Quote:
Originally Posted by Stitchawl
Discern a difference? I can't understand either of them equally!
But anyway, isn't New Zealand just a suburb of Australia?
Stitchawl |
Some people have been reported as thinking that Auckland harbour bridge and Sydney harbour bridge are two ends of the same bridge, and that you can commute to work! Aren't tourists wonderful?
Oh, I wish Australia really did encompass NZ. There are so many Kiwis on the Gold Coast already(me included). Actually, at one time very early in the history of the antipodes, NZ was part of the Australian state of New South Wales (capital Sydney)!
But seriously, NZ is a small country with just over 4 million people, and small countries find it difficult to run all the services it has to provide on such a small taxable population. Consider it - only about 1 million (probably) are working! A few years ago NZ had to get rid of its Air Force (perhaps because of an outbreak of earache?), because it couldn't run an Army, Navy and Airforce at once. The Navy was once just two ships!
But NZ is a spunky little country, with achievements far outweighing its size. So why did I leave after 45 years? To be with my grandchildren on the Gold Coast, and to avoid dying of asthma in Wellington, where the lovely clear air carries a pollen that was killing me. God bless the radiata pine.