Everywhere we have gone, without exception, we’ve been greeted with smiles and offers to help in any way possible to make our stay here comfortable and fun. These are just a few examples of Kiwi hospitality we experienced.
Someone we met at a Christmas party offered to give me her HOP pass so that I wouldn’t have to pay to travel on public transportation. It’s free her for seniors but you have to be a NZ resident to get the free one. She said she wanted me to have it because it would be more convenient for me and she didn’t use it very often. (This probably was not copacetic). I did not take it, but her offer was absolutely sincere.
In the supermarkets, if you ask where something is, they don’t just say “over there”, or “on aisle 8”. They take you directly there and then make sure that you are finding exactly what you want, as if you were the only customer in the store. And all of this with a smile. And if you are fumbling to figure out how to use “pay wave” or some other payment method at checkout, neither the cashier nor the people behind you get impatient.
I developed a bad case of sciatica while in Devonport and one of our new Rotarian friends made an appointment for me with a therapist who would “sort me out”. Turns out I needed a few sessions with a Physiotherapist in another town. When we left Devonport, she offered to lend me her personal set of therapy equipment, which she said I could mail back to her at the end of my trip. She even brought it to our cottage after work, so that I wouldn’t have to go out of my way.
Jeff was offered a tour of a Masonic Lodge which was about an hour away. This gentleman offered to pick him up at the ferry so Jeff wouldn’t have to drive. It turns out that this “detour” added on about 2 hours to this Mason’s own drive. He never even mentioned it.
When we stopped at the gas station to “top off” the tank, someone actually came out to our car and pumped the gas!! When’s the last time you saw that?
When we checked in for the trip to see the Pohutu Penguins we didn’t have our voucher showing that we had pre-paid. The woman said that was not a problem. We could check when we got back to our hotel or the next day, or the day after (whenever convenient), and if we owed money, we could call them and give a credit card over the phone. Total trust.
In one of the hotels we asked if there was a safe in the room where we could leave our passports. The manager told us that since the hotel was so new, they had not yet installed the room safes. But he offered to take any valuables we had to his own home and lock them up there. Now if this offer was made in the U.S. I would think twice about handing over anything to someone who made that offer! But here it just is part of the culture of helping, and although it was easy to just keep our passports with us, I really would not have had any qualms about entrusting the manager with our valuables.
Police (other than the ones at the airport) here do not routinely carry firearms. They only have pepper spray, batons, and tasers. There were 35 murders in the entire country (population 4.8 million) in 2017. In Chicago (population 2.7 million) there were 762 murders during the same time period.
And it’s probably the cleanest country I’ve ever visited. Except maybe Singapore. No litter anywhere, and they take pride in being clean and green. I don’t usually blog about restrooms. But I gotta tell you I’ve never seen public facilities in better condition. Perhaps it’s because the signage tells you how to properly use a toilet.
Okay, so the people are the primary reason why we love New Zealand so much. But tied for second place is the beauty of the countryside and the amazing wildlife. From the Bay of Islands in the north (where we took the wild trike ride) to the snow covered Alps in the South Island (which we saw by helicopter), the scenery just takes your breath away. I wish I could post the hundreds of photos I took. But even if I did, it wouldn’t do justice to what we took in with our eyes.
No matter where you turn, a wildlife encounter is never far away. I’m in seventh heaven with all the opportunities to see dolphins (the rare Hector dolphin, as well as common and bottlenose), penguins (little Blue Penguins are just too cute), albatross (now nesting and sitting on the chicks), kiwi birds, fur seals, and whales. We’ve seen them all and many of them just a few feet away. Animal photos are in upcoming blogs.
Here are just a few photos taken on our iPhones.
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