New Zealand! Part 7 - Getting around

We started with a campervan. It was a bigger model than I thought we were getting. That made it somewhat harder to maneuver, but the spaciousness inside was nice. We used it for 9 days. It was a fun thing to try. We parked at "Holiday Parks", places set up for these and other camping and motel style accommodations. They were really nice. We ended up using the showers at the holiday parks more than the one in the campervan because they were so much bigger and it made our water last longer. In the campervan, we had to fill and empty the water every couple of days. For this short time period, it probably didn't save money to travel this way. For a longer time it could, because the campervan price was higher for the shorter time period.

After that we rented a little Mazda Demio. Small and fun. We drove it through the north island, then left it at Wellington, took the ferry across to the south island, and picked up another one there just like it. This is an arrangement you can make through the rental car agency if you work it out in advance, to save the cost of ferrying a car across. Great!

The roundabouts work so well. I wish we had them in America. I know they have them in some places, but not like they do in New Zealand. They are very efficient at getting everyone around an intersection without long waits.

There are one-way bridges everywhere. So easily handled: A sign before the bridge tells you which direction has the right-of-way, with two arrows: If you have the right-of-way, it is a white sign with one big black arrow (up), and a small red one (down). If you don't have the right-of-way, it is a blue sign with a small red arrow up and a big black one down. The system worked great, especially since there never was too much traffic. In a couple of places, the other end of the bridge was way out of sight so they had traffic lights to control the traffic.