My wife and I have become avid rugby fans. As knowledgeable Americans we had heard of rugby of course.  And we’d even worn rugby shirts in college. However, as good Americans we’d never actually seen a rugby game until we visited New Zealand.  All I can say is American football now appears to us to be a game for a bunch of wimps!  Rugby is played in shorts and, you guessed it, rugby shirts…and that’s it!  Well, some of the newer players use mouth guards and there is the occasional ear protector…but that’s it!  This is a sport for real men. It’s a sport that once it’s started doesn’t stop for almost anything.  Injured player?  Get out of the way doc, we’re coming through!  I’m told the British sport was taken up by a bunch of farmers and sheep ranchers with nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon.  After a week of gathering up sheep between your knees and giving them a buzz cut, you have to relieve the stress somehow I suppose.  So a number of Kiwi men began tossing around a large, football-looking ball in a giant game of keep away. Now it’s a national pastime.  Like soccer in Europe (which is also played here, but pales by comparison) kids start playing rugby very young and adults can be seen at the local athletic fields screaming encouraging words at them from the sidelines most weekends.

As I said, rugby makes American football seem like a walk in the proverbial park. You can’t watch more than a few minutes of play without saying “Oooph”, “Ouch”, “Oweeee” or “Man, that’s gotta hurt”!  These guys, without any protection to speak of, are brutal.  Plus since the game doesn’t stop for much except half-time, it is pretty darned exciting!  They play for 80 minutes and that’s just about 80 actual minutes, not American football minutes which, as we Americans know, can last a week-and-a-half sometimes.  And during those exhilarating minutes the ball is almost constantly in motion; either being kicked, tossed, clutched or wobbling down the field as a dozen angry guys in striped shirts tear after it like lions after a wounded gazelle.

There are rugby teams of all sorts, local leagues, regional, council, district, and I’m sure many more…too many to keep track of for us. The best of the best rugby players play on the national team, the New Zealand All Blacks. Of course everyone is an All Black fan here, including us!  They have won the Rugby World Cup many times by beating teams from all over the world (hence the “World Cup”). All Blacks players are stars here in New Zealand, but not coddled pretty boys like the sports stars in the U.S.  Of course they are no longer farmers and sheep herders like their predecessors, but they aren’t spoiled multi-million dollar babies either (rugby doesn’t pay too well we’re told).  These are down to earth real guys you could have a beer with at the local pub, if they had time to stop signing autographs of course.  But the great thing is the game itself. If you ever have the opportunity to see it, possibly on ESPN 43 or some other channel at 3:00 A.M., grab a beer, sit down and prepare yourself for some real fun!  Go All Blacks!

Rugby is kind of a metaphor for all New Zealand activities.  Kiwis take their “down time” seriously.  With four weeks “holiday” minimum, the locals have found all sorts of ways to enjoy themselves. This is the cradle of extreme sports.  Bungee (that’s how it’s spelled here) jumping was invented in New Zealand. Oh sure, there were a few natives somewhere in Africa tying vines to their ankles and jumping off of tall poles once. But it took a Kiwi with “No Fear” tattooed on his derriere to substitute giant rubber bands and leap off of a bridge 1000 feet in the air!  Now a days you’ll find all manner of bungee jumping throughout New Zealand.  I decided to take the plunge for my birthday last year after many dares and double-dares from my brother-in-law who was visiting with us at the time.  What a rush!  Head-long into the Waikato River in Taupo.  Glad I did it…might even do it again when my other brother-in-law comes for Thanksgiving. I think I can double-dog-dare him and he probably won’t do it, so I might be off the hook. 

There are a lot of other examples of the Kiwi “anything goes” mentality here too. Zorbing, where one climbs into a giant plastic ball to be pushed off a platform and roll head-over-heels down a steep hill, is something we do when we need an extra shot of adrenalin.  There’s jet boating and “fly by wire” too.  You can mountain climb, tramp (hike) through ancient bush country or ski powder that’s never been touched.  Lakes abound with fish itching to bite and of course there’s the ocean. For the less spirited there are miles of pristine beaches to lie on.  Divers can check out the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior which was sunk by the French Secret Service (not so secret now huh?) here a few years back.  Then there is “black water rafting” in the Waitomo Caves.  Black water rafting is not so much rafting as it is scrambling to try to stay on a giant rubber inner tube while floating down a river inside the pitch darkness of a scary series of ancient caves populated by “glow worms”.  Yes, like the song says, glow worms can be found right here in New Zealand and they do glimmer a bit.  But the best part of Black Water Rafting is standing at the top of a waterfall in a pitch-dark cave, holding on to your inner tube for dear life, closing your eyes and falling backwards into the void at the behest of your guide and a half-dozen other “explorers”…and surviving!  Now that is trust my friend.

These and most of the other things Kiwis consider fun could never be enjoyed in the U.S. because no American insurance company would ever write a policy to cover them.  In New Zealand common sense prevails and lawsuits are kept to a bare minimum.  Before you embark on any crazy, fun-filled, white knuckled adventure you sign a release.  It goes something like this; “I (insert name here) understand that what I’m about to do is not for the faint of heart, will likely make me scream, could impair my driving later, make me walk funny and might – in the worst of circumstances – cause me to lose life or limb.  I do this willingly and absolve anyone on the staff, administration or New Zealand Government from any liability whatsoever.”  You sign your name and that’s that.  The attitude here is that if you get hurt, it’s your own darn fault…don’t come crying to us!  We like that. 

Spring in New Zealand is a lot like spring everywhere else though.  You see more people outside, walking their dogs, pruning their roses and otherwise spending inordinate amounts of money down at the home improvement store or “DIY” as they call them here.  As with many things in days of old in America, New Zealand is beginning to tackle some of the more important things in life.  Things like the advent of the mega-box store.  Even today the small retail store flourishes here though.  Although you can find meat products in the local supermarket, everyone knows that if you want a good cut of beef, chicken or lamb, you go to the local butcher.  What a concept!  Likewise, you’ll find a variety of vegetables at the supermarket, but the best and freshest are to be found at the produce market…much of it organic. 

The corner hardware store (just like in Mayberry) can still be found here as well. A nice man with an apron will come out from behind the counter of his tidy retail shop and actually give you sage advice as to which hammer you might need to pound which nail into various objects.  He’s been doing this for thirty years, having been an apprentice to the original owner’s grandson, and you know what he’s telling you is right.  He may not have a lot on hand, but he probably has what you need and you don’t have to wander up and down thirty isles of walls filled with things which you have no idea what they’re for to find it.  There are of course a few chain stores, but even those are fairly small and easy to manoeuvre.   Sadly one company has either been infiltrated by some American home improvement executives or in some horror movie miracle they had a dream about tearing down fourteen small businesses so they could erect a giant box and stuff it with every manner of power tool, garden implement and 142 different faucets.  And oh, let’s paint it, yes, that’s it…bright orange!  Many Kiwis are rejoicing at this sign of “progress”.  Sandy and I will do our best to continue to patronize the little guy down the street…as long as he’s in business anyway.

Other parts of our romance with this land are harder to quantify or put into words.  Perhaps a good example might be to tell you about something that happened to us before we even arrived.  We knew we would be staying in Rotorua for a few months when we got here.  Of course tourism is a big part of the New Zealand economy and part of what makes this place great is the lack of big chain hotels, etc.  The big cities have the standard Hiltons and Holiday Inns, but for the most part accommodations are handled by independent hotels and some great bed and breakfasts. There is also what is known as a “holiday home”.  These are furnished houses located in popular touristy areas that the owners rent out to visitors a few days at a time, mostly to locals, but to tourists from other countries as well.  Since we didn’t want to sign a six-month lease on an apartment or “flat” and we weren’t going to have our belongings delivered for a while, I hit on this holiday home idea.  Since it was winter or “low season” I thought someone might be interested in having a couple of full-time guests in lieu of their place sitting empty most of the time.  After a bit of searching on the web I found several in the area and sent each owner an e-mail describing what we were up to.  Every single one I wrote to wrote back!  That told us something about Kiwis in and of itself.  After some additional e-mails we settled on a home that had just been built by Lake Rotorua.  It’s owned by a wonderful couple named Lindsay and Adel. 

Lindsay runs a fishing business called the “Complete Angler”.  Folks stay in one of the two homes Lindsay owns and he takes them out to the best fishing spots, even showing them how it’s done if they’re novices.  He’s been doing this for about twenty years and is very good at what he does.  Trout tremble at his name.  Lindsay liked the idea of renting out his home for the three months we wanted to stay.  They’d even let us have our two cats (after they were released from prison…um, quarantine).  We sent him a small deposit and started making preparations for our move. 

One thing we were going to need to do was have our mail forwarded.  I sent a note to Lindsay asking him about mail boxes there, if they had places similar to the U.S. where you could rent a mail box with a key, etc.  The next day I received a note back saying “Yes, there is a store nearby with mailboxes.  I’ve rented one in your name and here’s your new address.  I’ll give you the keys as soon as you get here.”  Amazing!  No “yes there is” or “here’s how you contact them”, but he actually went down filled out the paperwork for us and spent his own money to open it telling us we could settle up later!  I know that it’s a small thing, but that’s how it went from then on. 

We were never in need of anything once we arrived thanks to Lindsay and Adel’s incredible hospitality.  They made sure we could find our way around and told us about every little aspect of living in New Zealand we could hope for.  We shared many dinners (not to mention Kiwi wine and Tui Beers) with these good people.  Lindsay and Adel as well as their two wonderful children, Hannah and Paul, have become part of our “family” here.  And we’ve come to find out that they are really not that unusual as Kiwi’s go.  We’ve been told that it might be a little hard to get to know the locals, but when you do, you’ve got a friend for life.  That has been our experience.  We’ve hired several contractors for small jobs around the house and now consider most of them to be our friends.  If we called anyone for work and they didn’t do what we needed or couldn’t do it right away, they knew someone that did.  We called a local plumber the other day and were disappointed that he didn’t return our call the following day…we were quite frankly surprised as everyone else was fairly quick to respond.  The day after that the plumber was at our door (we didn’t even give him the address…he just had heard that an American couple just moved in and assumed that it was us!) and he was ready to take care of the work that needed doing…right then! 

That’s the kind of place this is.  It continually surprises us and often reminds us of the U.S. 30 or 40 years ago.  Everyone seems to take care of each other and there’s a genuine sense of community.  With the exception of the inevitable “big box” here and there, it’s a great place to be!

I’ve received a lot of e-mails with some really good questions about New Zealand. I’ve responded to all of them and have actually found some new friends that may be expatriates themselves one day!  If you didn’t get a response, my apologies but several “bounced” for one reason or another…perhaps that snazzy new anti-spam software you just installed thought I was trying to sell you some performance enhancing drugs!  If I haven’t covered things you’re interested in this time or in a previous article, hang in there, there’s more to come.  Or if you were asking for money…sorry again, I’d love to help, but I already own enough shares in several Nigerian oil conglomerates! 

Next I’ll give you a little more insight about day-to-day life in New Zealand and how some things are the same and some are really different.  Driving on the other side of the road has its challenges for instance.  And then there’s the story of trying to find a shower curtain rod.  Plus we were treated to a wonderful picnic outing where our food was cooked by a lake…without a fire!  In the meantime I have to read up on the official rules of rugby. 

Until then, cheerz!

Rick

The following are Rick's previous articles for the magazine:

• We Did It! ~ Escaping To New Zealand
• We Did It! - Part Deux ~ Moving To New Zealand 

• http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/
• http://www.emigratenz.org/
• http://benz1.com/forum/index.php?s=2b5a621987b160a0bac291321e62297d

To contact Rick Click Here