I'm the Friendly Stranger in the Black Sedan

Classes are over! It's amazing...another semester has flown by. Now I have three and half weeks for my exam period before I return to the US on 16 November. That's a long time with only four finals, so I decided to book another trip!

I'm heading back to Australia on a pretty exciting itinerary. The trip is centered around a 10.5 hour train ride through the Australian outback (kind of) on a train called The Overland. It's operated by Great Southern Rail, which runs train trips throughout the country--some of which can take up to three days! It should be a really cool experience, and the transportation side of me is geeking out over the thought of it. I'm flying to Melbourne on Air New Zealand on 1 November (on a Boeing 777--another new plane and another new airline!). After a day in Melbourne, I take the Overland to Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia. Then after a full day in Adelaide, I'm flying to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, on Virgin Blue before flying back to Auckland the next day on an Air New Zealand 747. It should be a fun trip where I'll get to see another side of the country apart from Sydney, and I'm looking forward to it!

Anyway, on to our normally scheduled blog post.

Aucklanders love their cars almost as much as Americans do. A large majority of the population owns a car, and 17% of households own three or more of them. It's not surprising, then, that Auckland has one of the lowest rates of public transportation utilisation amongst cities of comparable size--and as Auckland expands, its car dependency is going to lead to huge problems as the city continues to expand outwards and upwards.

So what type of cars do Aucklanders drive? Definitely not the same ones they do in the US. Of course, all New Zealand cars have the steering wheel and pedals on the right-hand-side. It was a bit of a shock at first to look up and see, for instance, a small child sitting in the left-hand front seat where the driver sits in the US, or even worse, seeing that seat empty entirely. While there are some Australian-made Fords and Chevrolets driving about, most of the cars I see on the street on a daily basis are imported from Japan and Korea. I don't profess to be a car person at all, but it's been interesting to see a totally different mix of cars than what I'm used to. Here's a mix of popular models (*none of these pictures are mine):

A Peugeot 106

There are a bunch of cars from companies that don't export many models to the US, the Daihatsu, Isuzu, and Citroen. All of these models are completely new to me, like the Peugeot 106 that's parked near an apartment building on my walk to university every morning.

The Mazda Familia

I'm not sure if Aucklanders prefer small cars or if it's a function of the Japanese and Korean companies that export them, but most of the cars I see around here are small and boxy. One of the most popular ones is the Mazda Familia, which I think is New Zealand's version of the Toyota Corolla (although there are also Toyota Corollas here as well, albeit not at all like the 1995 model I learned to drive with). The Toyota Prius is also popular, and is the only car that looks like it's a direct port from the US market.

Nissan Sunny EX Saloon

One of my favorite car names is the Nissan Sunny EX Saloon. There's one of these parked right outside my building, nearly 24 hours a day.

There are also a bunch of old German BMWs and sparkling new Lexuses (Lexii?) for the well-to-do set. At Countdown the other day, I nearly walked right into a pristine Ferrari something-or-other that was imposingly parked in the space closest to the front door. If I owned one of these things, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable taking it anywhere.

Holden Commodore. This orange colour is actually quite popular

For all you "boyracers" out there (a real Kiwi epidemic, they're all over the papers), your car of choice might well be a Holden. Buy an old one of these Australian-made cars, pimp it out with rims and other things, and race down Symonds Street at 1 AM to impress your mates.

Another common sight are these Courier Post vans. New Zealand Post competes with a bunch of other local companies (I've never seen a UPS or FedEx truck here, but DHL is plentiful) to deliver packages and high-importance documents. The owner-operators of these vans are really adept at getting in and out of tight spaces, and you'll often see them speeding out of driveways, pulling quick 360s in the middle of the street, or performing some other "manouevre" to get to their next delivery quickly. They also have a habit of driving down sidewalks.

So, that's a little taste of what the cars are like here in Auckland. Not too many America-sized vehicles, which is kind of refreshing.