Odds and Ends

Every town we've visited in New Zealand has a skate park. Even the little towns that last four blocks on the highway have them. They can be rather elaborate affairs, too--not just a single half-pipe but with rails and curbs and inclines of the straight and curved varieties. They're a site for cool grafitti. Skaters congregate in little clusters or, in the more rare hours of youth activities, appear solo or in pairs. On the flip-side, I haven't seen many skaters out on the public sidewalks and footpaths of New Zealand. Perhaps they've discovered the way to eliminate what many Americans consider a public nuisance of the urban and suburban settings.


Dunedin is said to "out-Scot the Scottish." I found that to be true while down south. During our last week in Dunedin there was a bagpiping competition that closed down the central square (which is actually an octogon, by the way) and filled it with high school students in kilts, flashes, and knee-high hose. They piped away before judges and under the scrutinizing eye of Sir Robbie Burns in bronze. The bus drivers on the South Island also wear knee-high knit hose, often bright white in contrast to their dark blue uniforms. One visitor from Edinburgh said that the residents of Invercargill, the southernmost city on the mainland, spoke with an accent he could not distinguish from home.


Sometimes the road rules are a little weird here. Folks drive on the left, which is wrong but not so weird once you've done it for a while. Just reverse everything (except the accelerator and brake pedals--those are the same). But if you're turning across traffic (to the right, as to the left in the States), then opposing traffic must yield to you if they are turning right onto the same road. So the car who has no opposing traffic coming into the turn must yield to the car that does have opposing traffic. Weird.

The first time someone waved me to turn right (when they were turning left onto the same street), I thought that perhaps my comrade had the over-courteous gene. So I waved, accepted the gift, and drove on. Then the same thing happened, but with a police car. Now, police are good folks and are there to serve and protect us. But in my experience they are people of business, never rude but not tripping over themselves to be courteous or gracious. After all, they have a job to do. So when a police driver halted in the midst of his left turn to yield to my (cross-traffic) right, I got a little freaked out. Had he seen me commit some infraction and wanted to get me ahead so he could pull me over? Not wanting to disobey, I turned ahead of him and drove on. Nothing happened. He turned after me and all was well.

I still wasn't sure about this whole thing, and I wasn't about to start doing something so clearly absurd as giving the right of way to people turning against traffic. But I had one close call when I turned left in front of two cars turning right. We arrived at the turn at the same time and I ended up with a front bumper riding up my tailpipe. I think I got a dirty look to boot (but no honking--that's not the Kiwi way).

When we arrived at the Hesses' yesterday, Sara asked about it. Sure enough, it's the law. Yield to drivers turning right against traffic, if you're turning right. Weird. Must have to do with the gravitational field down here.

--emrys