When the Cheshire emerges...

Being Australian, I always imagined going to NZ would be cheap. I'd come back from Europe twice with a good amount of money to spare, so for a fortnight across the ditch I thought I'd be rolling in it. It was the first time I'd ever gotten MORE for the Australian dollar on a large scale. Staying with friends for about half the time was also going to save me a couple of hundred or so right?

Weird money

I did take a skydive into account, that it would cost about $500 or so with photos. The money just felt lighter... seriously, it IS lighter now since they changed it a few years back. The 10c piece so often confused with ours can't be anymore because it's changed colour!

But it didn't hit me until three days in that I would really be pushing it with the money I'd brought over. I struggled to stay away from vintage clothes in Auckland on day four - I regretted putting down a $5 top only to have a girl carry it around the store some two minutes later. Bad afternoon that was.

By the time I got to Wellington and my friend Laura said that it shouldn't really be a problem because I WAS still getting more bang for my buck. She was totally right. I ended up splurging on about NZ$100 on clothes that day and didn't feel bad for it (read my full purchase wrap when you can). And later on plenty of coffee and cake. I was getting 25 per cent off everything after all right?

More where that came from... how else can you best observe a city?

In Queenstown, the skydive did cost me about what I thought. And then I did the canyon swing (read my first entry of the NZ makes you series on that). I had to transfer more money with four days to go - and then I didn't realise that could take three days. To say I was worried for about 24 hours was an understatement.

But all came through and I survived. And I DID come home with money! Just part of the backup I didn't intend on using. Oops :D

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Check in the same time tomorrow for how I dealt with the NZ summer!