One of our early tasks was to find a car. While we don't need it for commuting, as the ferry is much easier, we decided that a car is by far the easiest way to explore the island. We (and by "we", I mean "I") settled on this 01 Toyota Corolla. Glamorous it isn't, but I'm satisfied we made an excellent choice. Besides, it's not easy finding a manual in NZ!
3 comments:
I would have thought the Kiwis were anti-automatic. Not sure why, but just a sense I got. How long did it take you to stop making wide left turns?
the kiwis do seem like they should be anti-automatic, don't they? well, there's a perfectly sensible explanation for prevalence of autos here -- blame the japanese. for reasons that seem to involve propping up the domestic japanese auto industry, they have regulations on used cars that make them prohibitively expensive to own after a few years. rather than keep their used cars, they buy new and export all these late-model, left-hand drive cars to australia and new zealand. so a huge fraction of used cars here are second-hand japanese imports. there's even a saying for those that aren't: "new zealand new". anyhow, the moral of the story is that kiwis drive automatics because the japanese do.
I like it Graham!! :D
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