Mitch mate the sheep joke is about the KIWI,s more sheep over there than people and that extends to....................................{eek3}
Hello you guys - I heard my name being bandied about!!!!!
Shheeeeeshhh - I've never seen a situation get so out of hand so quickly and all about my homeland...
I feel a few corrections are called for and as it looks like I am the
Only Kiwi brave enough to charge into this mild hearted barney here goes:
McKenna - welcome in advance to our neck of the woods - as far from the rest of the world as you can get apart from St Helena and the Falklands (both British of course). As Waynespoo advised and I agree, do not bring any of your collection. As you will know Christchurch has experienced earthquakes every day for the last year - some of them sizable - so if you have had no previous first hand experience with earthquakes hold on to your hat.. Also a large part of the city has been 'liquified' - that is some of the old creeks, streams, and rivers that were paved over in the 1800s and conveniently forgotten about but never went away have re-emerged reminding us that they are still there and never went away. You don't want to be worrying about any collection being swallowed up by the ground..! DO take a good jacket - it gets bloody freezing there, and sunscreen - because of all the pollution the world is throwing into the atmosphere, our ozone layer above NZ is now depleted and we have a 4 min burn time under the summer sun.
I will take my hat off to Currahee Chris who has offered you some very sound advice. New Zealands outdoors is spectacular and the adventure capital of the world. Christchurch is the only city I know of where you can ski in the morning and windsurf/dive for crayfish and go deep-sea fishing an hour later. You can see the city and coast from the skifields and the hospitality from both is unequalled. Doesnt matter what size you are get into the outdoors!
And wear your All Blacks jersey with pride - it will be your ticket to everywhere. Its a bit like being a priest - no matter where you are in the world everyone knows that jersey - and they always show (sometimes begrudging) respect to it (even those Arssies).
Mitch - mate as much as it grieves me to admit this those Arssie larikins over the ditch are correct in their summation that the sheep thing refers to us Kiwis not them. The gumboots incidently are to slow the sheep down when we chase them amourously over the paddocks as NZers are much slower runners than the Aussies who do not need their sheep to wear gumboots.
Dear Aussies Wayne Wayne Wayne Waynespoo and Jack and Howard. Panda will be intoxicated with NZ. He will be able to stand on top of the mountains there and see Australia, something you can't do in Australia given its flatness. He will love the home brew beer and the clean air and the sheep and the greenness of it all and not want to go anywhere else. He will fall in love with Pavlova and Vegemite Crowded House and The Crowe Brothers (Russell included) all good old
KIWI inventions. We will have to deport him if his family and friends want to see him back in the States as he will not want to leave (for at least a week anyway).
But apart from all that McKenna don't bother with taking any soldiers. You will be too busy and the city needs people like you to help them rebuild - God knows its a mess, but thanks for volunteering to go, you won't regret it.
Cheers and Beers
Kiwi
