Hey seymourtoa , thanks for leaving a comment :) . I was going to do another follow up post on this one (but honestly I didn't think anyone was really reading anyway haha) ... But yeah , I finally got some crypto through Cryptopia and worked out pretty well in the end. I think I may have been a bit lucky though , because the volume on Cryptopia is very low relative to other exchanges anyway.
I've heard others talk about coinbase , and I probably would have used them too if they were supported in NZ , not yet but maybe one day.
Glad to hear it! I'm trying various entry points to get btc then I can get into the proper altcoins at different exchanges. Thank you for your insight!