🙂 Glaciers. Mountains. Fjords. Landscapes. Beaches. Māori culture. Skiing. Surfing. Manuka Honey. Wine. Haka.
🙁 All Blacks (Well, I am a Springbok supporter!!)
Currency: New Zealand Dollar
THREE things we did not know about New Zealand:
- There are way more sheep than people…New Zealand is a sparsely populated country. Geographically it’s close in size to the UK, but its population is only 4.47 million (compared to the UK’s 64 million). And what’s more – sheep far outnumber people: There are about six sheep for every human in New Zealand!
- It used to be home to a monstrously big bird. Although extinct, giant Moa birds were native to New Zealand – they were 3.6 meters tall and weighed a whopping 230kg and looked a little like an ostrich.
- It is the land of kiwis (people, birds and fruit). Why do people throw around the word “kiwi” when talking about New Zealand? The kiwi was first just the name for a flightless bird native to the country and became the name for the fruit when some marketing folks realized its original name – Chinese gooseberry – wasn’t going to sell and so named it after the bird. It’s also become a slang term for New Zealanders.
