How to find a New Zealand street in Google Maps

I’ve found something that the all-knowing and all-seeing Google cannot find! Streets in New Zealand. This is despite these streets being in its database!

So how can we pull up a nice Satellite view of a New Zealand street? Here’s how I did it.

First of all, know the name of the street you are looking for. For this example, I will use “Reeves Road” in Christchurch (South Island).

Now go to http://www.wises.co.nz/ and search for that road to make a map.

Now zoom out on the Wises map to get a good overview of the area.

Now go to Google maps at http://maps.google.co.uk and type in “Christchurch, New Zealand” to get as close as Google will allow you to search.

Compare the two maps until you can match up the major road names/locality names.

Zoom in on Google maps and low and behold – there’s your street! With it’s street name!

If you want to then see it in Google Earth (which doesn’t have street names and has the same resolution photos), then click “Link to this page” and in the URL bar at the top of Firefox/Internet Explorer, copy the &ll=-49……. section until the next & sign and copy that bit into Google Earth.

There you go – not that difficult, but fiddly.