After making a similar list about South America while waiting for my flight to New Zealand, I made this my farewell-to-this-continent tradition. It gave me time to reflect on my experiences in different regions and to appreciate what I had liked and disliked before moving on to the next leg of the journey. So as I sat in the Perth airport waiting for my flight to Kuala Lumpur, I pulled out the trusty notebook and pen and made my two columns.

Lake Pukaki, NZ

Things I Will Miss About New Zealand and Australia

–South Island. Pretty much all of it.

-The fact that practically no wildlife in NZ is life-threatening

-Entertaining accents

-The Pacific Ocean and the beaches

-The price of lamb and fresh seafood

–Aussie Shiraz and NZ Sauvignon Blanc

-Koorie paintings

-Hamish and Andy radio podcasts

-Koalas

-“The Castle”

-The weather: almost always sunny and if it rained, almost always got a rainbow out of it

-People being able to tell the difference between Canadian and American accents

Deadly Black Widow/Redback Spider! (morguefile photo)

Things I Will Not Miss About New Zealand and Australia

–Auckland

-The fact that nearly everything in Australia is lethally venomous (spiders, snakes, jellyfish, scorpions, and believe it or not, platypus)

-Also, sharks

-Getting a headache from trying to make my brain compute that traffic keeps to the left, not the right

-Lack of breakfast cereal variety in NZ

-Water restrictions in Australia

–Sandflies

–Mangy kangaroos

–Dodgy Australian hostels

-“Glassings”

-Non-insulated housing

-People referring to North America as “America”. Sigh.