N is for New Zealand!

New Zealand is great! For today's #SpankA2Z June Challenge I've found a list of things that prove New Zealand is a really awesome country.

PAVLOVA! There's long been contention over this delicious dessert with the Aussies trying to claim it as their own, but the Oxford Dictionary has spoken - Pavlova comes from New Zealand. Sorry Aussie!

RUSSELL CROWE! Everyone's heard of Russell Crowe, right? Another Kiwi that our neighbours across the ditch keep trying to claim as their own (he calls himself an Aussie too) but he was born in Wellington, the southern-most capital city in the world.

KEITH URBAN! Who hasn't heard of Keith Urban? He's only one of the greatest singers of this century and married to famous actress Nicole Kidman. Keith was born in Whangarei, at the top of New Zealand.

PHAR LAP! Another Kiwi the Aussies keep trying to claim - this famous racehorse might have a commemorative statue in Aussie, but he was born here in Timaru, NZ.

BUNGY JUMPING! Only a Kiwi would be crazy enough to invent this adrenaline-pumping activity! Organised commercial bungy-jumping was started by Kiwi AJ Hackett here in Auckland, NZ, in 1986.

LAKE TAUPO! The biggest fresh-water lake in Australasia and the size of Singapore, this crater lake was formed from the biggest volcanic explosion ever in the last 5000 years.

ELECTRIC FENCES! Electric fences were in use in the USA in the early 1930s but it was NZ inventor Bill Gallagher who made one out of a car ignition coil and magneto set in 1936.

SIR EDMUND HILLARY! The man to grace out $5 note is the same man who first conquered Mt. Everest. Born and bred in New Zealand.

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE! New Zealand paved the way for gender equality when in 1893 they became the first major nation to give women the vote. It later went on to become the first country to have it's three top positions of power held simultaneously by women: Prime Minister Helen Clark, Governer General Dame Silvia Cartwright and Chief Justice Sian Elias.

KIWIS! To the rest of the world, a Kiwi is a little fluffy green fruit. To us, that's a kiwifruit. A Kiwi is our native flightless bird.

MOA! One of the largest birds in history, it stood 3.6m tall and weighed 300kg. Unfortunately the Maori's hunted it to extinction by the end of the 1500s.

SHEEP! Although dairy farming is huge here, we still have a lot of sheep - currently 9 sheep for every human. We used to have more than this.

NUCLEAR FREE! NZ is passionately nuclear-free, forced out of ANZUS in the 1980s when we outlawed nuclear power. We pay through the nose for our electricity instead.

RECENTLY POPULATED! Other than the polar regions, we were the last major landmass to be populated.

So there you have it. Aside from the fact that I live here, New Zealand is a pretty awesome country!

The other participants of this blog hop are below: