New Zealand Tour Map Travel Blog

Statistics New Zealand has reported that international guest nights spent by short term visitors were 5 percent higher in April 2007 than in April 2006. Australian visitors recorded the largest increase in international guest nights.

Domestic guest nights also reported an increased of 1 percent in April 2007 compared with April the previous year.

Total guest nights in April 2007 were 2 percent higher than in April 2006. This trend in total guest nights has been increasing since January 2006 after a period of no growth that began in late 2004.

At the recent Trenz 2007 travel industry conference held in Rotorua, A British travel executive from Travelmood UK claims that there are to many B&B’s in New Zealand masquerading as luxury lodges or boutique hotels.

The popularity of operating part time life style bed and breakfasts was frustrating inbound travel companies due to the difference in the travellers perception and the delivery of the accommodation.

Tourism Industry Association chief executive Fiona Luhrs agreed that “lodge” and “luxury” descriptions were overused, resulting in confusion for the up-market accommodation sector. Travelmood UK claims many part time B&B owners are rating there properties at $300-$500 per night and were not offering the level of service tourists expected for the prices charged.

A great way get the most out of your independent tour of New Zealand is to use audio guides. Dayout.co.nz offers travel guides to popular New Zealand locations.

These guides can be downloaded onto your computer, internet capable PDA, MP3 player or iPod for NZ $ 9.95 for the whole 200 guides. These guides include mini maps that can be printed out to follow while you listen to the audio description.

The guides are written by professional writers and covers all of New Zealand from Northland to Southland. The North Island of New Zealand is divided into eight regions, while the South Island has five. Within each region there is up to twenty mini audio tours covering the countries many “must do” sights.

If you are only touring smaller sections of New Zealand you can now download those areas of specific interest directly to your mobile telephone for NZ $1.25 each.

“Don’t use New Zealand country side as a toilet” was the message from Queenstown Lakes mayor and councillors at a recent meeting. During a very heated discussion at the board meeting, Queenstown mayor Clive Geddes has suggested that the council support a national policy for freedom campers, in a bid to stop urinating and defecating waterways, picnic spots and roadside rest areas.

Unless you come from rural areas you may not be aware of the one lane bridge sign that are very common on New Zealand roads.

Another recent accident between two tourist driving rental cars has once again highlighted the need for visitors to familiarise themselves with this type of traffic hazard.

New Zealand country roads and state highways cross many rivers that are often only bridged by a one lane roads. The announcement of the upcoming one lane bridge is by means of a sign indicating which side of the road has the right of way and which lane has to give way. The signs are as follows.

The recent drowning of a 45 year old man from Melbourne, Australia in the Matukituki river 30 km of Wanaka has once again highlighted the drowning risk that faces New Zealanders and overseas tourists during the summer season. Two thirds of all drowning occur in New Zealand rivers, streams and creeks. New Zealand has almost double the drowning rate per head of population compared to Australia and four times the drowning rate per head of population than the United Kingdom.

The 45 year old man and his 9 yr old son were crossing the river when they both lost footing and were swept away down towards dangerous rapids. The 9 yr old was pulled from the river by his elder brother but the father was found deceased 1 km from where he was swept away.

New Zealand national parks are riddled with fast flowing streams and rivers fed from mountain snow and as such they flow strongly almost all year round. New Zealand camping grounds and holiday parks are often located next to picturesque rivers. Locals are aware of the dangers that are continuously featuring in news reports, however tourist fatalities account disproportionately in the drowning statistics.

So why are overseas visitors drowning in New Zealand back country rivers? A common thread in these drowning are a lack of experience in reading the river to know where to safely cross. This knowledge comes with experience that often is not held by large city dwelling visitors to our parks. New Zealand rivers are very accessible and are often located right next to camping grounds and main roads resulting in that “lets stop and have a play” attitude. Another reason is the temporary discolouration of the water after rain fall that makes it hard to gage the depth and see rocks or boulders underneath the water. Even crystal clear water that is flowing fast can distort and blur your sighting of hazards.In the case of this latest victim, police report the position of the river crossing was sound. Initial police reports point to discolouration and loose bulky clothes as the main causes of the accident.

If you are planning to travel New Zealand during the new year period of early January be prepared to be patient on our roads. Although New Zealand offers in contrast to Europe and US, a relatively traffic free road experience, the early January period is the exception. As mentioned previously, this is the time that New Zealanders take holidays resulting in long queue of traffic in and out of the popular summer “hot spots”. Reports of traffic queued 5 to 10 kms heading back into Auckland are common on the weekends as Aucklanders head home to work. Beware of parking wardens that small towns employ during the holiday period to police and liberally issue parking tickets to the unsuspecting tourist.

Keeping within the genre of ‘New Zealand’ travel and particularly independent driving tours of this country, I thought we should report another car accident in the central North Island associated with tourists from those countries that drive on the wrong side of the road. We know you guys think that NZ is on the bottom of the world and we drive on the left hand side of the road….. but for us down under, we know we are on the top of the globe and we drive on the “right“ side of the road.

A common occurrence for our European and American travellers are head on accidents. These accidents are directly associated with tourists from these counties who are accustomed to driving left hand drive vehicles, who end up driving on the wrong side of our state highways. In more populated countries like the UK this is not as much a problem, but here in New Zealand when the state highways resemble quiet country roads that are empty of traffic, the tendency to end up driving on the wrong side of the road is unfortunately an ever increasing problem.

So why does it happen? As we touched on earlier, the main reason is “down under” you don’t have a queue of cars in front reminding you what side of the road to be on. Most, if not all of these accidents happen on roads that are bare of traffic with the exception of the unfortunate “other” car involved in the head on collision.

As a frequent visitor to the US (83 visits at the time of writing this) I always hire a car and have been driving without incident there all 83 times. However, I sometimes find that when I am driving in an uncontrolled area for example a shopping mall car park, I often find myself on the wrong side of the road. Transit New Zealand is very aware of this problem and has embarked on a program of painting direction arrows to remind road users which side of the road to drive in those areas that are of high risk. The major car hire and motor home rental companies also state that it is a major problem and as such many have installed arrow stickers on their vehicles to remind you which side to stay on. New Zealand road signs and rules.

Back to the latest accident, as you can imagine head on collisions on open roads usually result in serious if not fatal injuries. In this case the US tourist concerned escaped with moderate injuries.