Greetings from Hong Kong! Place is just about littered with Pacific Coffe outlets with free (for the price of a latte) Internet terminals, so I couldn't resist....

Jim, Its spelt Auckland

Rats! I knew that. Must be my recent obsession with Auks.

[Spoken like Oakland (CA)].

Now this I didn't know, and funny you should mention. Whilst getting an AM dose of AOL/T-W/CNN, I noticed the CNN weather babe say "Oakland" with a map of Aus/New Zealand behind her and thought "hmmm, what a funny pronunciation." Lucky that One World looks like a no-hoper for the America's Cup, or I might have had to call all the Seattle TV stations and tell 'em to stop saying "AWK" (like me, until 2 minutes ago)!

Theres a few of us here who can offer to give you lessons on driving on the left.
Might even be someone here who is also a rally freak willing to act as driver for the 5 days or so to save you the bother -
- unless you want to have a go yourself on shingle roads after/between the stages.

I'm going to be forced to deal with this issue when I go to a wedding in Ireland in July, but, yeah, the thought of taking it on in combination of a mad rush of "kill all others to get to the next stage" rally folks is tough to contemplate. My RHD-friendly co-driver backed out of the trip after a financial conference with his spouse....
...I have more tickets than I have vacation time, so will probably wait a few months to make a final decision on this trip, but I appreciate the offer/s

[which if true then your car insurance provider won't be providing coverage to you if you do and manage to hit something].

Yes, another consideration... something about public roads! Interestingly, there are a number of gravel TSD rallies in the southwest US that people refer to as "rental rallies" -- pick up an Avis/Hertz in Las Vegas, hook up a temporary sensor, and head into various National Forests (public roads, eh?).

Interesting trip here. Warm, shirt-sleeve weather. Good food. Star Ferries still the best ticket in town at ~$0.30 US for a cross-harbor trip (upper deck!).