The last big drive of our South Island trip was from the West Coast town of Westport to the East Coast city of Christchurch. We took the most direct route, through Lewis Pass.

Because I did most of the driving on the day, Hubby decided to document the day by taking lots of photos. It was a good thing he did because I was concentrating so much that I probably wouldn’t be able to recall much of the drive if it wasn’t for these photos. It also shows to you readers who haven’t been to New Zealand as yet what typical Kiwi road conditions look like. Now that the travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand is up, some of you might be thinking about having a holiday across the ditch. I say, go ahead, but be aware first and don’t take on too much. It’s not like driving from Sydney to Melbourne down the motorway.

How different is it? Let’s start our journey.

The first section of the journey follows the very pretty Buller River.

The road is a typical Kiwi road, one lane each way. This gets even tighter in one section of the road, where it’s one lane full-stop, as the road has been hewn out of the cliff.

Now, with a single lane, you hope that there isn’t anything large passing the other way, like a double tanker.

Luckily that didn’t happen to us, however it didn’t mean that it wasn’t nerve-wrecking…