Category: Transport

New Zealand Interislander Ferry Times

Here’s a basic Interislander timetable for those needing to cross the Cook Strait (between Picton and Wellington) in their Transfercar relocation cars and campervans!

Wellington to Picton

Cook Strait

Timetable for Wellington to Picton
Depart Wellington Arrive Picton

2:25am – 5:35am
8:25am – 11:35am
10:25am* – 1:35pm*
2:05pm – 5:15pm
6:25pm – 9:25pm

Picton to Wellington

Timetable for Picton to Wellington
Depart Picton Arrive Wellington

6:25am – 9:35am
10:05am – 1:15pm
1:10pm – 4:20pm
2:25pm* – 5:35pm*
6:05pm – 9:15pm
10:25pm – 1:35am

0800 802 802
[email protected]

Rugby World Cup Car Rental Fever

New Zealand Rental car companies have joined the multitude of Rugby World Cup hopefuls as the hype and anticipation of this global sporting event continues to rise.

With the RWC looming ever closer (9 September – 23 October 2011), rental car companies are pushing for customers to book cars and campervans early, touting the issue of lack of car availability due to the estimated 85,000 international visitors expected to arrive in New Zealand specifically for the event.

This is a good sign for Transfercar as many visitors are expected to travel around the country during this time with a number leaving their cars at major airport locations. These cars and campervans will need to be relocated back to their place of origin and we will be there ready to fulfill this need…..

For those interested, here’s the RWC schedule:

Auckland

09 September 2011 NZL – TGA
17 September 2011 AUS – IRE
24 September 2011 NZL – FRA
25 September 2011 FJI – SAM
01 October 2011 ENG – SCO
15 October 2011 WQ1 – WQ2
16 October 2011 WQ3 – WQ4
21 October 2011 LS1 – LS2
22 October 2011 WS1 – WS2

Christchurch

10 September 2011 ARG – ENG
11 September 2011 AUS – ITA
18 September 2011 ENG – EU1
25 September 2011 ARG – SCO
01 October 2011 AUS – EU2
08 October 2011 WPB –
09 October 2011 WPA – RUB

The eclipse of human behaviour

Slowely but surely ‘it’ is coming- and New Zealand won’t be far off I bet. From fingerprint identification that is. Your thumb -or any finger on your two lovely hands for that matter- will be your most precious asset when renting a car or campervan in the near future.

Visit the site of national pardon to get more insight on the process of using fingerprints to trace criminal acrtivities.

Yup, it looks like we have finally arrived in the era where your authorising signature -and with that your word-is not sufficient anymore. The dawn of a new age where a photocopy of your identification doesn’t do it anymore like it use to in the ’80’s and ’90’s is upon us. And what about the good old creditcard? Nope, you will be needing ‘the goods’: Your passport or driverslicense, you prettiest signature and your fingerprint in order to secure a rental vehicle in -for now- The Netherlands and England.

As it turns out, these overseas rental companies suffer substantual losses of around the €350.000 anually. Why? Because people apparently feel the need to thrash the rental car they are using or simply steal it to be never seen or heard of again. And despite the fact the offenders sign a rental agreement and have their passport or drivers license copied- they are untraceable when it counts. Particularly when they are overseas visitors. In England this annual ‘damage’ figure is, thanks to the introduction of the fingerprint identification system, slowely reducing. However, this number is still persistently on the rise in the Netherlands. And so ever since October this year, Schiphol Airport has joined the fingerprint identification-team as well. No thumb-no car in the Low Lands and the country of the famous stiff upper lip.

Will this fingerprint identification march for New Zealand?-perhaps. After all, rental cars get thrashed here as well-or conveniently pinched if that suits the ‘program’ of the traveller better. And that’s a shame. Because this globally spread human behaviour is truly an embarrassment and a quite unnecessary one at that. And with the current global economy an investment like this will be the last thing rental companies are waiting for. Especially since the tourism industry is already noticing a decline in tourists visiting the country.

So come on you rental car users, play nice, play fair-don’t thrash (or steal) your rental.

Rental Road Rage

It happens to the best of us. Everybody has had at some stage in their life a mild or-in my case- a severe case of road rage overcoming them. Especially in summertime. People are hot and bothered in summertime. Things get untidy when people are hot and bothered.

And I admit- I’m guilty as hell. I bet you too. In the silence of your car- or perhaps out loud with lots of certain ‘finger activity’ and flickering headlights if you’re really over it- abusing our rental-car-road-users-from- abroad. It happens in every country, because as soon as humans go on holiday, they give their brains a brake a bit too literally.

So the rental car road users are the ones that do it. They are the ones that push all your wrong buttons and they are the ones that will make you run late for that career defining presentation. Not the local touring its own country-because he knows. And the fact that you left home 10 minutes too late has got nothing to do with it either- it’s THEM.

And please don’t get me wrong- all countries love their visitors and tourists dearly. They really do. But when you’re the local, they are the ones on holiday and they are the ones in a happy-people-relaxed-mode. We’re not. We’re already latent shitty when we walk out the door in the morning. Because the sun is shining and we’re going to be locked up in that office all day. We’re in the stressed-out-running-too-late-for-the-bloody-meeting-mode. And we all know that this mode does not mix well with a rental-road-user-from-abroad sitting in front of you doing 30.

So for the sake of national bloodpressure, the quality of the tourist’s holiday and the overall sanity in any country, signs will need to go up in the international arrival halls of airports.

And this is what they will read:

  1. Thou shall not drive 20 k’s per hour where you’re allowed 80.
  2. Thou shall not be indecisive and fiddle around on the road.
  3. Thou shall not suddenly stop in the middle of the road because you have seen a Kodak moment.
  4. Thou shall not drive painfully slow on curvy roads to then Nascar race the straights so you can’t be overtaken.
  5. Thou shall not attempt to parallel park your rental vehicle fifteen times in a row when it is painfully obvious to the ten waiting teeth-grinding other drivers it ‘ain’t gonna fit’.
  6. Thou shall not park your rental vehicle on the wrong side of the road or, whilst visiting cities, park on designated permit parkings.
  7. Thou shall not randomly camp overnight in your rental vehicle on the side of the road, beaches or my driveway for that matter.
  8. Thou shall not multitask in your rental vehicle whilst driving-you can’t drive, read a map, sing along with the radio and take photos at the same time.
  9. Thou SHALL pull over for faster road users to overtake you.
  10. Thou SHALL drive on the correct side of the road. Your campervan might seem huge to you, but they did take the size of average cars in account when they made the road so there’s no need to drive in the middle of it.

Follow these 10 commandments while renting a vehicle on holiday and the world will be a better place.

The end of an era

From today, Air New Zealand domestic travellers will be able to check themselves in. And I mean completely and fully from you arriving with all your family in tow at the airport, to actually boarding the aircraft after mouthwatering over all those nice unaffordable goodies in the shops. You will be able to do what those lovely ground stewardesses use to do for you: Weigh your luggage, give you the snobby “I’m sorry m’am but your luggage is too heavy” spiel, check the luggage in anyway by printing the bag tags, dismiss you with a peevish “Thank you” followed by a weary “Next, please” and everybody would part ways happy. Because that is how it was suppose to go.

Welcom to today however, where YOU print your bag tags, YOU drop your luggage directly on to a conveyor belt and YOU get your boarding pass using your mobile phone….

Now, the self-service check in is not completely unknown up to a certain level. At different airline companies throughout the world it is possible to check in online so many hours prior to your flight. This in order to speed things up a bit at the service desk on the actual D-day. But the whole ‘do-your-luggage-yourself-thing’ however is new to New Zealand.

According to a Mr. Jones from Air New Zealand, this new self-service approach is designed to speed up the check-in and boarding process. It will see almost 40 do-it-your-bloody-self kiosks replace the good old traditonal service desks at Auckland Airport. Apparently this $30 million ‘streamlining’ -you’ve got to love that word-project should see the average queue time drop from 15 minutes to 1 minute.

So, how does it work? You:

1. Self weigh your luggage at the do-it-your-bloody-self-check-in kiosk (-is this truly the end of the dissaproving Air New Zealand ground stewardess look?)

2. You scan your eTicket, mPass, creditcard or airpoints membershipcard at the do-it-your-bloody-self-kiosk

3. You attach the bag tag to your luggage and follow the signs to the bag drop area. where ever that might be.

4. Scan your boarding pass and board the plane.

C’est ca, according to Air New Zealand. “Our goal was to get rid of frustrating queues, cut customer waiting time and make checking in and boarding as quick and easy as possible. (….) Customers will now have much greater freedom and choice.” That’s great, thank you Mr. Air New Zealand-Jones.

Could this really be the end of the others-serving-you-because-you-pay-for-the-service-era as we know it? What’s next in this case, catering your own food and drinks while you’re in the air? Self-service the plane to your destination? Will this ‘service-yourself-trend’ be implemented throughout our whole transportation system? And why are we so keen to replace humans with computers? I mean, don’t get me wrong-computers are neat, but before we know it, everything will be fully automated. Fly for example on Air New Zealand Cruise Control to Christchurch in 2009.

And just hypothetically: You could even make a rental car company fully automated if you’re keen. Type in your details on the screen, select the car you want, swipe your credit card and voila; your keys will drop into the tray of your do-it-your-bloody-self-kiosk. Pick up the car from the parking lot, drive it for the designated amount of days that you’ve rented it for, and drop it off.

At drop off the car will go through some sort of car wash look- a-like where it will be fully checked for any damage. Ofcourse this is fully automated. If all is good no extra costs will be charged and you’ll get your deposit back. And for the naughty driver who thinks he or she can get away with a couple of more days without paying because the stupid computer surely won’t notice it: The car is obviously pre-programmed so it will just stop driving when your days are up. And this would most likely happen somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Because even computers can get a bit…let’s say ‘peevish’.

Just like those good old Air New Zealand ground stewardesses use to get.

When it is actually ok to use a tourist bus

Regardless of what form of transport you use in New Zealand, there will always be areas where you can’t bike or drive a motorised vehicle. There is simply no other option than to hoof it. And that’s ok.

Take for example the Coromandel; it’s not possible to drive the full circle around the top of this peninsula. To the west from Coromandel Town the road heads North through Colville, along the Hauraki Gulf, and stops just past Port Jackson. To the east it curls its way up the Pacific coast to come to a halt at Stony Bay. In between lays the Garden of Eden: Cape Colville Park, a DOC owned sanctuary -to say the least- with a world renowned walking path that connects Stoney Bay with Port Jackson in a truly spectaculair manner.

Walking is good though, and fun-apparently. So this is not the problem.The problem is getting to these remote sanctuaries in one piece and good health.

Should you for example be renting a car during your holiday, getting up the Far North of the Coromandel is, to say the least, a bit challenging for the international and national out-of-towners. Not only are you usually not allowed to drive on gravel roads with your rental-from Colville on everything is gravel road-, in this particular case you would be in need of some serious four-wheel-drive-activity at times as well. Your rented 1.3L stationwagon is not going to be cute for this.

Not to mention that the roads themselves are quite……tricky. Imagine extremely small winding gravel roads going up and down steep hills with, just on the side of the road, sheer drops of hundreds of meters to ocean pounded rocks far, far below. And now imagine you and your rented sleeping-4-campervan creeping up these narrow roads. Not pretty.

So, what to do if you’re driving a no-go car or campervan? In this case, contact the Coromandel Strongman Coachlines, ask for the feisty sixty-something driver and co-owner Jocelyn with her big smile and even bigger wrap-around sunglasses to book you on one of their coaches going up the Far North. They have a regular service dropping people off at one end and picking them up at the other. And this type of service will be provided by others in many other remote areas throughout New Zealand as well.

Now, you might have to share a ride with the occasional corporate Aucklander out on a bonding weekend, but try to keep the bigger picture in mind while enduring this phenomena. Think of it as a mantra-hear the ‘hummmmmmmmmmmm….’ And here we go….Your doing this because: You can leave your precious rented car/campervan behind, enjoy the ride to and from safely, take as many photo’s on the way as your 64mb memory card can possibly store and, last but definitely not least, you don’t get into trouble with your rental company.

“hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm….everybody wins!”