Dispatches from Kiwi-Land
When You Can't Elope
Orange Fictional Characters
Going Bananas
Melon
100

My journey to New Zealand is starting off with an arrival in this capital named for a general who famous defeated Napoleon at Waterloo

What is Wellington?

100

George and Amal Clooney shuttled their wedding guests around Venice with a flotilla of these traditional Venetian vehicles

What are gondolas?

100

This lasagna-loving, Monday-hating cat has been a fixture of the comics section for nearly 50 years

Who is Garfield?

100

There are many theories - none proven - of the origins of the madness of this monarch who presided over the American Revolution

Who is King George III?

100
Humanity's love of watermelons dates back thousands of years, with the fruit appearing in these pictorial characters used by the ancient Egyptians

What are hieroglyphics?

200

Today I'll visit the Hauraki Gulf where the ashes of Sir Edmund Hillary were scattered - it's not every day you get the chance to pay respects to the first person to summit this mountain

What is Everest?
200

Beyoncé chose to tie the knot with this hip-hop mogul at his Manhattan penthouse on April 4, 2008 due to their shared love of the number 4

Who is Jay-Z?

200

Danny DeVito voiced this environmentally-minded creature in a 2012 animated movie of the same name

Who is the Lorax?

200

Gwen Stefani spells out B-A-N-A-N-A-S in the bridge of this 2004 song to emphasize just how bananas this, uh, stuff, is

What is "Hollaback Girl"?

200

Watermelons topped the charts in 2020 when this One Direction veteran hit number 1 with "Watermelon Sugar"

Who is Harry Styles?

300

I wonder if I'll run into a famous filmmaker while in NZ - maybe Peter Jackson of "Lord of the Rings" fame, or this Māori-descended director of a couple of "Thor" movies

Who is Taika Waititi?

300

The 2005 wedding of Prince Charles to this woman only generated about 1% of the television viewership of his wedding to Diana 24 years earlier

Who is Camilla?

300

The early days of YouTube were filled with the escapades of this fruity character with a name describing his behavior

Who is the Annoying Orange?

300

Characters in the movies of this director, including A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, use a distinctive stare to communicate their dwindling sanity to the viewer

Who is Stanley Kubrick?

300

Anti-environmentalists often characterize their opponents as watermelons - green on the outside, but carrying this more radical ideology internally

What is communism?

400

My trip is of course being soundtracked by the works of NZ's own Ella Yelich-O'Connor, better known by this 5-letter stage name

Who is Lorde?

400

Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli, who met on the set of this female-driven Netflix show, had no sides of the aisle at their wedding - they exchanged vows at the center of a circle of guests

What is Orange is the New Black?

400

In Inside Out 2, this emotion appears as an orange character with a frog-like face and an eruption-style hairdo

What is Anxiety?

400

The cure is worse than the ailment for the narrator of this Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story who is confined to a single room as "treatment" for her postpartum depression

What is "The Yellow Wallpaper"?

400

This comedian hit it big in the 80's smashing watermelons in his Sledge-O-Matic routine

Who is Gallagher?

500

My time in New Zealand is finally over - to continue my travels in Australia, I've got to fly across this this sea with a similar name to an Australian state

What is the Tasman Sea?

500

Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen had it both ways - a traditional church wedding, followed a few days later by a second ceremony at their vacation home in this Central American country

What is Costa Rica?

500

This progenitor of the Muppets originally puppeteered Bert, but switched to Ernie after just one day of rehearsal

Who is Jim Henson?

500

This term for flying into a violent rage inspired the title of a 1997 shooter game

What is going postal?

500
A watermelon - or rather, two halves of one - appears in the logo of this slicing-based multi-platform game

What is Fruit Ninja?