Hello all, I am booking my flight a bit late, but need to know what airport is going to be easiest to get to from the US. I will be flying KRIC to KLAS for NANOG, then want to transfer over to NZNOG from there (leaving early 02/01/05). Can anyone advise me on what exact airport I'll need to take? Then travel plans from there? Thanks, Joshua Brady
On 4 Jan 2005, at 10:59, Joshua Brady wrote:
You want to fly to AKL, and rent a car. You can drive from Auckland to Hamilton in an hour or two, depending on how heavy your right foot is. Aim for State Highway 1, head south, and get off when you start to see signs saying "Where it's Happening" [*]. You should be able to follow the signs to the university once you're in Hamilton, and there are campus maps on www.waikato.ac.nz. Air New Zealand fly into AKL from LAX (multiple times per day) and SFO (once per day, I think). United fly LAX to AKL too. Alternatively if you can find a bargain deal through to SYD there are lots of connecting flights to AKL every day (SYD-AKL is about 4 hours). KLAS, eh? You're all ICAO, and stuff. AKL == NZAA, LAX == KLAX, SFO == KSFO, SYD == YSSY. Joe [*] I'm going to be sorely disappointed if those signs have gone, now.
On 4 Jan 2005, at 13:52, Joshua Brady wrote:
I am a pilot, so I attach country codes :)
An ICAO/IATA standardisation and naming rant at this point would probably be off-topic. So I will resist the urge. If you want to go flying while you're in New Zealand it's a very nice place to do it. There are other pilots on this list who can probably tell you about licensing requirements, or who can fly P2 with you, maybe.
Thanks for the advice.
One last question I have no problems driving in NZ with a US Licence?
Your hire car will have three pedals instead of two; there will be this strange lever in the middle that you use to change gears; the steering wheel will be on the wrong side; the fuel will be called "petrol" instead of "gas"; there will be roundabouts and the roads will actually have bends in them. Your US licence will be fine though, as far as I know :-) Joe
As long as you remember to put your car onto the LEFT side of the road, not the right. Many rental cars have a little arrow on the dashboard to remind you. Be wary of it. I for one have never tried driving in the USA, but the concept worries me enough that I think i'd think twice before trying to get somewhere in a hurry whilst driving on a side of the road that i'm not familiar with. (The number of accidents caused by tourists who reflexively dodge the wrong way is not insignificant). That said - and the comments regarding the lost day as you cross the date line are the other point I was going to make - look forward to seeing you. Its certainly 'an experience' here in ZL. :-) Cheers Mark.
If anybody is arriving at Auckland and would prefer not to hire a car, Roadcat transport ( +64 7 823-2559 roadcat(a)xtra.co.nz) provide a good shuttle service. It is a shared minivan service, a little slower than driving yourself, but they'll meet your flight and drop you to the door in Hamilton. If you are staying on campus you do not need a car to attend the venue. If going into town in the evening you can probably get a ride with a NZ attendee or a taxi fare will be fairly cheap as it is quite close. Richard. Mark Foster wrote:
On Wed, Jan 5, 2005, Mark Foster thus spake:
(The number of accidents caused by tourists who reflexively dodge the wrong way is not insignificant).
Oooh, this brings to mind one other gotcha: the left turn yield law down here. Easier to demonstrate than describe, but I'll give it a go... Say you're sitting in the middle of the road, waiting on a break in oncoming traffic so you can turn across it. Down here, unlike almost everywhere else, if the oncoming vehicle is turning onto the same street, the *oncoming* car must give way (the vehicle turning across the lanes has the right of way). Here, this means that the left turning vehicle yields-in the states this would be the right turning vehicle (i.e., you're turning left at a US intersection, the oncoming car is turning right onto the same street, *you* have the right of way). This one pretty regularly gets a tourist in trouble, as they are often unaware of the different rules and fail to yield, sometimes with rather spectacular results. It sounds odd, but it does make sense because of local conditions-the roads tend to be quite narrow, so it's desirable to get vehicles out of the middle of the road as quickly as possible. <http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/travellers/english-driving-safely-in- nz.html#intersections> Regards, Ed Hintz ed(a)hintz.org
My driving instructor always taught me the easiest way to remember what to do when two cars may have to give way to each other is to picture in your mind what would happen should both you and the other vehicle go at the same time (neither giving way.) Whoever manages to get their drivers door (on the right) smashed into by the other is the one that should've given way. I'm pretty sure that works in all situations... Neil Edmund A. Hintz wrote:
My driving instructor always told me to watch out for the car turning the corner in bright sunshine with their windscreen wipers on full. "A car usually full of them mad americans" he used to say... :-) jamie On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 12:31 +1300, Neil Bertram wrote:
On Tue, Jan 4, 2005, Joshua Brady thus spake:
One last question I have no problems driving in NZ with a US Licence?
No probs from a legal standpoint anyway-the US lic is currently accepted as legal to drive on for 1 year from the date of entry. Driving on the left side of the road, while initially novel, is something you get used to very quickly(within 1 day for me). But the turn signals and windshield wipers are also swapped on the steering column, and it takes forever to get used to that. Every time you make a turn, your wipers will come on before your turn signals. I've been here for over a year, and I still bugger it up once in a while. :) Regards, Ed Hintz ed(a)hintz.org
Joe Abley
If you're heading for the university from AKL, I'd pretty strongly recommend using the Gordonton road. When you get to Taupiri (just south of Huntly), there's a left turn, with a big green sign indicating Cambridge, (State Highway 1A). Take that and follow your nose. (Don't take the subsequent Cambridge turnoff some distance down the road.) The road ends after a long straight 50km/h zone through the outskirts of Hamilton. Turn right (left would take you into the Ruakura research campus -- that used to be a shortcut but I don't think it is anymore), drive a short distance to Peachgrove Rd, turn left across the railway line, left again. You're basically headed straight for the University at that point. Right at the roundabout puts you in Knighton Rd and all the western gates to the University. Left-ish, and right at the next roundabout, and right again at the turnoff at the top of the hill puts you on Hillcrest Rd, and the eastern gates. Easy-as, and you don't have to crawl though all of Ngaruawahia, Horotiu, Te Rapa and the whole sluggish bulk of Hamilton. -- don
participants (10)
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Don Stokes -
Edmund A. Hintz -
Jamie Baddeley -
Joe Abley -
Joshua Brady -
Juha Saarinen -
Mark Foster -
Matthew Luckie -
Neil Bertram -
Richard Nelson