Driving Directions
It's interesting how different countries handle basic infrastructures like, say, roads. And what roads and how they affect the people living there mean to foreign travelers.
David and I spent six days driving around the North Island of New Zealand and discovered many things:
There is no truly good map of New Zealand roads. We went to the fantastic Tourist Info office in Auckland before leaving for points south, and picked up several good maps of the country and the highways. Interestingly enough, the map that turned out to be the most helpful was the one with the fewest roads actually drawn on it. Why is that, you may ask?
Well, for the simple reason that it showed which roads were "sealed" (aka "paved"), and which were "unsealed" (aka "gravel"). When driving on the left, up and down and all around mountains, it turns out that traveling via gravel roads is much MUCH slower. And more nerve-wracking. Especially when said gravel road is really only a lane and a half wide.
We only made that mistake once.
Another bizarre thing about highways in NZ: the occasional one-way bridges that you have to drive over. There are signs letting you know who is supposed to "give way" (aka "yield"), but it still seemed quite weird to us--if they were building a bridge, why not just make it wide enough for two vehicles in the first place?
Combine the above with the way that Kiwi's give directions: "Take the main road into town, then follow the sign for the beaches. Cross the one-lane bridge, take the third left after the bridge, and go about 5 kilometers. We're on the right." I kid you not--those were the actual directions to our farmstay. The directions worked just fine, but it was weird to not have street names.
All of this seemed to contribute to the laid-back state of being that is the Kiwi (person, not the bird). We talked to an American working in a Thai restaurant as a waitress one night who said that there was recently (only a couple years ago!) to properly map and label all the streets of NZ. She apparently had this map, but I have a feeling that no self-respecting Kiwi did.
David and I spent six days driving around the North Island of New Zealand and discovered many things:
There is no truly good map of New Zealand roads. We went to the fantastic Tourist Info office in Auckland before leaving for points south, and picked up several good maps of the country and the highways. Interestingly enough, the map that turned out to be the most helpful was the one with the fewest roads actually drawn on it. Why is that, you may ask?
Well, for the simple reason that it showed which roads were "sealed" (aka "paved"), and which were "unsealed" (aka "gravel"). When driving on the left, up and down and all around mountains, it turns out that traveling via gravel roads is much MUCH slower. And more nerve-wracking. Especially when said gravel road is really only a lane and a half wide.
We only made that mistake once.
Another bizarre thing about highways in NZ: the occasional one-way bridges that you have to drive over. There are signs letting you know who is supposed to "give way" (aka "yield"), but it still seemed quite weird to us--if they were building a bridge, why not just make it wide enough for two vehicles in the first place?
Combine the above with the way that Kiwi's give directions: "Take the main road into town, then follow the sign for the beaches. Cross the one-lane bridge, take the third left after the bridge, and go about 5 kilometers. We're on the right." I kid you not--those were the actual directions to our farmstay. The directions worked just fine, but it was weird to not have street names.
All of this seemed to contribute to the laid-back state of being that is the Kiwi (person, not the bird). We talked to an American working in a Thai restaurant as a waitress one night who said that there was recently (only a couple years ago!) to properly map and label all the streets of NZ. She apparently had this map, but I have a feeling that no self-respecting Kiwi did.
Comments
Are you happy now? :)