salamanca! not, as I used to think, a type of lizard…our sandwich partner would, give or take a few miles, be Salamanca, Spain. We’re not sure if this is the rationale behind the naming of the Kelburn road that shares the name (a quick Google reveals that Lord Wellington fought a famous battle there – in Spain, that is, not up Kelburn way – in 1812, so most likely), but, either way, it’s nice to think that we share a tenuous geographic tie with a North Spanish town that looks like it has some pretty nice architecture, a population of around 180000 (about double that in the wider region), and a decent climate. Just like home, eh?

Weirdly enough, the ‘if the earth were a sandwich‘ tool also reveals that the closest New Zealand has to a ‘South of France’ is the Chatham Islands. Who’d have thought?