We are Tac-Com, a group of friends who met through the magic of video games. There's so much more to who we are though, so this second channel focuses on our lives outside of gaming.
If I could advise anyone on a tour of NZ, I recommend driving up or down the Haast pass in the rain to transit the West Coast to the Southern coast, or vice versa. And drive both coasts in full. Perhaps also make time to hike overnight into Welcome Flat Hut just south of Fox Glacier. And the Coromandel Coast...
Not sure why you'd think that. We enjoyed our time there, and it was our favorite trip we've taken. There's certainly some aspects that I didn't like as much, but overall it was a very pleasant experience.
You would be surprised at how many tourists cause major accidents. Tourists complain about the roads not being very wide and the curves they freak tourists out we have long debated about tourists driving here great reaction 😊
This video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yfPevqMBlh4.html 6:55 in particular, I show how I add the swirls I guess I'll note that I did have 2 different pigments mixed in on the initial pour as well.
One lane bridges won’t be replaced anytime soon , in fact they’ve become a bit of a cultural thing now , just slow down for them , enjoy the view and give the oncoming driver a wave😊
As a New Zealander, why do we have to worry about an Americans prospective. If they don’t like how we drive, then they can go home. As I have driven in right hand countries as the Philippines. The Americans are frequently trying to change other peoples driving systems and habits. I don’t really get concerned about what American driver’s think, as I said why not go home and sort out the many problems they have there.
as a New Zealander I think that it is great to hear an outsiders point of view. And share ideas and information. Maybe I'll learn something interesting or beneficial to me. This video was labelled "Driving in NZ - from an Americans point of view".... why did you watch it, did you just need to whine about something.
@colonelfustercluck486 haha It's funny how many of the viewers/commenters are from NZ. I assumed that with this title, it would be more attractive to Americans who are trying to understand what to expect before traveling. That said, I really enjoy reading the comments from kiwis (and learned a lot).
ive lived and worked in Germany, UK, France, Cyprus and New Zealand. Food cost is about the same in all these countries and none of these countries tip. Americans have much cheaper food, but probs make up difference in price by tipping.
The speedometer thing is done by all manufacturers. Not distinct to NZ. Also the dotted white lines do not mean it is safe to pass. It means you can, if safe to do so and if you have 100m clear of oncoming traffic once finished the maneuver.
North American drivers just need to learn to relax. Passing in NZ is generally a waste of time. The is always a truck / van / camper / flock of sheep or herd of cows not far ahead. The time saved by passing is almost always imaginary. The guy got just passed was probably local and turning off sooon anyway. The 30kph speed limit in roadwork zones is actually a good way to avoid shredding your car with freahly laid road chip covered in tar. Plus you're less likely to fling chip into the window of oncoming cars and breaking their windscreens It took me a few years to adjust to NZ roads.North Americans tend to have poor impulse control and struggle to adapt to a more relaxed - but certain mode of car travel. The Interstates in the US reward driving that,, in NZ, can get people killed.
Kiwis generally do not package or label their food products so that visiting Americans can understand it. And yes, things are different in NZ than in USA (the difference is the thing).
Yellow center lines are something I never really thought about but I can understand what you're saying. It makes sense. Most roadside signage follows international standards so why not road markings. I wish we drove on the left so we could import US cars.
It's interesting that in the US, we get foreign cars. The manufacturers make both left and righ-drive versions, so in the US, we import left-drive. So, it's odd that the US doesn't make right-drive for export.
Great summary of NZ driving. A handy but little known fact about the plastic markers along the side of the road: when driving at night on back roads, the white reflectors on the markers on the left side of the road indicate the road ahead turns to the right. The yellow reflectors on markers on the right side of the road indicate that the road ahead turns to the left. Takes a bit of getting used to reading the sharpness of corners, but it's quite handy once you know how to interpret what the reflectors are showing.
Tasty is the brand of the cheese and as a Kiwi living in the US for nearly 20 years I do miss Tasty cheese Nothing in the US compares to it Another I miss is Vintage cheese Much nicer than any American brands I have tried
MMM... camper vans are a nuisance... Most speedometers read a little bit fast...the auto radars on the roadside are pretty accurate... good way to check your speedo error. A lot of the one way bridges are very old and are often replaced with better ones as they finally wear out. The gas pumps have a little latch you have to engage. Glad you enjoyed my pretty country, and managed on our roads. Driving on the opposite side than you are use to is tricky... 🙂
Well done, I think a very fair assessment. The speedo on your rental should be about 7% over-reading like all the cars in NZ, who would now why they do it but they do !. Glad you enjoyed it, Cheers Worm.
An answer about corners in areas which you couldn't do the speed limit: I don't know if you saw the yellow signs indicating turns all had numbers under them! This indicates a safe speed to travel around the corner. So while we won't be going the speed limit per say, we've got a fair idea of the speeds at which we can talk corners
yes many roads, particularly the not so busy winding roads have the yellow speed advisory signs on the bends and corners along the road. They are not official speed limit signs, but the recommended speed for going through that particular corner. I think the Automobile Assn (AA) puts these in, all over the country. They also have the yellow signs for loose gravel, slippery when wet, ice, rockfalls etc.. these yellow signs are all simply advisory signs.
Just remember it takes much longer to get from A to B because of the smaller, slower roads. Give way signs are not yield signs! Traffic circles are not round abouts. Get your hands on a Road Code book ! You are meant to drive in the left lane unless passing. If you are going slower than the speed limit, you are meant to pull over so people can pass, and if you don't, you can be ticketed, be warned.
In NZ the open road speed (highway) is 100km/hr for light vehicles, if you are driving with a trailer of some description or a truck (4ton or heavier) the speed limit is actually 90km/hr
The rule "drive according to the condition" overrules speed zones. Also, the 5-10km over the limit is know as the tolerance where the police will only issue a warning not a ticket.
If you are concerned about phone plans while in NZ, if your phone is not network locked, you can buy a pre-paid sim at almost any supermarket for most of the local networks, and pay for 'top-ups there too. You can get local data rates MUCH cheaper than the American roaming specific plans, and many of the big providers offer included spotify or free social media data, but you'll be paying more for international texts and calls... Based on prices from 'Skinny' (probably the best pre-paid plans), $27NZ gets 4GB data, or $40 will get you unlimited data.
Speaking of water quality; A lot of tourist spots, public parks, road-side rest stops where there are toilets, i sites (tourist information sights) and the like, have a water fountain for refilling bottles, and it's almost always filtered. It typically is nicer than the local tap water, but a lot of larger districts have rather good quality tap water.
Yellow = do not cross the line White = you may cross the line to pass So therefore if there are only two lanes, of opposing direction traffic, the centreline must be white to allow passing.
I had fish & chips my first night :) That said, I wasn't adventurous enough. In hindsight, I wish I had tried a bit more of the local dishes and things that I don't normally have.
Thank you for good comments😍 Jet lag... Yes, our body time is 25 hours a day and we are more accustomed to have a longer day than a shorter day. Going towards the west direction makes a day longer and easy, and going towards the east direction makes a day shorter and very very dauntingly hard. In the US, living in California and traveling to New York is much more tiring than the way around. I studied in New York in my 20s. Every time I spent a week or so in holidays with my brother who lived in Fresco, I had a bad headache on the way back. At the time I just thought all the noises of New York made this, but NO, because I have 27 hours when I go to the Westcoast and only 21 hours when come back to the Eastcoast😅😅 You may think this effect may not apply when the time lag is about 12 hours because half a day would neutralize the longer or shorter... well, strangely, that is not the case. You still get really tired going towards the west. I do not know why but it is true out of my own experience.
Ha. Artificially green? (13:40) Nope, that's real green. We didn't hire the hobbits to go paint the landscape for us, it's that green in the North Island. That's as real as it gets.
You need to know it’s not THE North island and THE South island. The main islands are named NORTH and SOUTH ISLANDS, no need for the ‘THE’. No-one calls Tasmania ‘the’ Tasmania.
@@prnothall9302 While you may be correct that North Island is simply another name much like Christchurch, Auckland and Napier, I've never heard anyone say "I moved to North Island", it's always been "I moved to the North Island". I've been around a while, so I should have heard that if it was used a lot.
Taupo and Tekapo were the 2 main ones that caught me off guard with the pronunciation. Or at least those were the main one si was aware of - I could be butchering other ones as well without knowing.
@@georgeferns6482 : us Aucklanders say Tow poe, Tow as in Tower and Poe as in toe, pronounciations have changed in last 60yrs. Went to school with kids that lived on Ihumatou pa and the way that’s pronounced now bears no resemblance to how they pronounced it.
The solid white lines also mean no stopping on the side of the road unless you can fully cross it so no part of the car is inside the lane , on the road blocking cars to freely pass. If there is a solid white line between lanes on a multi-lane/intersection it means no changing lanes. Stay in your given lane until you have broken whites again. Another solid whiteline scenario is when lanes merge; 2 into 1 or entering a motorway. Which ever car is in front(the nose, hood,bonnet, front bumper,grill) when the solid white line finishes and broken white starts , they have the right of way and the other car should yield. The broken white is not a free lane to see how many cars you can pass and cut in.
As a Kiwi, the NZ SUN is a real killer and it's no joke. Thank you for sharing your experience and what you did, I wish place names was all in English as I had to stop and think and look at the screen to see WHERE you was, the way you said them is not how I know the place names and it's your fault. There is a push for people to say it in different ways rather than the way all kiwis used to say it 30 yrs ago.... My friends just got back from a month in the USA and was shocked at how they had to pay $13 for a 6 inch subway sandwich... Everywhere they went they had to pay Tax & Tip and higher price than expected... Thank you for your videos and so pleased you enjoyed my backyard....
Biscuits (cookies) are supposed to be hard, soft ones are stale. Congratulations, you got to taste what beef is supposed to taste like when they feed on grass (which is natural) instead of grains (which is not natural). People get paid on Wednesday or Thursday in NZ so they eat out between Wednesday and Sunday nights. There's no money left by Monday, so many (sit down) restaurants close Monday and Tuesday. Many small shops went out of business as a result of COVID and their owners moved on to other things like working for bigger companies, so they never reopened.
U.S. gallons are smaller than real world gallons, 1 U.S. gallon is 3.8 litres, the international/imperial gallon is 4.55 litres. The dear gasoline is actually slightly less expensive if you know volumes. A U.S. pint is also only 16 fluid ounces instead of 20. (The U.S. and imperial fluid ounces are not 100% exactly equal).
"tasty" cheese means it's been aged longer, so it has more of a bite to it. "smoked" cheese is literally just that--it's been smoked in a smoke house pretty much the same way that cold cut meats get smoked.
We have "aged" and "sharp" as some descriptions, but usually accompanied by the type of cheese. Like Sharp Cheddar or Aged Cheddar. It seems a bit odd that the label would have the descriptor, but not the type of cheese. Same for "Smoked". We have Smoked Cheddar or Smoked Gouda or Smoked Provalone. Just saying Smoked doesn't really say what type of cheese it is - just the style. It seems like it's commonly known over there what what the type of cheese is, so the descriptor/style is all that's needed. But as a foreigner seeing these names, it's quite confusing.
@@tac-com2574 woah calm down there pilgrim. As a side note: almost all the cheeses that you get in NZ and Europe you can't buy in America because they don't allow active cultures and the cheese must be made from ultra homogenised and pasteurised milk. The theory was that it would cut down on food poisoning--the result was that American cheese contains a whole lot more sugar, salt and artificial flavouring.
If you're driving on the open road in New Zealand and the road seems to suddenly disappear in front of you, don't panic. Youve come across something we call a corner. Once you've been around a few of these youll get the hang of it.
The carryon luggage limit is pretty much worldwide except North America. I know a lot of people who will travel internationally with only their carryon luggage. As a family of four we did a two week trip of Vietnam with only carryon luggage. On the other hand my wife and I went to Europe for four weeks including a wedding and visiting friends so took check in luggage with extra wedding clothes and gifts and all the bags got lost and took a week to catch up with us!
I remember the first time I did the crossing and the tourists were talking about Mt Doom and I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about! On the spur of the moment I decided to climb it, and from the top you could see from side to side of the North Island. The problem was that I had to run most of the rest of the way to catch up with the family and catch the bus!
Re our roads and Google Maps. NZers like to think that their roads are really bad but as someone who’s driven extensively in over 40 countries NZ roads aren’t that bad.
The reason we don't use yellow lines to divide lanes is because yellow is a prohibitive colour, meaning yellow means NO! No passing, no parking, no stopping, no whatever. White simply divides the lanes. You don't need a different colour lane marking to mark two way roads. You automatically know that if there's only two lane's, one goes one way, one goes the other, they're just marked with a broken white line to divide them, passing permitted, or yellow if passing is not permitted. It's really very easy.
@@tac-com2574 These are usually at uphill passing lanes where the two lanes in the same direction (uphill) will be split with a broken white line with the right hand lane having a yellow solid line stating no passing into the incoming lane. The oncoming lane will have a broken white line stating that passing is permitted so long as it can be completed safely.
Hilly windy back country roads are sort of open road speeds meaning up to but not exceeding the open road speed limit, generally 100km/h. In those areas the speed signs are a white circle with a black diagonal line typically indicating that you can drive any speed most comfortable and safest for you and the conditions while maintaining a courtesy to other road users who might be going faster or slower. Obviously some parts of those roads you can't actually go 100km/h but that falls more into common sense. Most of the main highways have designated speed signs ranging from 30 to 50km/h (middle of town/heavy pedestrian areas) 60 and 70km/h (slightly outside of town) and 80 to 100/110km/h (open road).
