Everything you need to know about moving to NZ

One of our clients, Nigel Ellis, wrote this hilarious article which sums up driving in New Zealand perfectly.

Turn for the Worse by Nigel Ellis

I landed in Christchurch in the middle of January, with my family from the UK, ready and full of positive thoughts about starting a new life on this side of the world. We had done our homework: here in Middle Earth they speak English, play rugby and cricket, drive on the left and the natives are friendly - what could be easier?

Cars seemed to be a little cheaper than the UK, petrol much cheaper and insurance less than half the price.  But within hours of buying our own car, the school holidays ended and the city's population flooded back from their summer hiding places; the once empty roads filled up with indigenous cars. But to put things in perspective, rush-hour in Christchurch was no worse than the middle of the day on Britain's congested roads. And our new life was still looked good - my son had a place at school, my wife still rated me generally useful to have around, and the sun still shone.

But that was before I tried turning right at a road junction.

Now call me traditional, foreign, or just plain Pom, but I am hard-wired to believe that if you are on a main road, anyone on a minor road can be safely ignored. I would swear blind that when turning left off a main road you only have to indicate, slow down and make sure you don't send a careless pedestrian into the next world. When turning right off a main road I would only have to check oncoming traffic. These simple rules, I now discover, must be binned to make way for a plateful of new ones.

I have driven thousands of miles continental Europe, where - as you would agree - they drive on the wrong side of the road. I have survived French anarchy at roundabouts, Italian brio in city traffic, Spanish traffic after the bars close. I have even mastered bilingual road signs in Wales. But after a month of trying to turn right or left in New Zealand I am reduced from a relaxed, confident, mild-mannered man at the wheel, to a gibbering wreck. 

Approaching a junction I now turn off the radio, tell everyone in the car to shut up, look five ways at once, assess whether the junction is controlled, partly controlled, uncontrolled, whether I'm stopped on a line or not, whether the guy on my right is sitting on a yellow line, a white line, a faded white line, and whether the car in front is turning right because he can see he has the right of way or because he can see the fear on my face, or because it's past 11pm and he's past caring or because there's a letter r in the month. Or just because it's not going to be my day.

And just when I think I've worked out a particular junction where I don't have priority, a bright-faced woman driver beckons me to continue with an expression that says ‘I know it's my right of way, but I'm in a really great mood right now, so go anyway, and you have a great day!' At this point I stall the car, thank God my wife isn't with me to witness this and quietly wish I could press a button on the fascia to flash up a sign on the roof saying Please don't hoot - foreigner at the wheel.

I wondered how these wacky rules could have arisen. Was this a manifestation of the Kiwi ‘Can do' attitude? Was it something to do with the Waitangi Treaty? Confessing my difficulties to a friendly neighbour, it was not comforting to be told that not even all Kiwis have quite grasped the rules. However, remembering the migrant's golden rule ‘When in Rome . . .' I called in to Papanui police station for advice.

When the desk officer understood my strange accent he recommended me to a branch of Whitcoulls to get a copy of the Road Code. Having made three attempts at the Road Book's lengthy chapter on Right Turns, I have partly understood the rules, though perhaps to understand half the rules is worse than none of them. 

And I can now see why they don't stock this publication at New Zealand House in London. 

Who knows what it would do to New Zealand's strategy of encouraging thousands of outsiders to come over to boost the economy? Imagine would-be migrants reading the NZ Road Book and figuring that Australia, with all its poisonous insects and reptiles, still looked a safer bet - and deciding to go there instead?

Perhaps the best solution is to buy a big, four-wheel drive, second-hand Fendalton tractor, wear a determined expression and put my foot down. After all, insurance is cheap...