Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will travel to Gallipoli for Anzac Day. Photo: RNZ/Soumya Bhamidipati
Two Kiwis who moved to the United Kingdom this week did not expect to run into the New Zealand prime minister the day after they landed.
Matt Bain and Matt Quin happened to be walking through London's Hyde Park, near the New Zealand memorial, on Wednesday afternoon.
"We were just walking around town and coming back to the hostel, when we just saw a bunch of New Zealand-looking people in front of the Anzac statues," Bain said.
"We just thought we'd park up and then turns out Luxon was here as well. We thought we'd wait and have a wee look, and watch and wait, and he came and had a chat with us."
Christopher Luxon was attending a small, unpublicised wreath-laying service, before his trip to Gallipoli for Anzac Day.
"He approached us, he saw the beanie... he saw the UC beanie here," Quin said, indicating Bain's University of Canterbury beanie. "He just started having a yak about it."
The pair said Luxon asked them about their jobs back home and their aspirations for life in London.
"Just sort of having a general chit-chat," Bain said.
When asked whether they had anticipated running into the prime minister on their first full day in the country, he said it was a "bit of a surprise, but a welcome surprise".
The pair planned to attend the upcoming Anzac service at Hyde Park Corner.
"We've just got to figure out where it is and we'll be right there," Bain said. "It's a thing I just do, always do at home... but hopefully next year, we're over in actually Gallipoli."
"For sure," Quin said, "If we've tracked this way, we've come this far, we might as well make the extra effort to go to Gallipoli and have a look at it too."
Speaking before the ceremony, Luxon said the battle at Gallipoli had been a "watershed moment" in New Zealand's history.
"I think it's really important that prime ministers do attend Gallipoli," he said. "It's the 110th anniversary of that tremendously difficult battle and it's just going to be incredibly solemn, but also very special and a privilege to actually be there representing New Zealand."
