GPS - New Zealand -- Do they work?

GPS works just as well in NZ as any country, because those satellites aren't clever enough to discriminate! To all those who hate them, just wait until you are lost in the dark with no landmarks to navigate by and no idea where you are. Compass and map won't help you there. It shouldn't happen if you're careful but it can, and one day it might...

taxis use them...at least some of the ones i have used in wellington do (wellington combined taxis)

not exactly arthurs pass though...

My mate's new car has a little coffee cup display thingie that pops up and bips at him every 200kms telling him to have a break. It's a bugger if you forget to turn it off before you set off, cos once it arrives, you can't and it keeps reminding you every 5 minutes til you turn the ignition off.

Bloody annoying if you're on the road to Canberra, rounding Lake George, within striking distance of the world's best coffee, and no intention of stopping til you get to Manuka....

It's true that a standard (hand-held) GPS will work in NZ like anywhere else. What is more interesting is whether the South Island road network has been comprehensively mapped (digitised) so that a car-mounted GPS/mapping device would be useful for pottering around.

#7 - nice graphic representation of the southern Alps there, jemslie.

I don't understand why anyone would not think a moving-map GPS is a good idea. They definitely make things easier, they give you the confidence to take an interesting looking detour with the knowledge you will be able to find your way back, they are safer than trying to read a street directory while you are driving, they give a reasonable indication of arrival time.

I mean are you troglogytes? Are you still lighting your house with oil lamps? Embrace the new technology! It's everywhere! Time was in the past, where if you wanted to say pick up a Chinese accountant with an English accent... well, you would be hanging around the office of Dellotie and looking for excuses to talk to people. Today all you have to do is go on RSVP:

Ethnicity, Chinese, tick
Job: Accounting, tick
Languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, English, tick, tick, tick
Citizenship: UK, tick

sorted.

We used one and it was very useful in finding slightly out the way places in AKL and CHC. Of course you dont need one to go from Te Anau to Milford! If you have one take it with you but I am not sure the long term rental cost could justify its limited uses in cities. No NZ cards for Tom Toms so we used a Navman.
Regards
S

The one talked about previous was an Australian couple on honeymoon - got off a late flilght in Christchurch and picked up the rental car put in request for shortest route to Nelson -

Frankly the first opening of a farm gate should have given them soething of a clue!!! Took them on the rhumb line CHRISTCHURCH - NELSON they came out somehwere near NELSON LAKES having bushcrashed through farms and backcountry tracks opening and closing gates as they went in the pitch dark in your standard motor car Says a lot about the car but one has to wonder about the driver and his wife - could you imagine the high level discussion in that vehicle!!! :o)

They could have been rooting the whole time, and therefore didn't care too much. Just a theory.

obviously you have to use common sense with them - have heard a couple of stories recently about people getting lost or taken down 'wrong' roads in the dark - in thelong run though not the GPS at fault it was the user who didn't put in the best information, and relied on it way too much.

Otherwise they are great - having a voice giving you good reliable directions and if you miss the turn, nicely telling you to turn around or it will re route. Saves a lot of arguments and stopping checking maps.