Motoring in New Zealand,

or, Driving on the Left Side of the World

These are pictures from my trip to New Zealand in October 2001.

(Click to enlarge.) The blue line is the outbound path and the green line is the return path. For those that want to follow along, I took:

• State Highway 1 south from Auckland to Tirua
• SH 5 to Rotorua
• SH 30 to SH 1
• SH 1 to SH 58
• SH 58 to SH 2
• SH 2 to SH 1
• SH 1 to Wellington
• The Lynx ferry to Picton
• SH 1 to Oamaru
• Returning, SH 1 to SH 77
• SH 77 to SH 73
• SH 73 to SH 6
• SH 6 to Westport (via SH 67)
• SH 6 to SH 63
• SH 63 to SH 6
• SH 6 to SH 1
• SH 1 to Picton
• The Interislander ferry to Wellington
• SH 1 to SH 2
• SH 2 Napier
• SH 2 to SH 5
• SH 5 to SH 1
• SH 1 to Auckland

Click on any picture to see a bigger version. Note that the big versions may be up to 672K.

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Auckland Harbor Bridge, as seen from the Sky Tower. This is State Highway 1 (SH 1).

The underside of the bridge. The center span was opened in 1957, and the Japanese-built "Nippon Clip-Ons" were added to the outside in 1969.

A typical restrictive signal in Auckland. Note that since traffic drives on the left side of the roadway, a left turn is equivalent to a North American right turn. Turns on red are not allowed in New Zealand. The red arrow is to give pedestrians a chance to cross without conflicting traffic.

A typical pedestrian detector. The arrow plate vibrates when the walk signal is on, for the benefit of vision-impaired pedestrians. Normally the pedestrian signals are dark until a button is pressed. Then, the "Don't Walk" symbol lights. After going through the "Walk" and flashing phase, the pedestrian signals go dark again.

City street with two-way right turn lane in the center.

Urban streetscene downtown. Note the protected right-turn signals. Despite driving on the left, for some reason this signal pole is over the right lane.

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Last updated 9/2/2002