NZ 21: Old Car and New Roads
Friday, August 15. 2008
Route 77, NZ (May 30, 2008)
Did I mention, by the way, that New Zealand cars are all like this? I mean, this is actually a new model, most of them still have a steam engine...
Ok, it’s not true. New Zealand cars are the same as in any other country I have lived (apart for the steering-wheel on right side), but I did meet an unordinary number of cute old cars. The day I was touring the inland scenic route 72 (which, according to google maps, is also passing by route 77 and 73) I met a procession of these restored jewels leisurely driving around. It was not a real procession as I found them in several distinct places, seemingly driving in random directions. I counted at least 20 of them, if not more, all driven by ladies or gentlemen with a costume matching the same epoch of the car. On my way back to Christchurch I got quite lucky and crossed them again on this open stretch of road, with the superb snow capped Southern Alps as background.
Talking about old cars reminds me of the New Zealand roads. We were quite impressed by them, and by the amount of maintenance that is continuously done to keep them in prefect shape. In our 3,000 km of driving we found work crews everywhere, patching the pavements, enlarging the width of the roads, repairing their sides. Even though the South island is sparsely populated, it has a huge touristic traffic in summer and during the skying season, and real winter with snow. All the roads we saw, however, were really well maintained, without the continuous litany of potholes and cracks so typical in the US (and Italy... and Venezuela). The only perplexing thing is that most of these roads, whenever they had to cross any body of water, be a large river or a minuscule stream, have narrow bridges where only one car can pass at one time. You have to stop, check that nobody is coming from the other side, and then cross. The surprising thing is that these one-way bridges are also along main roads, which I assume in summer may have quite a lot of traffic. Still, driving on those roads was a real pleasure and great fun (as long as one remembers that “left is good”).
