My wife and I will be taking a vacation to New Zealand for a good portion of April. We'll be doing the self-drive tour on both islands, so I'll get used to driving on the left side. Has anyone had much experience driving on the left side or been over there? Fortunately the rental will be an automatic transmission. Even the turn signal/windshield wiper are swapped. I'm sure I'll have a very clean windshield with my accidental turn signals. And I'm sure I'll get in the wrong door a whole lot of times. I've been watching Youtube videos to get used to driving on the other side of the road.

I hope to get stuck in a sheep traffic jam at some point. That would be cool. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rodent.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rodent.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rodent.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rodent.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/oink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/oink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/oink.gif" alt="" />

We'll take a 4x4 "safari" to see some Lord of the Rings film locations on one day.

I've researched some basics about 4 wheeling over there. They are somewhat limited by an annual requirement to have every street-legal vehicle to be thoroughly inspected. They can't have any rust on the frame! Boy, I could never have my 4Runner over there even though I try to remove rust and re-spray paint each year. Four wheeling seems generally a bit more moderate so they're not scraping boulders or slamming into stuff, although I've seen some radical videos of deep water crossings with 4x4's over there.

I lived in Japan for almost 5 years while in the Navy and drove both left and right hand drive cars there. My biggest problem was parallel parking.

I do have a friend in New Zealand that is a 4 wheeler. They do have some rugged trails. However, a lot of their wheeling is on tree farms where the ground will be ripped during harvest.

It is my understanding the rust and body damage applies to all vehicles in NZ.

My dream vacation is a,cross country trip across Australia....

I can imagine parallel parking would be difficult.

They check for body damage too? Sheesh.

This trip across NZ is basically our dream trip.

New Zealand was incredible! I was travelling for 7 consecutive weeks, although 3 weeks was on vacation in New Zealand and then 4 weeks were for work within the U.S. My wife and I agree that we could easily go back and spend another 3 weeks in NZ without repeating anything and still seeing tons of amazing things. Such an amazing country!

Diesel pickups are very popular in NZ - maybe because diesel fuel is about half the price of "petrol". After unit conversion, petrol is the equivalent of about U.S.$6-$7/gallon. New diesel trucks also cost less than petrol trucks, so it's a no-brainer.

I thought it was funny how many pickups in NZ are 4-passenger pickups. They've had those for many years. I know the U.S. is just now getting used to those.

My wife and I drove a total of about 3000 km's through NZ (something like 1900 miles). We were getting used to driving on the left side of the road. Both of us turned on the windshield wipers plenty of times when we wanted to signal. The only times when I forgot to be on the left side of the road was when there were no other cars around and there were no lane markings (like on residential roads or parking lot exits).

I was surprised at the large number of one-lane bridges throughout the country. There was even a one-lane bridge that was also shared with a railroad.

I only saw a few Jeeps the entire trip. Lots of Land Rovers, especially Defenders. I was confused that the Toyota Hilux name seems to be given to both the Tacoma and Tundra over there.

Seemed like most people that do 4-wheeling just get a snorkel and an ARB or TJM bumper with any 4x4. That's about it for typical modifications. I saw one nice Nissan Patrol that was well set-up with 33's, lockers, snorkel, bumper, winch, etc. I didn't realize those had a solid front axle and coil springs all around.

I have (or had) some CDs about 4 wheeling in New Zealand. A lot of their opportunity is in forest plantations where the trees are set to be harvested with 1-2 years. They have some grueling competitions where teams work through mud and they get a lot of winch time.