Even to our nearest neighbours, New Zealand can seem a little odd. Australian Associated Press correspondent Tamara McLean took a long look at our quirks and foibles in 2009.
A robber who leaves his name and address, a memorial service for a man who isn't dead and a teacher who poses nude for Penthouse just to annoy her cheating boyfriend.
Where else in the world but New Zealand?
Our Kiwi neighbour can always be relied on to produce some of the world's quirkiest, funniest and downright ridiculous news.
And 2009 was no exception, especially with the debacle over a misplaced decimal point that handed $10 million cash to an opportunistic Kiwi couple who quickly fled overseas.
Here are the highlights of a wacky year across the ditch:
Petty crim William Stewart won the hearts of his fellow Kiwis after escaping the clutches of bumbling police for 100 days. Stewart, a rough-and-ready Michael Bolton lookalike, seemed to enjoy his status, at one stage stealing a pie from a farm kitchen and engraving a thank you note into the table from "Billy The Hunted One". He was jailed for his antics but not before inspiring a song, a T-shirt range and Facebook fan page.
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Failed service station owner Leo Gao couldn't believe his eyes when, in April, Westpac accidentally added extra zeros to his overdraft facility. The Chinese New Zealander skipped the country overnight, taking his girlfriend on a gambling and spending spree across Asia. Not surprisingly, they haven't been seen since.
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A man vying for the title of New Zealand's most incompetent criminal left his name and contact details with a shop before robbing it and fleeing. The man - a regular customer of the music shop in Christchurch - ordered a CD before grabbing banknotes from the till with four cameras trained on him.
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When Kiwi primary schoolteacher Rachel Whitwell decided to pose nude for Australian Penthouse she wasn't thinking of the fame or the fortune. She just wanted to annoy her cheating boyfriend. But the ploy backfired, with saucy pics of Whitwell frolicking in a spa splashed across New Zealand papers, leaving her career and her relationship in tatters.
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A dead-pan joke about the safety of eating overheated meat pies catapulted a Kiwi cop into internet super-stardom. Policeman Guy Baldwin was captured on camera interviewing a late-night carjacker who was trying to claim he was merely off to buy a meat pie at the local service station. Baldwin's witty reply was: "That pie has probably been in the warming drawer for about 12 hours. It will be thermo-nuclear - always blow on the pie. Always blow on the pie, safer communities together, okay." Unfortunately the young crim didn't get the joke.
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A beloved family cat had an extra chilly brush with death after his owners accidentally shut him in the freezer for 19 hours. Sarah Crombie found Krillen the cat lying stiff and semi-conscious on a bag of dog food when she went to get a loaf of bread out of the freezer. The moggy, who had slipped into the top-loading freezer unnoticed the night before, was semi-frozen and hypothermic but purred loudly with relief.
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Meat-flavoured chocolate might not be everyone's idea of delicious, but a Kiwi chocolatier claims her salami-tinged treats are just that. Sweet maker Hanna Frederick developed venison chocolate truffles to feed dozens of meat lovers at New Zealand's Meat Industry Association conference.
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A Kiwi canine was in the dog box after driving his owner's ute into the front of a cafe. Wilco, a Staffordshire ridgeback-cross, proved why dogs should never be left alone in a running vehicle when his paw slipped the column gear change into drive. The ute edged forward 15m before crunching into the front doors of a cafe, causing thousands of dollars in damage.
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A Kiwi man has become so obsessed with seeing his name in print that he lies regularly to get it there. Andrew Prieditis is from small-town New Zealand but the self-confessed letter-writing addict has been published in more than 80 newspapers globally. His trick is to supply a false local address.
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The condolences were sent and the memorial service was planned. The only problem: Peter Claridge wasn't actually dead. The Kiwi man got the shock of a lifetime to hear his death was being mourned throughout his hometown when he was, in fact, alive and kicking. The rumour was started by the town's misinformed and very embarrassed mayor. Claridge didn't mind though, saying he'd been planning to attend the service.
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New Zealand's most superstitious town has gone all out to be rid of bad luck by banishing the number 13. Palmerston North has a council policy to jump street numbers from number 11 to 15 to avoid the unlucky figure in between. The bizarre regulation is in place so people with triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13, are not deterred from buying homes carrying the number.
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An Auckland man who killed his dog and barbecued it for tea expressed genuine shock when local authorities baulked at his actions. Paea Taufa, from Tonga, said his pitbull terrier-cross had become too skinny and unmanageable so he decided to slit its throat, skin and gut it, and cook it in his urban backyard. "I didn't know I couldn't cook the dog. In Tonga, any time there I cook the dog and it is okay.
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The Kiwi recession was responsible for many an oddity in 2009. For one, Kiwi men were more likely than ever to get "the snip" on their most intimate assets as a reaction to the financial squeeze, and prescriptions for contraceptives have also skyrocketed. The big "R" also kept sheep numbers down and sales of sexy lacy underwear sets up apparently as a cheap thrill in all the doom and gloom.
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A curious baby seal shuffled more than 100km across New Zealand farmland after an overexcited fishing expedition. The super-travelling youngster was spotted by a shocked Kiwi farmer early one morning as he trudged over to his milking sheds. Unfazed, the animal took a long nap in a paddock before being caught by conservationists and driven back to the ocean.
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A loved-up Kiwi prisoner was hauled through the courts for using a jail radio to make a "romantic" phone call to the prison librarian. Patrick Cook, 30, was busted using a digital car radio while cleaning the prison vans to send a love message. The judge convicted him but decided the $2.50 compensation being sought was "unnecessary".
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Tourists at a Kiwi aquarium got an eyeful when they saw a heavily pregnant female shark get a Caesarean section from an aggressive male shark in the tank. The shark was bitten in her underside, allowing four baby sharks to escape through a bleeding gaping wound. All involved survived the ordeal.
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A would-be Kiwi politician was creamed with an iconic Australasian treat, the lamington, while trying to convince the public to vote for him. John Boscawen was hit in the head with the square chocolate and cream coconut sponge and then further shocked the audience by continuing his speech, unfazed. "He just kept on talking with it on his face," said one perplexed onlooker. He didn't get voted in.
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It supported the bare bums of his pub patrons for 15 years and Trev Inwood wants it back. The Kiwi publican offered a $100 bar tab for the return of a plastic toilet seat stolen from his Christchurch tavern in August. Four months on, Inwood is still waiting.
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A toddler gave her parents a nasty shock when they found she had bought a $20,000 earth-moving digger on New Zealand auction website Trade Me. Pipi Quinlan, 3, decided to play on the computer while the rest of her family was asleep, and bought the digger with a few clicks of the mouse. "The next thing I know I'm getting an email from the seller saying something like 'I think you'll love this digger'," her mum said.
- AAP
