Moving around South Island New Zealand.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to visit South Island New Zealand for a week of holidays.  I flew to Queenstown by a direct flight from Brisbane and then from there I embarked on a seven days road trip around the southern part of the island. You can see my day to day itinerary on the map bellow:



The South Island is an amazing place with a big variety of breathtaking landscapes. Driving around the island is fairly relaxed due to most roads having little traffic and is also quite pleasurable as the road network is diverse in characteristics and not monotonous. Lots of curves of different radii, uphill and downhill sections and of course the magnificent road environment and landscape allows the driver to drive long distances without feeling bored or tired.

Mountainous sections and sections across the Alps, ocean side sections and sections across the fields, they are all worth having a look. Plenty of spots of interest along the way, provide opportunities to stop, rest, enjoy lookout views and observe wildlife and livestock.

There are a few very interesting aspects of the South Island New Zealand road network. One that stands out is the single lane bridges. Most of the bridges along the peripheral route that I followed, were single lane narrow bridges. With low levels of traffic and without the very long and very heavy vehicles that we have in Australia, single lane bridges seem to work just fine. Just a few of them are very long, and these ones have usually one or more  pull-outs, so that you can pull your car aside if you happen to accidentally be on the bridge as another car is trying to cross it too.

One other very interesting aspect of the road network is the way New Zealanders do roadworks. I am not sure about the work health and safety statistics on roadwork sites, but it seems that they take a far more relaxed approach than Australia. Less people doing traffic control, use of automatic traffic lights to control one way traffic on roadworks sites and far less use of roadside protective barriers. The big debate about WH&S protection measures on roadworks sites and how those raise significantly the total cost may have an answer in a comparative analysis between the two countries.

But then again, looking at the picture above, maybe the solution for roadworks safety is somewhere in between the approach taken by the two countries.