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Originally Posted by sun surfer
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.
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Although there are a surprising number of people overseas who imagine the climate here is like that of the South Pacific Islands far away north of us. Apart from those, who will find it much cooler than they imagined, I think many find it mainly wetter and windier than they are used to or were expecting. It is a common misinformed NZ'er's view that the UK (especially London) is a very wet place in comparison to NZ, whereas the opposite is the case. Auckland and Wellington, for example, have getting on to 3 times the annual rainfall of London and about 1.3 times the rainfall of Glasgow (to take a more northern city). I haven't checked but I suspect that we get more sunny days though. Thinking of
Owls Do Cry and its comments about things getting better as one goes north, both Dunedin and Christchurch have around half the rainfall of Wellington and Auckland.
Winds gusting to 65-75mph are pretty common in many places in NZ with Wellington being the windiest main city. Once in Paris when they were having a "storm" which was quite big news there, with big branches breaking off trees in the parks, etc., it seemed to me to be just a pretty average breezy day.
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Originally Posted by sun surfer
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.
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It is getting much less now though but in the past the concept of distance was pretty much obscured behind small-town-like parochial smugness such as "we are so lucky here in god's-own-country" (and one still hears "godzone" a lot), "we can solve anything with a piece of fencing wire" (meaning inventive, whereas NZ actually has very low levels of R&D expenditure and patented inventions), "we are lucky having such wonderful food here"; all things from a lack of open eyed worldly experience even among the many who travel.
Over the years almost all the most capable people, both with respect to their expertise and ability to look outwards, I have worked with on complex technology based assignments here have ended up leaving NZ forever. I am the only person in my immediate family who still lives in NZ (I hope that does not infer anything about me
). It is a good place for a summer holiday though, as long as one is not looking for culture (in the way of top theatre, ballet, music of whatever type, art, etc.) or history (in the way of architecture and record). Fortunately for us we have spent the last 28 years living in 3 different locations all regarded as good lakeside or seaside holiday destinations, so while we miss the other things we have the holiday bit covered for 12 months of the year
.