I didn’t want to stay here anyway!
It’s like they’re saying ‘Oh hey, yes, please come and enjoy our beautiful country, but only for a specific amount of time and just make sure that you clear out soon right?’ Well, fine, maybe I didn’t want to stay here anyway!
On a different but related note, I learnt that the only citizens that can buy houses here are those from New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. As a foreign citizen from a different country you can only buy land/new-builds with special permission. It’s another example of NZ being particularly protective of its borders. This definitely worked during the Covid-19 pandemic with the state declaring one of the lowest health losses across the globe. Yet, I can’t help but feel these sorts of policies contribute to its poorly performing economy and slightly insular culture which I will talk about in a later blog.
It’s also not a huge shock to me that 180 New Zealanders left their home country every single day last year, with Jacinda Adern becoming the latest high-profile New Zealander to do so this week after she bought a house in North Sydney.
The Māori population is particularly concentrated in the upper and central North Island but it still sits at less than 20% of the island’s total population, with European the majority at 63%. Despite this, during my first 24 hours in Auckland, it felt to me that Māori culture is pretty well integrated and respected in society. As it should be of course but how often do we see indigenous peoples having to fight to keep their culture alive: Native Americans, Aboriginals, Gaels to name a few. Instead, I noticed how people of all ethnicities here tend to use the Māori greeting of ‘Kia ora’ which translates to ‘be well’ or ‘be healthy’ and which sounds a lot more poetic than ‘How you goin’ mate’ which is what my ears were use to after six weeks in Australia.
Māori is spoken first on trains and buses when announcing stops, and it’s written at the top of road signs with the English translation below it. These are small things and the real picture is a lot more nuanced but as a tourist I couldn’t help but think it puts Australia to shame as a great example of how to try to recognise indigenous culture.
