Signs

It doesn’t take long to pick on the irreverence here, whether you are watching TV, listening to the radio, or driving down the road. Game of Thrones, in all its fleshy glory, is shown on prime time. Our favorite radio DJs remarked that they weren’t worried they would die of smoke inhalation in the tramping hut because they had a canary in the coal mine…they had a Maori sleeping in the top bunk.

And road signs are no exception.

Want something good to eat? Eat Japanese:

(Cochinita sounds a bit Spanish to me, but I didn’t make the sign)

Near Okarito (there it NOTHING there BTW), where the Booker Prize winning novel The Bone People takes place, there is another town called Forks

In New Zealand there are a lot of things crossing the road besides school children

In the NZ, as well as the US, brown signs indicate important landmarks, such as this

(We HAD to drive up there and see what this was.

The old road ran along the scree slope to the right, hence the term Death’s Corner).

However, in NZ practically anything can be a “landmark”

This is a local vineyard. Had to buy the wine, for obvious reasons. Quite a tasty Chardonnay.

And we found this

Which pointed to this

Many of the signs are related to road side safety

And one of my favorites, which you would never see in the US

If you didn’t get this, think about what side of the road you drive on.

Down here we find an irreverent advertising campaign by the Budweiser of New Zealand: Tui beer. These are the “Yeah, right!” ads. The photos below are from the internet:

My all time favorite came out 2 months ago and I didn’t get a picture fast enough. It said: “The US is just trying to back your data up for you: Yeah, right”

A little roadside entrepreneurship

And finally, my favorite roadside safety