Back from NZ
We flew in on the Saturday and stayed until Friday, which gave us enough time to visit a good chunk of the relatives. We saw Grandad Bruce twice, just after we arrived and just before we left. He's doing pretty well, though he's had various cancers cut from his face and leg. The scars from these had noticeably healed in the week between visits, however. He's got a graft growing on his outer thigh ready for transferral to his shin. Apparently he was in Hiroshima a few weeks after the bomb hit it, so it's a toss-up whether his cancers come more from that or from being a pale-skinned redhead in a country with poor ozone protection.
We spent the first night with Janey's Aunty Sue and her daughter Leanne, as their house was our "base" for the holiday. Otherwise, we were driven around a bit for the first few days: down to Cambridge near Hamilton to visit Janey's cousin Emma, her husband Paul, and Aunt Doreen and Uncle Neil. We were also taken to Tauranga to visit another cousin, Vanessa, and her new son Kyle. Emma's unable to have kids, but seems to mostly have come to terms with it and hates being pussyfooted around. We still didn't make a big deal of Janey's pregnancy, but then we never really do anyway. Emma and Paul are gen-u-wine rural Christian conservatives, so I found a lot of their views abhorrent, but it was still pretty interesting staying there.
Emma took us back to the airport, where I picked up a hire car, quite a relief after spending time in Sue's or Emma's car, as they're both fairly scary drivers. I think New Zealand in general has a worse standard of driving than I'm used to, all accelerating too hard, driving too fast, tailgating, not slowing down for crests and curves etc. It doesn't even get you anywhere faster from what I can see. It's kind of odd that such a laidback country has such breakneck standards.
We visited another aunt, Winnie, near the airport, then the next day we started the "holiday" part of our holiday, heading up to Paihia and the Bay of Islands. I had a great time driving that day, due to rolling hills, flashes of sun and sudden glimpses of sea. New Zealand's very green and would be a wonderful place to live as there's very few parts that are not interesting in some way. Apparently many people are not keen to live there though, and someone told me some ridiculous statistic like 600 NZers moving to Australia per week. That sounds unlikely, but the reasons are that you earn a much better living in Australia for the same work. You notice while you're there that New Zealand is very Australia-conscious: there's a lot of rivalry and comparisons going on, and it's kind of assumed that we're always thinking about New Zealand as well. Sorry, guys. However, if I could get paid Australian dollars to work in New Zealand, it would be pretty tempting.
We went to see the Waitangi Treaty House, where the first treaty was signed between Britain and the Maoris, considered NZ's birthdate. There's a big meeting house, with carvings from Maori groups from the whole length of the country. The next day we took a cruise out around the Bay of Islands, which was very relaxing. We watched gannets diving, saw 1 (one) fur seal (wow!) and went out as far as the "Hole in the Rock", which the boat went through (super wow!). We sat up top, which was a little chilly, especially at top speed, but the weather was still good, especially for June. I quite liked the fact that the town wasn't packed full of tourists, as I'm sure it must be during the summer.
When we returned we spent another night at Sue's place, and had Leanne's boyfriend Josh and Emma's brother Jody and his wife Amanda come around for dinner. Jody is about as different from Emma as you can imagine. Emma and Paul had talked about how much Aucklanders suck, while Jody and Amanda talked about how sick they were of the attitude they got from non-Aucklanders. It was pretty funny, but I did not laugh, mostly.
That's about the gist of it, though we spent a lot of time catching up on family history with the various relatives and looking at photos, some of Janey which she'd never seen. They're a fairly weird bunch, but I enjoyed spending time with them.
As for odd place names, not too many spring to mind, though Whanganui, Whakarewarewa and Whakapapa are all pretty good, especially as the "Wh" there is pronounced "F". "Waikikamukau" is sadly apocryphal, like the Australian equivalent "Didgerbringabeeralong".
Work didn't call me until the last day, and luckily they didn't ask me to work this weekend or anything, just to look at a proposed change and to provide an estimated impact tomorrow morning. My official estimate is that it will be a huge pain.