Part 4: Driving in New Zealand

New Zealand is considered a small country, so is Denmark. If you look at Wikipedia you will see that the land mass of New Zealand is about the same as Colorado and the land mass of Denmark is approximately that of Maryland, tiny! Denmark has 5.6 million people and New Zealand 4.7, so scarcely populated. When planning your itinerary, you can't use the "Colorado" comparison for anything useful - just a fun piece of trivia. New Zealand is shaped kind of differently ;-)

Most people are normally pressed for time but not the mature couple: we have the luxury of taking more time than working couples or families. However, even with 5 weeks, we just managed to cover our planned itinerary. And almost everywhere we went, we wanted to stay longer. Be warned: it is tempting to pack in a lot because New Zealand is so far away, resist!

The speed limit on state highways is 100 km/hour, which means in theory you could cover 200 km in two hours. All the guidebooks, however, advise against this type of simple math and our experience confirms it. The guidebooks do not, though, explain why you can expect to take much longer – perhaps because the reason is so obvious: there are hills, foothills and mountains practically everywhere = very windy roads. The only straight roads we encountered were on the Canterbury Plains - and that was extremely boring. Note: even the major state highways tend to be narrow, two-lane roads. For those of you fond of cruise control, you'll rarely have conditions where you can benefit from it …

Along Tranzalpine Crossing, Canterbury

Since it was summer, there was a lot of roadwork going on so that always causes some delays – it also means that the roads are well maintained, which is a good thing. We had to laugh, though, each time the roadworks ended they would post a 100 km/hour sign - even though there was absolutely no way you could get up to that speed – or if you did it would be hazardous not only to you but to others on the road as well. Since New Zealanders are sensible we decoded this sign to mean: "the roadworks have ended, this is a state highway and the 100 km/hour would apply if it could be applied but you would be a fool to do so and we know that you are no fool". The sign would often appear just before a sign to slow down to 65 or 35 km/hour because there is a curve in the road (and another, and another).

Sheep on the road can also slow you down ...

The only road we were on where it was straight and you could have driven 100 km safely, it seemed, was SH-2 to Auckland from the Coromandel Peninsula. But for some reason we couldn't fathom the speed limit on those straight stretches was 90 km - ???

In our experience New Zealanders are sensible drivers: no speeding, no (or little) tailgating or overtaking when it was unsafe or illegal. Most of the highways we traveled on had stretches where there was a lane so that faster-moving traffic could overtake those vehicles moving more slowly. And there were signs posted informing the driver of when the next "overtaking lane" would appear. However, there are natural geographic limitations – like mountains and lakes. As a tourist you should just relax and take in the scenery. No reason whatsoever to hurry.

Which brings me to another factor in taking longer to get from A to B – you will of course want to stop and take photos! So, morale of the story: expect to spend several hours driving just 300-400 km.

Lake Pukaki, by Aoraki/Mt Cook

A word about gas/petrol - watch the gauge! There can be 100 km or more between gas/petrol stations, and there is no way of knowing when you will find the next station and whether it will be open. In the countryside (which is most of NZ!), expect that the tanks will be closed at 6 p.m. For those of you who live in cities or highly populated areas, it is strange to think that that a station would actually close. Except for cities or large towns (of which there are few especially on the South Island), the stations are two-pump operations, most likely run by the owner. So, remember to maintain about a half-tank. We found this out by nearly running out of gas in the middle of nowhere at 5:45 p.m. Thankfully, two locals in a pick-up truck happened by and escorted us to the nearest station – and had kindly phone ahead to let the owner know we were coming. Thank you!

SH-1 approaching Queenstown

We discovered that the word "scenic" is attached to most of the highways both on the North and South Islands. Scenic is in the eyes of the beholder – and also very much depends on the time of year. More about that later under itinerary. Here is a link to some of the roads considered to be among the best (some are scary, too!): http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/great-nz-roads/