Rattle your dags, would ya?

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In a country chock-full of fabulous tidbits of Kiwi slang, “rattle your dags” is one of my all-time favourites. (“Dags” being, literally, the dried-up bits of poop hanging from a sheep’s bum, and the expression “rattle your dags” – natch - deriving from the view one gets of the back of a sheep running.) In Canada, we might politely say “hurry up” or “shake a leg” or “get a move on” but rattle your dags is so much more fun, no?

This picture, taken en route to the Southern Alps, also brings to mind another of my favourite sheep jokes - you know the kind - where the sheep are always so much more than just a source of income for the average Kiwi farmer:

When a busload of tourists was passing through a small country town in New Zealand, one of the passengers noticed a sheep tied to a lamppost. “What's that?” she asked. “Oh, that? That’s the recreation centre!” the guide replied.

Baaaaaad jokes

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Beyond the more obvious charms of this picture-postcard South Pacific nation – beyond the scenery that never quits, the whale watching and hot springs and quaint villages, the jet boating and bungee jumping, the hiking and kayaking and sheep-shearing and rugby - lies a wonderfully quirky side of the “real” New Zealand that the average tourist might never see.

To get an insight into the local humour, it helps to be familiar with the odd sheep joke (which obviously you don’t need to share with the kids) but bear in mind that when a Kiwi is telling the jokes, Aussies are the butt. Any sheep joke will do, really, but this is one of my favourites:

"Two New Zealand sheep farmers are flying the herd to a new farm. Suddenly, the engine fails and the plane begins to plummet. Farmer 1: Quick! Grab a parachute and jump! Farmer 2: But what about the sheep? Farmer 1: Fuck the sheep! Farmer 2: (pause) Do you think we have time?"