My Experience on the Wrong Side of the Road

I arrived in New Zealand with very little incident, well, except for the fact that I ended up lugging a couple of extremely awkward and heavy boxes of paperwork for Todd's work. That was a lovely extra $280 in luggage fees. I hate that they have started charging so much for bringing any luggage. Soon it will be cheaper to just buy everything you need at your destination.

When I arrived in Auckland at 5:45 in the AM, I waited for my luggage, which had jumped airlines from Delta to Qantas, so I wasn't positive that it would make the entire trip. I continued to wait, slowly starting to freak out because Todd really needed the paperwork I was hauling, oh yeah, and my clothes for the trip. Well, finally my luggage came out in a much less than pristine condition due to being inspected pretty much at every location because of its weight. I was the last one to leave that carousel.

After I got through customs and had my luggage inspected, once again, I went out to the airport lobby to collect my car from Alamo. Alamo exists in New Zealand you ask? No, it doesn't. In fact, nobody has heard of Alamo in New Zealand. So as I am searching the different counters and talking to each car rental company to see if they are an affiliate of Alamo, I don't hear my name being paged over the intercom. I finally find that Eurocar is an affiliate, but my reservation hasn't arrived in their computer. Apparently I shouldn't use travelocity, as I was informed. I finally get a car after having been at the airport for 2 hours trying to sort everything out and go to load my luggage, accidentally nearly putting my luggage in the driver's side of the car, given that it is on the opposite side in New Zealand. Yes, they drive on the opposite side of the road.

Now, imagine my regret to find that in all of my packing I remembered everything except to print off the maps from google maps, my favorite map website. I made sure to obtain a map from the car rental company and set off in my adventure 2 hours later than anticipated to meet up with Todd in Taupo, 3-4 hours south of Auckland. As I pulled out onto the wrong side of the road, it just felt wrong. I will admit that it was a little exhilerating to be justified in doing something that felt just a little wrong. The exhileration soon left me, however, as I found how hard it is to judge spacial distances when I am driving from what I am used to being the passenger side.

Here I am, rushing to get to Taupo, without real directions, turning the wrong direction and going just a little out of my mind. I turn left onto the road, and instead of turning my blinker on, turn the windshield wipers on. I get lost, go to ask questions at a gas station, forget to put the car in park because the gear shift is on the opposite side. I get back into the car, start to pull out, turn on the windshield wipers again, pull onto the road, turn left onto the freeway, turn the blasted windshield wipers on again, get to close to the side of the road, go too fast because 100 km really isn't that fast. It definitely sounds like it should be faster. I change lanes...STUPID WINDSHIELD WIPERS!!! I've had enough, no more turn signals for me. I drive through towns, apparently there are only highways, no freeways. How fast can I speed without getting a ticket? I can't afford another ticket due to the fact that I recently got one while test driving a challenger (Todd will probably frame that ticket. Challengers are his favorite.) I do the conversion in my head. If I can go 10 over without a ticket in the US, does that mean I can go 16 k's over and not get a ticket while I am here? Not sure, not worth it...time sure does fly when you are rushing. I go through a town where there is a building shaped like a dog. What the dirty?! It's a bar. Only one more town and then I am in Taupo.

I drove all the way into Taupo to ask directions and find that I passed the hotel on my way into town, about 10k's away. I turn around, drive back up highway 1, go to turn left. I'm finally there, so the windshield wipers didn't bother me as much this time. Seriously, they should switch them back to the correct side and put the blinker button back where it belongs. I pull up to the hotel where Todd is waiting. "So I take it that you didn't get the minivan I reserved for you at Hertz, did you?" Wait, what? I didn't hear the page...ok, none of the pages at the airport. Now, we don't have a large enough vehicle for all the boxes, but dangit, I'm not dealing with those stupid windshield wipers again.

The moral of this story? Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong...never buy a european car, because the windshield wipers won't be in the right place ....and I drove on the wrong side of the road and lived to tell about it.

More on New Zealand to come. It's a beautiful country full of wonderful, kind people, and best of all it is springtime here.