[Taniwha]

Remember than NZ is a long thin country that spans very roughly the same distance north-south as the US West Coast (it's just that you grew up with those maps where the Northern Hemisphere is twice the size of the Southern).

It also spans roughly the same range of climates - Dunedin where I live is Seattle/VancouverBC sort of climate (and the southern West Coast is very Olympic Peninsular subtropical rain forest). On the other hand Auckland/Northland is Californiaish but with more tropical moisture because we're an island and not a continent