Keeping to the Left in NZ

Better to become more faniliar with oncoming traffic on my right while driving in the country than in downtown Auckland.  So I have headed south away from the city on the secondary roads that weave through farm land or follow the coast. I am spending Monday night in a comfortable cabin in Coromandel.  This is a friendly small town built around an intersection.  Countryside of beautiful green hills, steep hills, that roll to the sea.  Heavy overcast and wind with showers all day.  The Fiji storm is following me.  Forecasts on the television indicate that the next few days will have very forceful winds here on the north Island.  The south island is doing well but I do not have time to get there.  I'm off to Whitianga tomorrow and have a plan that will let me stay dry while seeing as much country as possible and return to Auckland Friday mid afternoon.  That will be Good Friday.

The GPS speaks to me in a calm male voice and it knows I need to keep left.  I'll come home either totally ambidextrous or totally dyslexic.  The hardest thing to remember is that the turn signal switch is on the right of the wheel and the wipers are on the left.  Waving a windshield wiper does not adequately indicate a planned turn.  But the wipers are running most of the time anyway.  If I turn around to go back for a photo, the GPS tells me to "please turn around (again) as soon as it is convenient".  Nice co-pilot.  But the more I stay on the right road, the quieter my assistant becomes.

Mum will remember driving all across Nova Scotia with this son promising morning coffee at the next stop.  Stops which we never found.  Same sort of thing here.  Eating spots are few and far between in rural New Zealand.