Day 21: Leaving the land of the Kiwi

Today, after a big buffet breakfast we were taken to Dunedin Airport, with one last smoko stop. (In case you are not familiar with the lingo, although the word arose from a smoking break, ours were mainly for coffee and the toilet...)

Here are some other Kiwi words and expressions:

"TO MUCH" makes no sense to me, but I hope they did not mean "TOO MUCH"! And "chilly bin" seems to be missing.

Being a linguist, I tried to learn a bit of Maori while I was there, but even the place names were difficult to remember, and many were very similar. There are a lot of "K"s, "W"s, and "P"s, and every other vowel seems to be an "A"... It is similar to, and related to, Hawaiian, but seems to have a lot more vowels.

Speaking of place names, when we were on the North Island, I was disappointed that we did not make it to:

Taumatawhakatangi­hangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapikimaunga­horonukupokaiwhen­uakitanatahu

as I had wanted to take a photograph of the road sign. (I grabbed this one off the Internet.)

In case you are interested, there are even longer versions of the name, and it means, roughly translated:  "The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the slider, climber of mountains, the land-swallower who travelled about, played his nose flute to his loved one".

Back to my photos, here was our last smoko stop:

Next to the coffee place... I sort of collect names of hairdressers.

At Dunedin Airport I had a long wait for my flight to Auckland. More coffee, and a lot of Lepidoptera exhibits to look at:

This book was intriguing, but far too heavy!

I had an even longer wait (flight delayed three hours) for my next flight to Melbourne. Before I exchanged my New Zealand dollars, I photographed them. They are so pretty!

When my mother went to Hawaii in the 1950s, she met someone from Dunedin and they kept in touch for the next fifty-odd years. I had been sent a little Maori doll (with a feathered cape) when I was small, and this woman and her husband visited my parents in the States a couple of times. In 1989, my parents made their first and only visit to New Zealand and stayed with these friends in Dunedin, and before they went, were given a Berlitz guide book by some other friends. I took this ancient book with me.

This is meant to be a typical Aucklander. Somehow, I did not see him.

Nor did I see any aspiring young Coppertone models sunning their back sides in the square...

E noho ra, Aotearoa! Ka kite ano! (Farewell, New Zealand! I'll see you again!)