Welcome to New Zealand…

What a warm welcome to New Zealand….NOT.

We were actually greeted with high winds and rain. Glorious. To be honest, it was actually seriously refreshing to have some rain after not seeing any for months. I would love to say that my first experience of NZ got better and improved from the initial first impression given by the weather, however I am sad to report it didn’t due to a saucy situation I found myself in. (Behave!)

The first port in NZ we visited was Wellington. Myself, Caroline and Jack explored a little and then found a lovely little bar/active brewery to sit down to have some lunch. We all ordered food such as a burger which came with a side order of fries.

When my food arrived, it came with a pot of Ketchup on the side. Not a huge deal in the true perspective of life, however Jack’s fries came with a pot of Mayonnaise. Now I am in no way ungrateful for things life offers me, but as more of a mayo lover myself, I suddenly gained a large amount of mayo envy (it’s a genuine feeling). There was only one thing I could do… I politely requested a side of the mayonnaise that Jack had on his plate, to replace the ketchup which originally accompanied my meal.

Now, in hindsight I really wish I was aware of the true value of New Zealand Mayonnaise, because the waitress accepted my request of replacing the ketchup, BUT she told me it would cost me a whole $2 for the privilege of doing so.

Well.

I.

Never.

I was taken back at first, but as always, I covered all bases in my head before giving a final, solidified reaction. My thought process was as follows:

1. It wasn’t just Mayonnaise. It was a more complex, flavoured sauce like Aioli or something similar. It would cost more to buy as a business, so naturally there would be a cost for this speciality sauce. Charge understandable.

2. She was joking. This was extremely unlikely as a smile never cracked across her face. The only thing to crack was my heart at the thought of actually paying $2 for a pot of Mayonnaise.

3. I misheard her. I definitely didn’t, but as always, I am completely open to accept and consider my own faults (There are absolutely none).

For the pricely sum of $2 I ovbiously expected quite a big deal when this pot of New Zealand mayonnaise magic finally arrived. I wanted a sparkler including a whole procession like they do in nightclubs when you spend £150 on some bottle of spirit that you literally could of bought in a supermarket for £30.

Oh, how I was bitterly disappointed by the presentation of my apparently high value condiment. The waitress had the absolute audacity to simply place it on the table by hand and accompany this questionable presentation technique with the phrase:

‘You can pay at the bar after you have eaten’.

Oh I can? How lovely to know.

Now, I’m not entirely sure what I am more embarrassed about, the fact I potentially thought she was joking or the fact I actually went and paid $2 as a card payment for this Mayonnaise after I had finished eating.

On reflection, it’s definitely the latter. What an absolute mayonnaise mug I am.

So, as a word of warning to anyone travelling to New Zealand anytime in the future, please be warned that the condiments you can easily acquire in bottle loads on your tables in the UK (Wetherspoons I’m talking to you!), are in fact a real delicacy here, that you will certainly pay the price for.

I was tempted to take it with me as I had very nearly slipped into the “I’ve paid for it, I’m taking it” mindset, however, In protest of paying for a container of such disappointment, I felt it was necessary to make my feelings known by leaving them on the table in the sauce itself. I think it was more impactful…

Following on from my understandable, devastating experience of paying a high price for such a common meal accompaniment, The following day we arrived in Picton, New Zealand.

When we arrived, I was immediately taken back by a strange sense of nostalgia. Have I been here before? Then I realised why. Isn’t it weird when you travel across the entire world and suddenly end up in one of the closest villages to your home town?

I had the entire day to myself so I decided to explore a little. Picton itself is beautiful. With absolutely stunning views.

I decided embrace the Culture of Picton and go to the Picton aquarium.

Initially, it didn’t look that big, in-fact it bore remarkable resemblance to one of the sea life centres you would find in a British seaside town. However, this was the sign outside and there was one thing that caught my attention and got me a little bit excited:

“Giant Squid”. Wow. That’s freaking awesome.

Now, I’m aware of little marketing strategies and was prepared that it probably wasn’t an actual ‘giant’ just quite a large squid, but nonetheless I have never seen one up close before, so I thought it would be cool to go and see it. I am pretty confident in saying that this was probably 80% of the reason of me paying the $24 entrance fee to the aquarium itself.

So, squid excited Sam entered the aquarium and well… Erm, I personally do think it was quite a stretch to call it an ‘aquarium’, being totally honest. I think I could of actually created something more impressive with some glass tanks and a couple of visits to the pet store to get some fish.

The first thing to see were some ‘blue’ penguins. They were cute. I would like to point out there were only 3 of them. Yes. three little ‘blue’ penguins. I’ll admit there was a hint of blue, which was kinda cool. I’ll give them that. Then again I think I was partially expecting them to look like smurfs, so my expectation was never realistic.

At this point the disappointment level was initially established, and I personally was left feeling a little blue (pardon the pun) but as always, I remained positive and also still had the giant squid to look forward to, so it still looked promising.

Next up was the ‘big fish’ tank. Quite a few reasonably large sized fish, And one single ray, sat at the bottom, not even swimming or showing a single sign of being a living creature. Interesting. I’m actually convinced it was plastic but I guess I will never know. I was nearly tempted to try and rouse it somehow with various techniques including grabbing the nearest object (which just happened to be a blue penguin) and throwing it in the general direction of the ray. However, I do believe this would have ended with me being forcibly removed from the building, and I still had the giant squid to look forward to. Why would I want to jeopardize that?

Next it was onto the ‘Mystical Seahorses’. Straight away they can get rid of the ‘S’ at the end of the word ‘Seahorses’ because the only mystical thing about these are where the hell the rest of them went? There was ONE single seahorse. Horsing around or doing whatever seahorses do. I again found myself naturally a little disappointed with this but I did still had the Giant Squid to look forward to so it wasn’t anything of great concern at this point.

The time came. The Giant (pardon another pun) chance for this “Aquarium” to redeem itself and give me something quite exciting, and intriguing to look at. I turned the corner to the entrance of the ‘Giant Squid’ tank and well, this is what I saw….

You have GOT to be joking…

It. was. DEAD.

A DEAD ‘giant’ Squid.

I was so taken back, I just stood staring at this disgusting, decaying, disappointing mess for about 5 minutes. Literally trying to get my head around this whole situation. Did I miss the word ‘Exhibit’ or had I suddenly somehow entered a museum without realising? The worst thing about this whole situation, is that the ‘Giant’ Squid was actually only about 4 foot long. I was actually bigger that this ‘Giant’ squid.

This lead me to think: if this is what they class as a ‘Giant’, I seriously wonder what my corpse would be called if placed in a tank:

‘Sam Wearing: The ‘Mega Giant’ measuring over 6ft long.

That was it. I was done. I made my way to the exit, probably one of the most disappointed people on the planet. Now I really wish I was joking about what happened next, but, no word of a lie, on the way out of this so called ‘aquarium’ I genuinely passed a tank containing a lizard and then a rabbit in a cage. Even the rabbit couldn’t face me as it was so overcome with shame:

On reflection, I should have known this place was full of failures and disappointments as soon as I saw the pathetic presentation of pissing penguins.

Now, in hindsight I do strongly believe the hint of blue on the penguins happened as a result of the sheer embarrassment and shame for living in such a mess of an ‘aquarium’. It all makes complete sense now…

So, if anyone is ever in the Picton area, and finds themselves considering paying the entry fee to the aquarium/museum/centre of dissapointment, save yourself some pennies and go get a pie from the bakery up the road instead. You’ll get a lot more enjoyment and satisfaction from a delicious $5 pie than a room full of 3 blue penguins, a seahorse and a fucking dead squid*.

*The Lizard and Rabbit are not even worthy of a mention at this point.

This post was written somewhere in the Tasman Sea between Sydney and New Zealand.

Sam Wearing

Highly dissapointed Squid and Mayonnaise Enthusiast

26, The Ocean

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