On 10/02/14, Rob McCart pondered and said...
 
 RM> I've never heard too much about New Zealand other than it's supposed
 RM> to be quite beautiful with all the mountains and forests. Living where
 RM> I do we appreciate the outdoors as well. Lots of hiking and boating.
 RM> I also heard that NZ is more laid back than most of the rest of the
 RM> world, more old fashioned maybe ?  I suppose that may depend on where
 RM> you live there too..

It's a nice place to live, but then again I would say that wouldn't I :-)

Population of the country sits around 4.3 million people and the bulk of them
live in the North Island  (3 million or so) and the remainder in the South
Island where I live.

There's a lot of space here and a feeling of being less crowded that quite a
few other places - we'll that's my take on it.

Flying from Auckland in the North Island down to Dunedin in the lower South
Island (my city) takes about an hour and a half (direct by jet) in travel
time. So compared to Australia or USA it's small :-)

Laid back? Yes I'd like to think so. Further north it's more multicultural
than down my end of the country (colder down here :-)) so up in Auckland a
lot of folks tha arrive in NZ often stay up there because they like the temps.

We have people that have settled here from across the pacific region (Tonga,
Fiji, Samoa) we also have people from China, India, Australia, England and
USA coming to live here. Heck James Cameron (Avatar / Titanic movie fame) now
calls NZ home :-)

It's a young country history wise. Maori people are the indigenious race,
Europeans arrived around 100+ years ago mostly from the UK and colonised the
place. There is a treaty that was signed between the two peoples that
acknowledges both parties as equals although over the last 100 years Maori in
particluar have argued it has not been honoured as wel as it should have been.

So there's been a lot of soul seraching, anquish, formal apologies and
moneatary reparations made over the last 2-3 decades. Still, it feels like
normal growing pains for a young country to me and in the great scheme of
things I think we're all doing well as country.

Hope this helps, I started started rambling so I'll stop, but ask away any
questions you may have. I'd be interested to hear your take on where you live
and equally fire a few newbie questions in your direction if you're
interested in chatting further.

Regards, Paul


`I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid, and I'm not going' - Kerr Avon, Blake's 7

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