We had the foresight to rent a GPS device with the car--the car didn't come with in-dash navigation, but for an extra fee the rental agency provided a Tom-Tom GPS. You'd think that would have prevented the kind of navigation problems we had getting around Auckland city streets.

Voice directions were often unhelpful. "In 300 meters, take the exit, then, take the exit." That's not very helpful when a motorway offramp forks in two and we've no clue which side to take. What's wrong with--oh, I don't know--maybe a STREET NAME or an EXIT NUMBER??

Occasionally the Tom-Tom lady did give us a street name. "In 100 meters, turn right." Uh... remember those mishmash intersections? Would that be a gradual right on Vincent Street, or a sharp right on Mayoral? No advice? Nothing? Okay, we're in moving traffic so we've gotta choose... I'll turn here on Mayoral. "Continue on Vincent Street for 200 meters." Argh!

Once she even directed us into a cul-de-sac on our way back to the airport. I'd turn around and head out of the cul-de-sac and Tom-Tom repeatedly would recalculate and direct us back into the cul-de-sac.

Occasionally while cruising down a long, quiet country road, she'd suddenly blurt out, "Turn right!" Huh? Where?? There are no other roads out here!

I wish I could have just used Tom-Tom's graphic display to see where I was going, but it was set on maximum zoom. I zoomed it out so I could see roads more than, say, 20 meters away... but after 30 seconds or so Tom-Tom would sneakily start zooming back in.

Tom-Tom definitely wasn't up to the standards we've come to expect from our Garmin GPS back home!