One of the best drives I’ve done is from Queenstown (on the lightning bolt lake) up the west coast to Greymouth (on the north west coast where the snowcaps stop, the plain there).
Beautiful scenery - you’d be driving (no speed limit, so you can concentrate on the bends) through rainforest one minute and then emerge onto a vast river delta with a giant wooden bridge, then back into forest, then out onto a plain with towering snowcapped mountains above you, then back into forest, then pop out at a beautiful beach.
Never experienced anything like it, it’s one of my favourite memories of my trip to NZ.
Sorry should clarify - the rainforest road was marked with this sign from the article.
So yes a maximum of 100, but due to the nature of the road there’s no way you could do over that without killing yourself. Most of the time, you’d only have time to get up to 60 (if that) before another blind bend.
It just felt nice not to have to worry about speed and focus on the road, because here in Australia they’d have a posted speed limit way too slow and a speed trap around each bend.
That’s one thing I noticed about NZ, during my first trip: the speed limits are generally sane. If anything, the rural speed limits have a genuine sense of reality to them.
In stark contrast, driving in Canada (Toronto area) and the US (Texas) most times I felt I could safely go faster, were it not for the constant threat of speed traps or random / stealth cruisers.
In NZ if you’re doing a long drive and you don’t heed the slower speed limits as you enter a bend in the road, you may have just fucked yourself. Especially if the roads have a layer of moisture, which is likely.
And the more built up areas have a decent amount of traffic calming, which is nice.
Toronto and really all of the GTA need a severe dose of NotJustBikes to get sorted.
One of the best drives I’ve done is from Queenstown (on the lightning bolt lake) up the west coast to Greymouth (on the north west coast where the snowcaps stop, the plain there).
Beautiful scenery - you’d be driving (no speed limit, so you can concentrate on the bends) through rainforest one minute and then emerge onto a vast river delta with a giant wooden bridge, then back into forest, then out onto a plain with towering snowcapped mountains above you, then back into forest, then pop out at a beautiful beach.
Never experienced anything like it, it’s one of my favourite memories of my trip to NZ.
No speed limit? Errr no mate, NZ definitely does have speed limits. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speed_limits_in_New_Zealand
Sorry should clarify - the rainforest road was marked with this sign from the article.
So yes a maximum of 100, but due to the nature of the road there’s no way you could do over that without killing yourself. Most of the time, you’d only have time to get up to 60 (if that) before another blind bend.
It just felt nice not to have to worry about speed and focus on the road, because here in Australia they’d have a posted speed limit way too slow and a speed trap around each bend.
That’s one thing I noticed about NZ, during my first trip: the speed limits are generally sane. If anything, the rural speed limits have a genuine sense of reality to them.
In stark contrast, driving in Canada (Toronto area) and the US (Texas) most times I felt I could safely go faster, were it not for the constant threat of speed traps or random / stealth cruisers.
In NZ if you’re doing a long drive and you don’t heed the slower speed limits as you enter a bend in the road, you may have just fucked yourself. Especially if the roads have a layer of moisture, which is likely.
And the more built up areas have a decent amount of traffic calming, which is nice.
Toronto and really all of the GTA need a severe dose of NotJustBikes to get sorted.
I have to take my family and visit NZ one day. Thanks for the pep!