1. Bring Your Own
PARTIES IN NEW Zealand are a parsimonious affair. They’re not the sharingest of bunches, and the custom is for people to bring a plate of their own food and their own beer.
Whereas in Ireland that might result in a free-for-all and a casual “ah yeah, work away,” when asked to supplement those who had conveniently ‘forgotten their wallets,’ this does not hold Down Under. If you bring it, you drink it. Nobody else. Got that?
2. Hokey pokey ice cream
We orginally read this as hanky panky ice cream, but that has more to do with our mental age of seven than anything else. If you hold a degree in sponge toffee making (and, let’s face it, who doesn’t?) then you’ll be making this as a cool and refreshing bridge between lots of barbequed meat and utter drunkenness. It’s really just vanilla ice cream with bit of toffee in it, though, and sounds quite boring to us.
3. Play dress up
Everybody in this part of the world knows that New Zealand was invented some time in the early 2000s as a country to stage the filming of ‘Lord Of The Rings,’ so what could be funnier than doing a back garden haka in full Gandalf garb? Lots, as it turns out.
4. Get drunk and form a musical double act
It’ll be hilarious – there you are with your Sam Gamgee afro, your Ronan O’Gara-signed replica jersey and your seventeen bottles of Heineken. What’s next to do? Pick up a guitar, collar your best mate and start performing some badly choreographed and tuneless musical numbers under the mistaken impression that you’re the next Jemaine and Bret. Then fall over, pass out and wake up on Wednesday.
