Transportation in New Zealand

New Zealand has a varse landscape, and is made up of North and South Island. Public Transport for both Islands are sparse, and public transport is only more concentrated in the main cities like Auckland and Christchurch. For the rest of the country, the main transport is mainly by cars. To reach from one town to another, will take around at least 1/2 – 1hr drive away.

1) Car

The car is the basic way to travel around New Zealand. However, if you are travelling along, buying a used car may not be worthwhile as it cost around 3,600 NZD. The petrol cost is also not cheap in New Zealand.

Usually, at least 2 – 4 people will share the car petrol cost.

2) Mountain Bikes

As New Zealand is a mountainous area, and the weather frequently changes in the day (from sunny to raining), thus having a mountain bike helps to ensure that travelling can still be done even when there are wet weather.

If the bike you are using is a road bike, there are many issues of accidents or slippery slopes during wet weather.

3) Regional / Local Buses

There are mainly two types of buses serving the transportation system: regional and local buses.

Local buses are used for intercity transport. However for backpackers, they do not usually travel via the intercity, they will either walk or drive in the cities. The bu transport comes at a certain time, and the duration for each bus is quite infrequent (eg. 30 minutes interval). The bus will usually make a big loop before going the place you want to go, thus it is not very accessible.

For the regional buses, it mainly pertains to the following companies who provide the service:

- Naked Buses

- Intercity 

The problem with regional buses is that they have special offers on the bus route, such as $1 for the first passenger for the relevant bus route. However, the price will increase exponentially based on the demand on the relevant bus route,. There is no fixed price for the bus route, similar to the airplane ticket booking system. Thus choosing the shuttle service below, may offer you a piece of mind that you may not be grossly overcharged as the route had being totally filled.

4) Shuttle Services

Shuttle services are small mini-vans that offer shuttling services to selected cities. The network for the shuttle services are not as good as the regional buses above, however the rates for the shuttle services are fixed. Thus with the fixed rates, there is no worry that you will grossly overcharged.

5) Trains

Due to the development of the road system, trains are used mainly for tourism purposes, unless it is in Auckland where the trains are used for transportation. The train network is not as developed as the bus network, however the trains can pass through beautiful locations such as the following link:

http://www.dunedinrailways.co.nz/

6) Caraven

A Caravan is similar to a car, however the caravan offers all the basic amenities as a home (bed to sleep in, cooking facilities, toilets etc). There are many advantages for a caravan, whereby you can stay in holiday parks. But the key advantage of the caravan had being reduced after the Rugby World Cup in 2011. 

In the past, caravan could just park anywhere in New Zealand that has good view, however due to concerns of massive number of people when they travel in New Zealand during the Rugby World Cup, people complained that they were parking in private land without permission, the government setup a freedom camping act in 2011. The caravan are required to be parked at designated spots. 

The other problem of caravan is that you need power outlets, to charge the relevant facilities of the caravan such as water filling point, electricity etc. 

7) Hitch Hiking

Hitch Hiking for many people seems to be a very dangerous things to do. However, there are many backpackers who are doing hitch hiking. There are two group of people who pick up hitch-hikers. One group pertains to local New Zealanders who welcomes picking up new people, and are interested to learn more about other culture, and other experiences, and the other group of people are fellow backpackers who have performed hitch hiking previously, and now when they own their vehicle, they wanted to give back to the community. Hitch hiking can be done in the following methods:

1) Holding up a sign while walking down the road in the main highway

- The advantage of this method is that the drivers will know where you want to go, and the driver who are picking you up will send to the location you want to be at.

- The disadvantage of this method is that driver who can bring you closer to your final destination may not stop as they know that they are not going to that location. Thus the wait for a driver who wants to pick you up may be longer.

2) Standing at a certain location in the highway putting your thumb up.

- The advantage of this method is that you may meet drivers who can bring you closer to your final destination, and in the end result you may reach earlier then the first option.

- The advantage is that you may meet more interesting people along the way, you may be able to explore more places not in your iternary.

- The advantage is that you may be more flexible in your travel plans.

- The disadvantage is that people maybe more wary if you just do this, as they may not know what you want.