11/03/2009

More NZ trivia

My first post of NZ trivia can be found here. I thought I'd give you a little more to wonder about marvel at from this strange interesting place.


  • NZ has about 600 museums and art galleries.
  • The first white women to arrive were escaped convicts from Australia in 1806.
  • 'Cervena' is the trade name for farm-raised NZ deer.
  • Prostitution was decriminalized in 2003.
  • In 1898, 'old age pension' was introduced in NZ, the first of it's kind in the world. 
  • The 'widow's pension' became law in 1911.
  • There are 30 species of fleas here.
  • NZ's first record-pressing plant opened in Wellington in 1948. The first record produced was 'Buttons and Bows' by Dinah Shore.
  • Leonard Deogood was a Charlie Chaplin impersonator who starred in several NZ comedies in the 1920's.
  • Color TVs came to NZ in 1973.
  • 23,000 NZers worked on the Lord of the Rings movies.
  • The international date line passes about 160 kilometers from Gisborne.
  • Gavin McCormick formed his own political party, called "The Pull Yourself Together Party".
  • New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote.
  • Pygmy pines grow in the alpine regions of NZ.
  • Kaimanawa horses are a feral breed that roam in the Kaimanawa mountains of the northern island.

7 comments:

Fi from Four Paws and Whiskers said...

Wow - didn't know some of those!
We really have 30 flea species!

Interesting :)

Deb said...

cool info......

Juli said...

I wonder why we don't hear more about the Australian women convicts!

Paul said...

It's strange, But I'm a kiwi who escaped to Aussie ... course, I wasn't being hounded by convicts ... actually, I didn't even really escape - more got on a plane in a leisurely manner ...

oh okay, so its not strange at all

... don't know why I bother sometimes, I really don't ...

Neat List.

Paul.

An Uncommonly Ordinary Blog

Marja said...

Very interesting With some things they are the first with others very late. I know some people who have starred in the lord of the Rings. Two wre in the army and they used lots of them
Thanks for the great information

MsTypo said...

Here from BPOTW! :)

30 types of fleas?! That's crazy!! *eek*

Sallie said...

fun learning new stuff about a place I know so little about. Seems like it's often true that transplanted people learn more about where they live than the locals who just take everything for granted.