In all my travels around New Zealand, it has been great to meet so many friendly people. Nearly every time you pop in to a shop, you end up having a conversation with somebody! People have been willing to give advice, directions and the occasional meal as well, it's been great!
In New Zealand, you drive on the left hand side of the road, which is of course the best side of the road to drive on. Kiwi cars do have indicators and brake lights, but these are usually only used once the manouver has occurred. This requires great vigilance when following another car. I have had numerous close encounters with exhaust pipes, fortunately I have not made contact!
The speed limit is 100km/h on the main roads and this would be fine, but sometimes, the road is long and empty and it was a good job I didn't have a more powerful car as I would have really zoomed. Mind you, I did not spot one police car along side the road, or any speed cameras so I might have got away with it (when conditions are appropriate of course!)
The Subaru is the Kiwi's favourite car, what a choice! I have seen lots of lovely Imprezas whilst being in New Zealand and have been rather jealous of them all.
There are quite a lot of roads in New Zealand which are unsealed. This means that they are not much more than a gravel track, great for rallying in Subaru Imprezas, but not much use in the cars I had! It's either wide tarmac with lots of room and few bumps, or gravel with potholes the size of a small house with very little inbetween.
When driving around, I tried to listen to local radio stations as much as possible. This was an interesting experience. A lot of the commercials were awful and rather contrived. One went on for a minute about golf before ending with the punchline "Buy a Blah-de-blah car, you can fit your clubs in the back" I mean, come on!
There are lots of commercials too, which is especially good for the talk shows as sometimes you can tell the presenter is stalling, waiting for someone, anyone to call! The funniest and saddest calls are when a woman is presenting. The number of times a man would call and make a point about nothing before trying to ask out the presenter, incredible!
The humour on some of the radio stations left a lot to be desired as well. Generally I've found that Kiwis have a great sense of humour, but some of the more shocking radio stations were in rather bad taste.. and ruder than they would be in the UK too! (Tut tut!)
There are many brown signs on New Zealand roads which point to an historic place. This is usually the site of where a former prime minister stopped for a brew on the way to nowhere in particular! There is no harm in this of course, but a fair degree of discernment is required otherwise you would never get anywhere without turning off every ten minutes.
Interesting that you don't see that many Maori Historic places signposted...
"Where everyone gets a baragain!" - The Warehouse is a big out of town shopping chain that sells lots of stuff. I accidently ended up in one in Auckland and the price of some of the goods is incredible. Trainers for a dollar! I couldn't help but wonder how much the manufacturers of the trainers were actually getting paid to make them if they were so cheap....
I've had some great weather this winter, lots of bright sunny days with blue skies. Of course it's been cold, but time and time again I've been reminded by warning signs and books that "The weather in New Zealand CAN CHANGE IN AN INSTANT! Be Prepared!". Well, it didn't change that quickly in the two months I've been here, but I was prepared... just in case!
Many years ago I used to work in a Petrol Station where I filled up the cars and ran the till. In New Zealand, you don't get self-service petrol, the assistants fill the car for you! I used to feel guilty though when the assistant was busy, because when they came across to see that I'd already filled up, they usually looked crestfallen and virtually begged to wash the windscreen or check the oil...
Kiwis use flush toilets with a seat like we would have in the Uk, but with one subtle difference. Most have two flush buttons, one for a big flush, one for a small one. It took me quite a while to work out which was which, sometimes the big button does a big flush, sometimes the small button. It took me around three weeks to understand what was going on. Oh, and two small flushes, usually equal one big one!
To be continued....