NZ random observations

EVERYONE you chat to has there own top 10, 20, 30 things to go see/do/eat/walk up/drink and are more than happy to share them with you apart from...

...most people in hostels, who don't speak to you, even if you speak to them (mind you we've only stayed in two!)

Most older Kiwi's are really friendly, most local 'youths' (can't believe I've just typed that!) have a tendency to look at you in the same way as you might look at a maggot wriggling it's way out a nice Braeburn apple (which are very nice out here by the way, as are 'gold' kiwis, another new find, much like a kiwi fruit but even tastier!)

A Brit we met who was coming to the end of 6 months cycling round NZ (I was so jealous) summed Kiwis up well - they are a nation of extremes - some big, huge, enormous folk (I've never seen so much luncheon meat behind a 'deli' counter in Pak'n'save - Asda translated into Kiwi!) and those that get involved in Iron men and races like this...http://www.coasttocoast.co.nz/

There are some mental drivers here, 2 cases in point:

1. Just outside of Queenstown we were descending down a really steep hill with fairly severe switchbacks and not a lot of road between them and a guy decides to overtake us

2. There are a lot of one lane bridges in NZ (shortage of building materials or just lazy, not really sure!) - we approached one just outside Greymouth and parked at what we thought was a reasonable distance behind a big old RV type campervan. From the back of the RV, their kids were staring straight back at us and I was giving them a little wave but then I suddenly realised that their dad was reversing at quite a pace and hadn't seen us! I found the horn just in time to prevent a major hassle.... but then, just beyond the RV, we noticed a car that had gone over the stop line, and as we looked towards the bridge we finally realised the cause of the commotion - yes folks, you guessed it, it was a bloody great freight train travelling towards us all! Thankfully,the freight train was crawling along, and the car managed to park itself between the other side of the train tracks from us and the verge! It was a truly crazy scene which Claire tried to capture on camera, although the pic really doesn't capture the madness.

Oh still on driving for the minute, yes we did reduce our insurance excess to zero on Zinny (see entry 'Finding our feet' for an intro to Zinny) at what felt like quite a prohibitive cost, the girl behind the counter tried to make us feel better by saying we'd get the last 9 days of the 59 for free, we felt really good about that!!

One last point on motor related things... I read with disappointment that cars imported into NZ don't have to pass any emissions testing, and this is meant to be the developed world! For those of you about to mention my carbon footprint on this trip so far (planes/people carriers with 3 litre engines, etc) - just don't!!!