Quote:
Originally Posted by AnotherCat
It can certainly feel very remote at the site near Bluff at the bottom of South Island looking out over Foveaux Strait and where there is (I assume it is still there) a post with signs pointing to various places around the globe and the distances to them. I think many don't have a good enough feeling for geography to sense a physical isolation but many will have an impression from flying to our nearest neighbor Australia (close to 4 hours) and fewer the 12 hours to Los Angeles. But the distances are not something most would think about from day to day and with shipping and air travel/freight don't have any day to day impact these days; courier can be as little as a couple of days from anywhere and I once received a letter from Germany the day after its postmarked date and it had my incorrect address on it.
Regarding "lighter and sunnier". Oamaru is almost exactly 45 degrees south (as I mentioned elsewhere we lived close to there for a short while and is easy to remember because quite a few things there with names including "45 South") so about the same opposite latitude to Portland, Oregon or Ottawa, for example. Auckland is around 37 degrees south so roughly the same as San Francisco or Richmond, Virginia.
Overall the temperature difference between Oamaru and Auckland say is much closer to that between San Francisco and northern Oregon than the same latitude comparison on the USA east coast (Washington DC is pretty close to the opposite latitude of Auckland's and while it snows in Washington DC - I have been there in late November with snow starting to fall and lie - it would be an adventure if it ever snowed in Auckland.
Auckland's temperatures are pretty similar to San Francisco and I suspect that Oamaru's temperatures are pretty similar to coastal northern Oregon except no snow (maybe the occasional flurry melting as hits the ground); but NZ's climate is very maritime, being so narrow and facing the wide Tasman Sea across which most weather comes so the NZ locations likely not have the same maximum summer highs or lowest winter lows. For example, where we are (a little north of Wellington on the west coast of North Island right on the coast) a quite cold winter's day would be around 9 or 10C (50F) but normally a few degrees warmer, and a warm summers day around 23 to 25C (around 75F), so a comparatively low temperature spread between seasons compared to that on continents. That said, it can occasionally get very cold in central and northern Otago, that being inland from Oamaru, but also tends to get higher highs although temperatures of 30C (86F) and a little above are not very frequent anywhere in NZ.
So while those in the north like to claim it is much warmer than further south, the difference (especially compared to the differences encountered on continents without the maritime influence) are not really that great. NZ is currently just coming out of a 2 day cold patch and today Auckland's forecast high is 13C (55F) and Timaru's, slightly north of Oamaru, is forecast as 9C (48F). We, very, very roughly half way in between have 12C (54F) as the forecast high for today. Timaru and inland Otago have almost exactly the same average sunshine hours per year as Auckland and less than half Auckland's rainfall, the towns with the highest sunshine hours are in South Island. Of course, those temperature differences North to South can vary one way or the other according to the day, but these differences would be close to being typical I would think.
There is, of course a difference in daylight hours between north and south due to the latitude difference, but likely averages out given south has longer days in the summer and shorter days in winter - far south is roughly an hour longer daylight in mid summer compared to Auckland and an hour shorter in winter.
So, after all that gabbing (I have had some practice briefing foreign job applicants  ) I think the book's comment about the north being much sunnier and lighter perhaps represents a popular view but likely not one shared by those who have the actual experience of living in both (excepting, central Otago can occasionally be very cold). |
Very interesting, thanks! I had imagined most of New Zealand as being slightly colder than what you've described, and actually with more snow. Now I know that's not so much the case. It's also interesting to hear that people there generally don't think of themselves as so physically remote to the rest of the world, perhaps as you say because modern conveniences make everything seem so much easier and closer. Now you have me wondering if before such quick delivery, and the internet, and worldwide cable television etc., it was a different perception there or not.