The roads in New Zealand are actually rather good overall. They are well constructed with clear signage which means business. If you see a sharp corner sign then you know that a sharp corner is coming up for which you must slow. The vast majority of the roads are two lane highways with grassed shoulders. There is quite little asphalt and most of the highways are chip and seal. This makes for quite a bit of road noise, but traction seemed good in most cases. At the very least water tend not to pool on the road, but you'll still pick it up with the ground suction as you pass over it. Nicely road glare is kept to the minimum.

Then there are the roundabouts. They are used everywhere possible to good effect. It's a bit of a shame that Canada doesn't have as many roundabouts as they are fuel efficient and keep traffic moving. They are fuel efficient in that except during heavy traffic you tend not to have to stop the car and then accelerate again. You also spend very little time idling waiting for a light.

Now the key to a good roundabout is size. The traffic circles I've seen in Canada tend to be too small. Roundabouts really must be large enough that the inner circle can go around at 30km/h without too much trouble.

Traffic in New Zealand tended to be light and polite. It was a lot like driving in the Maritimes. People will pull over to the side of the road to let you pass if you drive like a standard Lower Mainlander. Now I didn't drive myself, Don did all the driving, but on those long highway stretches we had plenty of time to discuss it. The New Zealand speed limit is 100km/h. I heard that there was some talk of increasing it, but I don't think that would be in New Zealand's best interest. That speed is not too slow to make good progress through the country. Overall the roads are good and nice drives, except when the high desert roads are fogged in and it's raining cats and dogs.

The first is a small travel power bar. I had the necessary travel adapter and had confirmed that my devices would work with the simple adapter. However I only had one. In these days the standard traveller carries at least a laptop, phone and camera. Well, it may be easy enough at home to charge all three of those devices at once, but if you only have a single adapter it becomes more difficult. I do wish that I had brought a small three socket travel power bar to split the adapter. It would also help with the fear I felt when hanging my laptop charge off a wall socket held up by nothing other than the travel adapter. I will definitely bring one along the next time I leave North America.

The second thing I wish I had brought was some string or light rope to fashion into a strap for my water bottle. I really detest travelling without water, so the first thing I did upon arriving in New Zealand is buy a bottle of water to refill throughout the trip. That certainly worked well, but I had no convenience way to carry it. I was fine in situations where I could have my backpack, but that isn't always possible. Five feet of light cordage would have provided my a solution for this problem. Next time I'll make such a sling before I leave for the airport.

Take the colour of post boxes. In Canada, New Zealand and apparently Britain they are red. I think they tend to be blue in the USA; at least the postal colour is blue and not red in the USA. Then you have accent. Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa all have British-esque accents. They aren't the same, but they resemble each other. The USA accent differs significantly.

Having visited neither Australia nor South Africa you must take this next comment as a baseless supposition, but I believe that among the countries under discussion (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, USA) that the next least British are the Australians. At least in the past couple of decades it has seemed that Australia has positioned itself to be more similar to the USA than the prototypical British colony.

This is partially born out with the relationship between Australia and New Zealand. It is quite similar in many respects to the relationship between Canada and the US. For one thing Australia has a larger population and seems more willing to tout its own horn than New Zealand. Then there is the fact that many Kiwis head over to Australia to try to make their fortune in much the same way Canadians sometimes do. Of course being so close there is ample tourism between the countries, with Australia having sunnier beaches. I have heard that Kiwis get similarly insulted if you believe them to be Australian.

So I believe the comparison is apt. But how does New Zealand compare to Canada on the colony scale? I would have to say that New Zealand is, without a doubt, more British. They drive smaller cars on the left side of the road, they have the British-esque accent, they eat more meat pies. They also seem to not believe in insulation or double glazed windows. I suppose it makes perfect sense. New Zealand is still a remote country and Canada has strong French and American influences.

I doubt there is any deep meaning behind this observation, but it could be because of the smaller scale of the country. With only 4.3 million people spread rather thinly over the two major islands it's likely possible for a family owned business to make a niche for itself and remain. I don't know however, it could be something else.

Of course I spent some time listening to Radio New Zealand. There are two stations, a traditional variety station, similar to CBC Radio 1, and a music station, which seems to play concert music, but I must confess to not having listened to it much. The content was pretty much what you'd expect. Some news, some intellectual discussion and commenting on current events. There was also one music show by request which had a quite eclectic mix.

As to the content of the rest of the stations, I'm not sure if it's the people I am driving with or just New Zealanders, but it seems that most of it is older rock. There was one country station, but that station was vetoed almost immediately. The rest of the stations we've listened to have tended to be rock from the 90's and early in the previous decade. This isn't even us being picky. Since we are touring we are covering a lot of ground and moving out of transmitter range frequently enough that we tend to stick for a little while on the first station we find.

It isn't just on the radio where I heard this older rock. At this conference we were mooching off of there was a banquet with a band. The band was quite good, but tended to cover older rock tunes. Maybe this is just because of the type of people who were attending the conference.

Listening to local radio is an interesting view into the local culture. New Zealand may be the world of tomorrow, but it's music seems to have come from yesteryear.