OT? New Zealand trip

You should add a mini-detour to Yosemite ... maybe even spend night or two there. I found the Submarine in SF surprisingly interesting to wander around.

MuddyMike :

So that's what it looks like! :-)

Seriously, though, that looks like a lift shaft. The glass floor I remember looked down the outside of the building to the road. No doubt they do clean it from time to time but from what I recall the problem was mainly scratching and that would require polishing out or replacement, neither of them cheap options I'd have thought. I guess we just went at a bad time.

Hear, hear. Cracking place.

Not so keen on central LA - looked a bit of a pit when we were there. We flew in and out of LA for our six week RV tour of the West Coast as the last leg of our world tour. [London -> Singapore -> Port Douglas (N. of Cairns) -> Sydney (wonderful place) -> Christchurch (after the big one but before the even bigger one) -> driving round NZ and camping -> Auckland -> Hawaii (Oahu and Big Island) -> LA (six week RV expedition) -> London ] We spent our last few days at Long Beach which is a bit out of town, but a very relaxing place to stay. Public transport seemed very good, as well. So I would suggest that as a potentially better option then central LA if you are stopping for a week.

Cheers

Dave R

Literally.

Oh, and given the choice between SF and LA I would go for SF every time. Lovely place, loads of good restaurants (the Stinking Rose if you like garlic!) and you can walk everywhere, the tram system is fun and the tram museum a must see where you can see all the inner workings of the cables which pull the trams. I agree that LA is better suited to be a hub from NZ - you may even have to take an internal flight to get easily to SF. However SF to UK is straightforward.

If I was flying into and out of LA and had a week I would get out of town fast and go and see Death Valley and Grand Canyon. Vegas is accessible for those who like that sort of thing. However if you are going November or February (nice times to see NZ) you may have problems getting into Yosemite, for instance. Unless you hire a 4x4 for the ski scene? We were in the US from late March to early May and a lot of the mountain areas were still closed due to snow. We wanted to see Yellowstone but it was still snowed up. Much of Yosemite also. We spend much of the latter part of our trip in San Diego which we loved.

Cheers

Dave R

Fair cop - I do have major word blindness over NZ names :-)

We stopped off at Honk Kong for 3 nights, then flew into Brisbane a spent a week driving down to Sydney (worst experience of the whole trip was trying to return a hire car to a Sydney city depot) before flying on to Christchurch, looped around South island by train and car for 10 days, flew on to Wellington drove across North island for 8 days, flew on to Fiji from Auckland for 4 days then just one night on the coast outside Los Angles where we have been before.

So you can indeed fly on from a different airport, or you can if you fly business class :-)

Mike

IIRC I flew into LAX from HNL then down to SFO, the return to LHR was similar just used LAX as a stepping stone. The leg from HNL might have been direct to SFO.

IME, rental 4x4s have their 4WD locked out.

You could turn up and gawp at the house "Outrageous Fortune" was filmed at, just like thousands of others have done. Beats me why they used a real house, belonging to real people as a TV set - some folk even steal the driveway fittings, from what I've read.

There's a no-fault, Government backed, insurance scheme, iirc. It provides basic 3rd party cover for anyone who just takes to the road.

Which is why you see teenagers at the car auctions buying souped up Subarus. I presume they are firm supporters of Darwin in NZ ;-)

Fortunately, I have absolutely no idea what 'Outrageous Fortune' is or was - I watch very little TV so there is no risk that I will be doing that.

Bob

That law is due to change to something sensible in about March 2012.

Vehicle damage is not covered automatically so you should have 3rd party cover, whcih is cheap ($100 per year for me) NZ's ACC scheme provides no-fault personal injury cover. So if you injure somebody they cannot sue you, and if you are injured you will possibly be paid medical costs. However the person at fault may be prosecuted if reckless or deliberate.

PT in NZ is not good, the result of low population density and high car ownership.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I knew a bit but not the details.

If you have time to go north of Auckland, the Kauri Museum at Matakohe, Northland is worth a visit. The Kauri being the most wonderful timber, except that most of it was cut down.

There are electric trams from NZ and Australia. The 1891 steam tram may be ready after its overhaul by the time of your visit. Volunteer days are Sunday and Tuesday and they would be happy to show you around. The trams are powered by a bank of mercury arc rectifiers which are on display.

In the Telecommunications section are examples of the oldest telegraph and telephones and radios.

On the other site there is the new Aviation Display Hall for planes, and there's steam trains and tanks that run around once a month.

The scenery in the South Island is great. At least go to Queenstown. The Earnslaw is a large steam powered ship on the lake there. Well worth a trip. Also maybe a jet boat trip up the Dart or Rees river. The Kingston Flyer is a steam train that has recently changed hands, and reopened two days ago