Not for the faint of heart

Driving in New Zealand is what I affectionately call a white knuckle experience. That's me in our trusty, crusty old Honda negotiating one of many winding curves on a rocky one-way road. Medians? Ha! Guard rails? Forget it. Even the "expressways" are mostly two-lane roads. And when a semi passes you mere feet away in the opposite lane going 100+km/hr, the whole car shakes.

Through all this, it's hard to keep your eyes on the road and off the eye-popping scenery. I don't know how Kiwis do it. Actually they don't do it too well either and have some of the highest traffic fatality rates in the world, which is I suppose why you see public service announcements regularly advising that "speed kills" or "There's a time bomb ticking at every intersection: you." Not much for mincing words around here. So buckle up and give it a go.

Oh, and did I mention the sheep crossings?