Kaiteriteri, NZ

Friday afternoon, we took the 3 hour flight from Sydney to Wellington, New Zealand, located on the southern portion of the north island. We really did not see much of Wellington, other than the Starbucks down the street from our hotel, but it looks like a pretty neat little city.

On Saturday morning, we woke up, headed back to the airport and caught our puddlejumper over to Nelson, on the northern part of the south island. It was only about a 30 minute flight.

From Nelson, we drove about an hour and a half to Kaiteriteri, which is located on the northern part of the western coast. Along the way, we stopped at a KFC for lunch (nothing says NZ like KFC). We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast run by a retired ship captain and his wife. Their names are Tom and Allyson, and Tim and Liz have developed a relationship with them, having stayed at their B&B several times before. Our house was really cool. It was actually voted one of the Top 10 NZ B&B's by the London Times. It was designed to look like a ship, as shown in the picture. Inside, the floors were wooden, and the kitchen cabinets even had floor level lighting, like a ship. The shower doors were hinged one-piece units that worked like a ship shower. It was really a cute place.

It rained most of Saturday afternoon, so we just layed around in the house and relaxed. We had stopped at a grocery store along the way, so we even stayed in for dinner. Tim and I made the girls watch the digitally remastered Star Wars movie, and Rachel found a puzzle-game called Tantrix, which was developed in NZ. The picture to the right is the view from our house.

Sunday morning, the weather was much improved, so we drove across the street to the lookout for some pictures. There was a memorial there designating where the British captain first came ashore, who originally founded Nelson. It turns out that he is a direct-line ancestor to Tom, who I will discuss more later.

After lingering at the lookout for a few minutes, we headed down to the beach in Kaiteriteri (shown here behind me and Rach).

Here, Rachel takes in a wave against the rocks at the beach. We played around for an hour or so, and then went across the street to the market for lunch. After lunch, we headed down to Abel Tasman National Park, about 20 minutes away.


Abel Tasman is a bit of a mini-Appalaichan Trail, in that it takes several days to hike the whole trek. Several backpackers camp along the way. We did the hike during low tide, so there were lots of crabs on the beach, digging into the sand. It was pretty fun to watch. There were also several pesky bees in the area - not so fun. We only did the first 3 kilometers of the trek, as we were pressed for time. We were invited to Allyson's house for "tea" at 5 PM.

The video below was taken during our hike. There were several ducks swimming around in the tidal pools. They were fun to watch. I don't know if they were bathing or what, but they kept flipping their wings like this one.



At 5 P.M., we headed up to Tom's and Allyson's on top of this hill. Their house is magnificent!!! It looks like any mid-America house you would see, only it is situated on top of the hill, overlooking water on three sides. The land has been in the family for over 150 years. Tom and Allyson plan on selling it in the next few years, as their sons cannot commit to living there. (This picture is of a California Quail, which was introduced for game when the settlers arrived).


Unfortunately, Tom was not there on Sunday afternoon. He and his 17 year old grandson had gone to a weekend-long boat competition a couple of hours away.

The video below shows the views from Tom and Allyson's house.


REFLECTIONS - The New Zealand Vowel Shift

Everyone knows that in the United States that there is a big difference in accents across geographies. People in Philadelphia sound very different from people in Chicago and VERY different from people in Knoxville, TN. I was surprised to learn that the same is true in England, when I lived there. People in Liverpool have a "scouse" accent, which is very different from the London "cockney" accent. The scouse is also difficult to understand for those of us who were brought up hearing all London accents from the English movie stars on television (scouse is much faster, slangier and difficult to comprehend".



I am proud to report that thanks to our resident linguists, Tim and Liz, we were able to learn the differences of a Kiwi (NZ) accent vs. an Australian accent. Allyson, pictured with all of us here has a very thick New Zealand accent. You can hear it clearly in the video below.

The New Zealand accent:

1) Shift the short "i" sound to a short "u" - Ex: ship = shup
2) Shift short "e" sound to short "i" (why they can pronounce a short "i" when they should pronounce an "e", and not when they should be pronouncing a short "i" is beyond me. Ex: leg = lig

When we left for New Zealand, my goal was to get as many Kiwis as I could to say "Fush and chups". When I got there, I found out it was much more entertaining to let them say things on their own.

During our tour of the B&B, Allyson informed me that the wooden floors were meant to resemble "shup dicking" (ship decking). In the video below, she says "ut" instead of "it" a couple of times. Near the end of the video, she also tells us how gulls don't like to have anything over their "hid" (head).

I laugh at the accent just as everyone in the U.S. laughs at mine. It is good-natured fun-poking. Allyson was extremely hospitable to us, and it was incredibly kind for her to invite us into her home for the afternoon. We had a great time talking with her.