Entries about campervan

Our route covered 1554km.

Well we drove straight through the North Island the first day. 8 hours of driving through beautiful countryside, past snow-capped mountains, Mordor, and Tongariro National Park brought us to our first night in the campervan.

Tongariro National Park

Driving past Mt Doom in Mordor!

We didn't have time to explore the North Island really at all since we had a 8am ferry to catch our second day. We drove around desperately trying to find a freedom camping spot, we'd looked up several in the general area but couldn't find any. Eventually (10pm) we gave up and turned to the GPS to find the nearest campground. It was a nice one and actually the cheapest one we stayed at.

The next morning we were up before 6am, not knowing how the rush hour traffic would be between us and the ferry. Not all the ferries are functioning at the moment so there wasn't a choice for us what ferry to take or whether we could reschedule it.

It's a 3 hour ferry ride between the North Island and the South Island and the ship was huge, 10 decks with lots of windows and a sundeck on the roof. We started out here and I returned at the end for some gorgeous views (saw some dolphins and a seal watch us go past).

Picture from ferry

We explored the town of Picton on arrival and then headed to the information center to see if we could get some information/direction. We had 5 days to get to Christchurch (really only a 4 hour drive from Picton) and were looking for suggestions on where to explore. This particular information center was the most unhelpful one we went to! We said we had 5 days, unlimited kilometers, and a self-contained campervan...where should we go?!

Picton

The response was basically pointing at the map where the roads were and saying well there's lots of options, you've got time so you can go on any of these roads, there's lots to see on all of them. Nothing more than that! No specific suggestions. After the customer service emphasis at St Regis Canoe Outfitters, I was speechless.

We headed west along the northern coast of the Southern Island, taking a scenic drive along Queen Charlotte Drive.

Queen Charlotte Drive

Our second night was in the town of Nelson, Tahuna Campground had the best showers we've had this whole trip! It's amazing how important good showers become when you travel and are limited to cheap hostel showers.

From there we continued west, stopping in Montuka and stopped at another information center. This one was awesome, they were very helpful and took it as a challenge to suggest different sights along different ways and plan out the best way to see a lot of it. They suggested Wharariki Beach, the most northwest corner of the South Island that has a cool beach and a nice campground. Sounded really cool so we headed there for the night...

Wharariki Beach

This was our favorite spot, we were surrounded by a sheep farm that had trails through it to the beach. Very cool. And there were fur seals at the beach! Pups playing in the tidal pools, we kept missing low tide which would have been the best time to see them, but there were still some playing when we were there.

Walking through a sheep farm to the beach

Just walking to the beach through a sheep farm

Sheep don't climb stairs

Fur Seal on Wharariki Beach

Wharariki Beach Cave, this appears at low tide but is underwater at high tide

Wandering Peacock

From there we headed to St Arnaud for the night. A gorgeous lake in the mountains, making us feel very at home. Except there were terrible sand flies there. So terrible..

We made some friends there, had dinner together, then played cards and talked late into the night which was a lot of fun. One was from the North Island and one from California, they were doing a hiking trail that covers all of the South Island.

Lake Rotoiti, Nelson Lakes

Lake Rotoiti, Nelson Lakes

We set out for Hanmer Springs the next day. Though touristy, natural fed hot springs sounded awesome. This one was a little bit of a let down, too touristy and just not what we were looking for. We did however find a nice campground just outside of town that wasn't busy so we had a site and surrounding area to ourselves which was cool.

Springtime in New Zealand

Springtime in December!

The next day we brought the campervan successfully into Christchurch and returned it, slightly dusty but having survived the trip.

This is how new our vehicle was!

Inside the campervan

Inside the campervan

New Zealand!

After a slight hitch at the airport (turns out you need a flight out of New Zealand before you can fly into New Zealand) we made it safely to Auckland (North Island) and the next day we picked up our Wilderness Motorhome relocation vehicle. We were driving their Escape 4 (click here to read about it!), a brand new vehicle! When we picked it up it only had 20km on it!

We're so excited!

Campervan!

Yes, they trusted us with a new vehicle after saying we'd never driven on the left, or a campervan (or anything else that big!)
While we enjoyed having the van for 6 days, being the first to drive it (read, guinea pigs!) we found all the faults that a new vehicle shouldn't have.

Some things that we thought were faults were just unfortunately never mentioned to us. One window wouldn't stay open (this was on purpose because of the door, but we thought it was broken) and the brakes developed a very loud squeak halfway through the trip (turns out new brakes squeak at first, but no one warned us about that). We definitely got some stares from pedestrians in towns.

One of the first things we did after driving out of the parking lot was plug in the Ipod, after all music is one of the most important parts of a roadtrip...unfortunately, the radio wasn't hooked up correctly and only the passenger speaker worked. So while the driver could barely hear the music, the passenger was going deaf with it turned up loud. This was probably our biggest complaint.

The other main fault was that the refrigerator didn't work when we stopped for the night unless we were at a powered site. This vehicle had a battery and gas to run all the necessary equipment at night without being at a powered site, but this must not have been connected correctly. At first we thought we were doing it wrong, but after trying all the different ways to operate it, we concluded it was the vehicle.

We were also disappointed that we couldn't freedom camp anywhere. Though the vehicle is self-contained, meaning it had a shower and toilet onboard and storage for these so you can park 'anywhere' and 'leave no trace' (thus making it freedom camping certified) we were unable to find a place to park for the night. The first night we drove around for over an hour, in the dark, trying to find a place where we could freedom camp.

Will we fit on this bridge?

Each town we went to we were met with blank stares and responses of “sorry no freedom camping in the area, and no I don't know anywhere that you can.” We were really looking forward to this ability, hopeful of finding a cool spot, and saving money avoiding campgrounds.

Despite all of this, we did enjoy having our own wheels and getting to explore some of the South Island. There was great customer service on pick-up and drop-off, and more pictures and stories to come in the next post!

Paul in Wharariki Campground