to the left to the left to the left . . .

That's my mantra to myself when driving in New Zealand . . . though I need it less now than I did at first.

Really, I've been pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to adjust to driving on the left-hand side of the road.  Last weekend - to bring this at last to the beginning of the story of last weekend - we arrived at Auckland airport early on Thursday evening, picked up our rental car, and headed for the Northland.

I had to do a lot of thinking as we left the parking lot (to the left to the left to the left), and we got lost trying to get from the airport to the main route out of the city, but soon enough we were safely on the motorway, heading north at a comfortable 100kph. Okay, I thought, this will be easy enough. It just took a little practice to keep the car centered in the lane.

Then, all too soon, we came to the end of the motorway. Just outside the Auckland suburbs, State Highway 1 becomes a two-lane rural road, but one with a good surface, fairly wide lanes, and something of a shoulder.  Then the road got narrower and started to wind and twist through the hills, past signs warning of a high crash rate. Then the sun went down.  Then it started to rain.

It took us at least four hours to get to our destination, a "holiday park" on the Kauri Coast. I was shaken and exhausted, but fully initiated into New Zealand driving.

(The Kauri Coast is on the western side of the Northland, bordered by the Tasman Sea.  It's home to the largest remnants of the native bush of the region, dominated by massive and ancient kauri trees. A holiday park is a distinctive institution in New Zealand that combines various kinds of accommodation - from unpowered campsites to self-contained tourist flats - on a single property.)

The hardest thing about New Zealand driving has nothing to do with driving on the left.  That has come to seem almost normal, though I do have to think a little when approaching a roundabout (keep left, look for traffic coming from the right), or when making a right-hand turn (aim for the far lane), or when maneuvering in a parking lot (to the left to the left to the left).  I also have to put up with my own annoyingly persistent habit of turning on the windshield wipers when I want to signal a turn.

No, the hardest thing about driving in New Zealand is driving in New Zealand.  Almost none of the land is flat, almost none of the roads are straight, and very few of the roads are more than narrow ribbons of asphalt with two lanes and no shoulder . . .with hairpin turns and absurdly steep grades and oncoming traffic which, in the Northland, might include logging trucks, milk tankers, and foreign tourists in rented camper vans hauling boats.

In most places, under most conditions, the nationwide top speed limit of 100kph (around 60mph) is but a distant dream.  Among other things, this makes it very difficult to estimate the driving time from one point to another, as it has no fixed relationship with the distance involved.

As an added bonus, the infrastructure of New Zealand embodies either a cavalier attitude toward safety, the absence of a large population of trial lawyers, or both: use at your own risk.  Guard rails are few and far between, regardless of slope or altitude.  So, imagine a narrow, shoulderless road on the side of a mountain, with a cliff rising up on one side, a steep drop on the other, twisting through hairpin turns at some absurdly steep grade with logging trucks coming the other way . . . and no rail.

The absence of rails also applies to footpaths, which brings me around to the most embarassing (and possibly funniest, though I might not be the one to ask about that) story from last weekend. It's the answer to the mystery of why my shoes were so wet on that particular Friday.

We spent Friday morning exploring the kauri forest at Trounson Reserve, just a few kilometers from the holiday park.  There's an easy loop path around the reserve, and all manner of interesting things to see.  Andrea, with her new camera, was practicing microphotobotany (about which more later).  I had my binoculars, and was working to revive my skills at birding.

We stopped at one point to listen to a couple of tui (native honeyeaters) calling to each other.  I had my binoculars to my face, trying to spot one of them.  I moved a bit to get a better angle: first to the right, then to the left, then back.

I was very surprised at that moment to find myself falling, having stepped back onto nothing at all.  I was then utterly astonished to find myself falling backward into in a two-foot-deep pool of water.  I had been standing on a narrow dirt path that was set down on a wooden bridge, with a rail only on one side.

I recovered quickly and stood up - which is how my shoes got wet - and somehow managed to keep dry the cell phone in my pocket, the books in my day bag, and the binoculars around my neck.  My wallet was only slightly damp.

To her credit, Andrea waited until she knew I was unhurt before she started laughing.

For my part, I recalled an important lesson from my youth (taught to me by a stinging nettle when I was fifteen or sixteen) about walking while using binoculars.  I also learned the value of wool socks.

But I never did see either of the tui.