Driving is different here. As you may or may not know, they drive on the left hand side of the road in New Zealand. I had driven on the left a few times before we got here, but not that much, and many years ago. So when we landed in Auckland and picked up the rental car (a red Mazda 6) there were definitely some nerves. We survived the motorway and made it to our rental flat, but we had a number of errands that had to be done, including buying a new car, so driving in the terrible Auckland traffic was unavoidable. But we survived.
Overall, I would say it took about a week to get past the worst of the nerves and a month of driving every day to start to feel comfortable. It’s actually a little easier in the beginning when other cars are around because you can just follow them and do what they’re doing, though that didn’t keep me from cutting off a few people here and there by accident. The tricky bits are re-learning how to look in the mirrors (the rear view mirror to your left) and use the turn signal / wipers since they’re reversed. It also takes a little while to get used to the bulk of the car being to your left and judging where that side of the car is.
Once you get used to being on the left it’s not really too different from anywhere else except for a few things. For one, there are many more roundabouts than in the States. In general they’re ok, but the multi-lane ones can be intimidating (and don’t forget to look to the right!) There are also many fewer stop signs here. Most smaller intersections are yields, with stop signs being reserved for intersections where line of sight is limited. Another difference is that parking is allowed on the side of many of the roads, even when they’re very narrow. That combined with Wellington’s hilly nature means that it’s common to have twisty narrow roads where you come around a bend to find a car parked on the side taking up most of your lane. But drivers tend to be courteous and will give you a little wave if you have to stop for an oncoming car to get past or vice-versa.
That’s all that comes to mind right now. Unfortunately according to the newspaper this is the worst summer in terms of beach days since 1987, so we haven’t been impressed with the weather, but we’ve been getting out to explore, and it seems like there’s always an event of one kind or another happening to check out, so we’re still having fun. Cheers!
Kiwi Bound 