In Germany for a car launch this and the weather went from 40 degrees and sunstroke, to New Zealand winter type conditions overnight.
It was the first down pour of rain for a few weeks in the region I’m in so the autobahn had turned from Formula 1 style driving conditions to more winter rally techniques needed.
The roads were slippery, and the large trucks hurtling along were spraying so much debris that one my colleagues had a object fly up from the back of a trailer and hit the new car windscreen with such force that a crack quickly appeared across the whole of the glass.
Driving out of the city, the autobahn speed alternated from 70km/h to 130km/h and even when we entered the usually limitless area the German traffic authorities had another idea.
Instead of putting your foot down and pretending to be Nico Rosberg or Sebastian Vettel and drive as fast as our nerves would allow, we instead were limited to a maximum of 110km/h.
And how did we know what speed to go? Those smart Germans had neon signage ever few kilometres down the autobahn that flashed what speed we should be doing.
And the German drivers were also driving to the conditions with huge gaps between the cars. They were even tolerant when confused international motoring writers had to quickly indicate and move ahead of them when their motorway turnoff was sooner than expected (hey I blame the satnav system).
But we Kiwis could learn from the German system: more motorway messages indicating a reduced speed during poor driving conditions and more tolerance and bigger gaps when on the open road.