here is a reply from Dick smith Electronics to my questions about taking a refrigerator and vcr's and dvd's etc.

Hi Peter,

A fridge would not be practical due to the current consumption being so
high. Even if you could get a converter capable of doing this, it would
be very
expensive and general household wiring only supports up to 10Amps at
240V so
the converter would need to be very efficient to accommodate this.

US VCR's can work on US TV's, and most new TV's (ones that support
NTSC). However it
will only work for playback of US tapes, you will not be able to record
in NZ
or playback NZ tapes and as the cost of a mains converter is pretty
close to
the cost of a basic VCR it is probably not worthwhile either.

To convert the signal you would need a standards coverter and they are
generally
very expensive in comparison to VCR's