Interesting

Today, we have been doing the long drive down from Tongariro National Park, where Mt Ruapehu is situated, down towards Wellington. We are south of Levin at the moment, having holed up for the night before continuing onto the capital tomorrow. As such, most of todays highlights include continued sightings of lambs (at which I coo gratuitously and Alex licks his lips), lots of white cars turning up out of nowhere (seriously, why are all Kiwi cars white?) and us running out of all food excepting breakfast. So, instead I include a little selection of interesting things we have noticed here; 
1. Cillit Bang, of the product that provides brilliant amusment value with its adverts, is found in NZ too, but under the name of Bam!
2. About nine out of every ten Kiwis has a personalised number plate on their car. Favourites include: OD1, LUVM3, R0YA1 and SK1.
3. The supermarket we have been patronising, Pak 'n' Save, has bright yellow and black insignia and resembles the unlikely offspring of an Ikea Warehouse and a LIDLs. If flat pack furniture and random Eastern European produce had children, of course.
4. The radio has just gleefully pronounced the results of a survey on accents in which the Kiwi accent was rated as second after British most attractive English-speaking accent.
5. The place we have parked tonight is a random field. Insignificent apart from the two magnificent roosters that are waiting outside the doors of the car. They follow us around when we leave the car. They stare at us from right outside the windows. Our only relief from their baleful glares is now to be found in darkness.
6. These are not the only bizarre birds hanging about strange places. We came across a turkey, happily grazing at the side of a road, no farmstead or any other turkeys to be seen. Not to mention all the other crazy, weird and wonderful birds that NZ has just casually strolling about.

That is all I can remember right now.
Alex has been working on a googlemap that shows our trip in detail, which is a cool little detail we'll add to the blog when its complete.
So far 1350km over the North Island, onto Wellington tomorrow!