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Detailed travelogue on Australia and New Zealand

Detailed Travelogue on Australia and New Zealand

Larry
2006-05-27 03:23:16

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you drive on the left side of the street, and sit on the
right side of the car. A lot of Americans complain about how difficult it
is to drive this way, but I had no problems at all. (As a helpful reminder
to visiting Americans probably, there are plenty of "KEEP LEFT" signs posted
all over Australia). The only small detail that took me a few hours to get
used to was the placement of the turn indicator and wiper controls on
right-drive vehicles. On American cars, the turn-indicator lever is on the
left, with the windshield wiper lever on the right. On right-drive
vehicles, it's just the opposite. For the first few hours, everytime I
wanted to signal for a lane change, my wipers would go on! Soon though, one
gets used to this too, and driving on the left was a lot of fun, and never a
problem.

Before I left the States, I made a reservation at Budget to rent the
smallest automatic car they had for one week, picking up in Alice Springs,
and returning in Darwin. I wanted a car to drive around the outback, and
then drive north to the top of Australia. When I arrived though, I was told
that there were no small cars available. Two had recently been in
accidents, and the only car they had for me was a large, full-size Ford
Falcon (similar in size to a Chevy Caprice). At first, I didn't mind the
instant upgrade (they didn't charge me for it), but once I saw how expensive
petrol was in the outback (A$.99 a litre, or US$3 for one U.S. Gallon), I
realized how expensive the car would be -- especially when driving at
130kph-140kph (80-90mph), as the outback has no speed limit. (When there's
miles and miles of nothing but desert, even driving 140kph seems slow).
After visiting Ayers Rock and Kings Canyon, but before starting the drive
north, I called Budget to see if any smaller (and more fuel-efficient) cars
...

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