(This has nothing to do with their marksmanship, as their weapon of choice is an enlarged Maglite). (Another unimportant piece of info: this took place a few years ago, so they may use Taser guns now.)

When I was road tripping the South Island with 7 friends in a 10 person blue van, we arrived on Easter Weekend, the worst possible weekend. Easter is apparently the holiday where every New Zealander and seemingly their hair stylist leave their homes and check into a hotel, hostel, B&B or some other place that charges money to stay the night.

Driving north from Christchurch at noon, we figured we'd run into a place to stay by night fall. At 10PM, while still looking because no place had vacancy, most of us had acknowledged that we would be sleeping in the van, where we had been for the previous 10 hours.

As luck would have it, we got pulled over by the police because the back of our van was weighed down by our luggage, and our low beams were pointing too high and flashing everyone. (this apparently was a concern for the Nelson police force.. as was tricycles without sufficient color variation in streamers..)

Anyway, the Cop was friendly and gave us a warning, and as he was walking away, I asked him if he knew any hotels with vacancy.. He told us to follow him to a few places, and he would check it out for us. After hitting 4 hostels/hotels with no vacancy, he admitted that we had exhausted all viable options in the town, however, there was one more shady apple-picker hostel out of town. We agreed that shadiness and apples were better than sleeping in a cramped van, so we followed the cop to the Apple-picker hostel, hoping they would have room.

The cop had already gone way beyond his call of duty at this point. but he insisted on showing us to the hostel.

The cop and I walked up to the front door and knocked. (side note: have you ever noticed how disagreeable mug shot photos of people are??) The attendant looked like he had just returned from a mug shot photo shoot, and furthermore, he looked like he wanted to kill me for bringing a policeman with me to his front door.

The ax murderer-looking man said he had a room for 6 people, but he didn't mind if we put 8 in there. At that moment, the cop motioned me away from the doorway and from the pedophile-looking man, and said "I won't let you guys stay here. I'll tell you what.. my wife and kids are away visiting family for Easter. Why don't you all stay at my house.. It'll be tight, but it'll do... Sweet As."

Simply amazing. Not only that, but after getting to his house at about 11pm, he said we should make ourselves at home, and that he had to take off, as he was on duty until 4AM. THERE WERE 8 OF US!!

(side story: the cop hung around for the first half hour, during which, two of my friends (who were a couple) tastelessly decided they had to take "showers".. Well, only one shower was taken, and the paper thin walls could not contain the humping noises emitting from the bathroom which shared walls with the living room, which was additionally awkward as the remaining 6 of us and the cop were sitting in his living room trying to have a conversation.. Honestly, the guy had just granted the kindest gesture to us 8, and their appreciation was shown by making the beast with two backs in the guys bathroom).

Post story: After thanking him a million times the next morning, we left his house and continued on our way. About a half hour (and about a half bag) later, we saw a police road block in up ahead. The 8 of us collectively freaked out, convincing ourselves we were going to jail for drug possession.

When the cop came to our window, he asked us how we were doing, and invited us to a road side barbecue. Not sure whether this was a test, we declined the offer. Then the cop said "That's too bad.. Well then. Here's 8 bottles of water and some candy bars.. we're just reminding people to stay alert on the road".

And that is why New Zealand Cops are the Best in the World.