Driving
We have just returned to the hotel from dropping off the car and
wandering around Wellington for a bit.
Hard to believe this is the culminating destination of our New Zealand
journey.
Today was mostly devoted to driving from Napier to Wellington. The drive was long but came with some beautiful views and interesting experiences. We had a detour up a narrow (one lane) dirt road with a massive cliff face on one side. We wended our way through massive hills around a huge wind turbine farm. We even drove through a small forest-y area, very different from everything else we had seen in NZ.
I suppose now is a good time to reflect on driving on the left…
Overall, there was surprisingly very little to get used to when driving on the “wrong” side of the road. The first mistake I made (and made for the first day or so) was to turn on the windshield wipers rather than the indicator. The left side of the steering column had the windshield wiper controls and the right had the indicator lever. While most things in the car made sense to be reversed (with the steering wheel being on the right and all) it seemed odd to have the levers switched. Regardless, I got used to it after a while, and we were no worse for the experience.
The second odd thing about driving on the left was looking over my shoulder when backing up. While it is another obvious statement, that it is a no-brainer that you have to put your left hand over the left seat ad look over your left shoulder, it still took some getting used to (and even a few times of awkwardly attempting to look right).
Finally, the favourite street sign that we came across (on more than one occasion): “merge like a zip.” I immediately understood the sign, but got a kick out of the wording. It was definitely more concise than saying “allow every-other car to merge,” but for some reason I could just never envision that sign on an American road.
Today was mostly devoted to driving from Napier to Wellington. The drive was long but came with some beautiful views and interesting experiences. We had a detour up a narrow (one lane) dirt road with a massive cliff face on one side. We wended our way through massive hills around a huge wind turbine farm. We even drove through a small forest-y area, very different from everything else we had seen in NZ.
I suppose now is a good time to reflect on driving on the left…
Overall, there was surprisingly very little to get used to when driving on the “wrong” side of the road. The first mistake I made (and made for the first day or so) was to turn on the windshield wipers rather than the indicator. The left side of the steering column had the windshield wiper controls and the right had the indicator lever. While most things in the car made sense to be reversed (with the steering wheel being on the right and all) it seemed odd to have the levers switched. Regardless, I got used to it after a while, and we were no worse for the experience.
The second odd thing about driving on the left was looking over my shoulder when backing up. While it is another obvious statement, that it is a no-brainer that you have to put your left hand over the left seat ad look over your left shoulder, it still took some getting used to (and even a few times of awkwardly attempting to look right).
Finally, the favourite street sign that we came across (on more than one occasion): “merge like a zip.” I immediately understood the sign, but got a kick out of the wording. It was definitely more concise than saying “allow every-other car to merge,” but for some reason I could just never envision that sign on an American road.
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