'It's scary how ingrained an image of Scotland that sodding deep-fried bar is'

AS WE headed for Christchurch railway station and the TranzAlpine train for Greymouth – "You can't miss the platform, there is only one" – the taxi driver and I established that in our previous lives he brought the first Zetor tractors to Britain and we bought one of them.

All that proved yet again was that the world is a small place for travelling Scots. We also found that you can take the girl out of Fife, but not necessarily Fife out of the girl, and in Sydney, and even more so in New Zealand, Liz seldom got halfway through a sentence before a delighted "Hey, you guys are from Scotland."

No surprise really when much of New Zealand's history has occurred since our house was built, and almost invariably these friendly butt-ins led to a long conversation with someone whose great grandfather/granny came from Scotland or who had relatives in Pitlochry, Arrochar, Springburn or Corstorphine. Or had worked here, as in the surreal case of the Chinese Elvis.

It began ordinarily enough as we discussed the merits, or in their case what I thought otherwise, of aboriginal art in Sydney's art gallery. Came the phrase we were getting used to: "Hey, you guys are from Scotland. I used to work in Paisley."

He was an attendant in the gallery, Chinese and ran a restaurant before, for reasons it seemed impolite to inquire into, being invited to leave the country. Which was not quite as interesting as the fact that as a young man he won an Elvis soundalike competition in America, with a signed photograph of him and 'The King' to prove it.

As added proof he took Liz's hand and sang 'Love Me Tender' from start to finish. Liz, mentally estimating the distance to the exit – even I don't take her hand and sing to her every day – was less captivated than the rest of the gallery visitors.

Me? I've always liked Elvis, and the man could sing. But as the last notes faded we made our excuses and left, only noticing later that we had taken the stairs two at a time – and it was a moving staircase.

Some attempts to appeal to Celtic visitors were more heavy-handed, such as the bars in New Zealand called Tartan Clansman and Flying Haggis, and the new restaurant in Dunedin's much-photographed historic railway station called Scotia. It has waiters in kilts and taped pipe band music with "wee veggies" and "Perthshire savoury pudding" (no satisfactory explanation) on the menu and, of course, "deep-fried Mars bar" as a dessert.

It's terrifying how ingrained an image of Scotland that sodding deep-fried bar, even if it was nouvelle cuisine mini size at the Scotia, has become – and, no, I didn't. What would Burns, his frowning statue with back turned on the church in Dunedin's Octagon, have made of it?

Or of the Victorian heritage day we arrived at by accident in Oamaru with a fancy dress parade that included vintage cars, tractors, lorries and trailers, a penny-farthing bicycle convention and not one but two pipe bands. Marvellous – to the other side of the world at great expense to watch the Saturday of Coldstream Civic Week. But fun. We will return.