Having a car in New Zealand gives you complete freedom and flexibility to go exactly where you want, when you want, and you can take your shopping, kids, dog, and any other just-in-case nik naks you want to keep in the glovebox. For many of us, the idea of selling our car and using public transport instead may have some mild appeal in terms of eco-friendliness, but really, it's hard to imagine being able to live life the way we do in New Zealand without our own set of wheels. In almost every travel situation, taking the car is just so convenient that a public transport alternative never seems to work for us.

Here in London we have the world famous tube system. So what makes it work? In my observation, the key ingredients are simplicity, frequency and most of all, necessity.

For anything to be used by the masses has to be kept as simple and easy to use as possible or it will inevitably fall into the 'too-hard basket'. In my time here so far, I've never had to walk much further than a kilometre between a tube station and the place I'm trying to get to. That's because the stations are scattered everywhere across the city and connected by an interlinking web of train lines, which is good, but could easily be a very complex system to navigate. That's where the brilliantly thought out and colour-coded tube map comes in. All you need to do is find the station nearest to where you are and the station nearest to where you want to go then connect the dots. Each line has a different colour and all the signs in the stations match the colour of the lines they are directing you to. I've found it's much easier to remember a few colours than trying to remember station names and train numbers.

Catching the tube is further simplified by the fact that once you've got yourself an oyster card (google it to read how it came to get it's name) you don't need to worry about having the right amount of money or line up to buy a ticket, you just top up your oyster card with credit and touch your card on one of the yellow circular pads at the station gates on your way in, and again on the way out (it works with magnets so you can touch your whole wallet on the pad without having to take your card out) it works out how far between stations you've travelled and deducts credit accordingly. This quick way of paying also greatly speeds up the process so that millions of Londoners can flow through the stations every day.

Trains come so frequently that you don't need to figure out what time to be on the platform, because if you just miss one, the next one is only a few minutes away. But how can they afford to have so many trains running all the time? It's because unlike the buses we see on New Zealand streets with only a handful of passengers in them, the tube trains are always full ...full to packed out with no standing room let alone seats when everyone's commuting to and from work. Like so many of the great things in London, this comes down to the power of population.

For most Londoners, using public transport is a necessity not an alternative. I'm a bit of a petrol head myself, and heading over here I had aspirations of buying myself a cool old sports car to cruise around in, but I quickly realised that owning a car here really isn't that convenient.  There's often no space to drive a car let alone park it. If you thought Auckland had bad traffic congestion and nowhere to park, it's dream-driving by comparison to London. And on top of that, fuel prices, insurance and all other running costs are astronomical. So I've been forced to discover that living life without a car isn't that impossible after all.

My main concern was shopping. How am I supposed to get all my groceries home without being able to chuck them in the boot of my car? Turns out that shopping without a car can have its advantages. For one, you can only buy as much as you can carry which forces you to avoid buying stuff you don't really need. Also, carrying a couple of shopping bags home on foot gives you some great exercise.

I've found a 30 minute walk to work is a great way to get energised each morning, and a 30 minute walk home is a nice way to unwind and relax in the evening. What's more, I'm not spending heaps of money on petrol and I've no longer got a sasquatch sized carbon footprint.

And there are so many great parks to walk around here too. The main ones are collectively know as 'the royal parks' as they once where the private property of various members of the monarchy. This explains why these vast areas of green grass and trees have been left open as the city was built up around them. A large population of tax payers fund an enormous team of gardeners to keep these parks pristine. Decorated with colourful flower beds, rows of trees and all sorts of interesting statues and sculptures, the parks are also populated with a whole lot of wild life. Walking through Hyde Park in spring time feels like you're in the middle of a Disney movie as birds chirp in trees covered in flower blossoms and squirrels amongst the daffodils munch on acorns (or what ever the tourists feed them). Richmond Park, the largest (absolutely huge) park in the south west of London even has wild deer in it!

In and around these magnificent public parks are the many amazing museums and galleries to visit. There are lots and lots of museums and galleries and they are filled with the most amazing collections of incredible historic artefacts. Standing in front of world famous paintings and suits of armour that are centuries old is just so impressive and I've been as impressed with the buildings that house these treasures as much as the treasures themselves. The best thing of all however, is that they're all free to go to! They all have donation boxes in the entries, and I've enjoyed what I've seen so much that I've always chucked a few pounds in on the way out, but again, it's the power of a huge population (and the taxes that each of us pay) that really keeps it all going.

I'm sure I could fill up the entire 24 months my visa allows me to live in the UK just exploring and experiencing all there is to do in London. But of course another great aspect of life in London is that it's so close to all the other amazing cities throughout Europe. As it happens, I'm taking advantage of that fact and flying to Gothenburg in Sweden this afternoon ...and looking at the clock, I must conclude my blog for this week and finish packing my bags in time to tube to the airport!

Next week, I'll be continuing my discussion of life in London with a look at shops and shopping from Sainsbury's to Harrods.