Over the Christmas break, James and I took our honeymoon. We rented a motorhome and camped around the South Island. James did most of the driving, but I drove a few times. We worked out that we drove roughly 4,178 km over the fifteen days.
Our first day was a very short travel day, but actually very long at the same time! We drove to collect the motorhome in the morning. After a 40 minute talk with a Pacific Horizon representative on how to exist in the van for two weeks, we were ready to start driving it. At home we packed our stuff into it, which took about three hours. In the rain. Thankfully, the camper is well stocked with cupboards and nooks to pack everything that we need for the trip. Once we’d dropped Herman off with friends, we were ready to really begin!
We started our honeymoon adventure by driving to the ferry terminal. We checked in and tested our campers little living room area by eating our dinner while we waited in the queue. It was pleasant, and so spacious. I wasn’t sure about space, but once we were in the motorhome, I knew that it would be fine for the two of us.
Soon we were on the ferry and sailing across the Cook Strait.
The ferry was 45 minutes late, so we arrived 45 minutes later than expected into Picton. This meant that we just drove to Blenheim rather than further onwards down the coast. This also meant our first night of freedom camping! It wasn’t bad at all. The motorhome has everything we could need, and it stores electricity, so that if we needed to stay for a few nights without a powered campsite, we could and can still use what we need.
The place we stayed is actually a carpark, but between 6pm and 9am, you can freedom camp in designated spots [for one night only]. Its called the Wynen Street carpark.
24th December
We both woke up convinced that we’d be right in the middle of a farmer’s market or something! Thankfully we were not and the carpark was empty, so we were free to drive on. After a swift trip into New World (as we had forgot the soap), we drove along the coast to a café just outside of Kaikoura, it wasn’t open, so we swapped drivers and made our way into Kaikoura. Finding a lovely café, The Beach House Café, we had breakfast and coffee. It was amazing coffee!
We continued on, towards Christchurch, turning into the Inland Scenic Route (Route 72). Along the way, we had our first picnic. We’d hoped to get to pie shop in Geraldine, but had to pull over due to sheer hunger and crankiness. Our picnic was lovely.
After our picnic, we continued to drive along the Inland Scenic Route, through Geraldine, and then in torrential rain through Burkes pass, onwards to glorious sunshine in Tekapo. We checked into a powered site overlooking Lake Tekapo, and managed to figure out how to get connected to all of the assorted bits. Yay! It really is stunning around the lake.
After setting up, we went for cycle along the lake. It smelt like of weed everywhere. No seriously! We cycled along the waters edge, and around and over a really stunning bridge. The bridge itself was average, a generic bridge, but the water below it was so blue, and the scenery in the distance made it look amazing. Whilst across the bridge, we had a look at the little church there, The Church of the Good Shepherd. It looks super old, but was actually built in the 30’s as a place of worship and as a memorial to the people who first settled in the area. It’s very pretty.
We cycled back to the campsite and cooked quinoa pasta with chorizo and pesto in the camp kitchen. We also thought it would be a good idea to marinade our chicken for Christmas dinner. #Adulting
25th December
After waking up, having breakfast and exchanging presents, we drove out on an adventure.
We stopped at the lookout over Lake Pukaki. Everything in the area is just stunning. I felt like my photos really aren’t going to do justice. We drove on to Aoraki Mount Cook, stopping at every viewpoint along the way! I’m certain we bumped into the same people all day! We arrived at Aoraki Mount Cook Village and got out and went for a short walk along the Hooker Valley Track. We only really intended to do about 15 minutes to stretch our legs and then turn back…but we ended up walking the entire route, which is an hour and a half each way!
The walk itself is categorised as ‘easy’, which I would agree with. It’s mostly very flat, with a few sections of steps or hilly terrain. Sections of the route are fairly exposed, so at times we were very cold when the wind got going. Once we’d been walking for a while though, and were all hot and sweaty, we were happy for the breeze!
As we got back into the carpark and DoC Information hut area, my friend Melissa text me asking why I was hiking on Christmas Day. I was really confused before I remembered that my watch was tracking my exercise. The pair of us have an ongoing ‘competition’ going on through the app, so it had obviously ‘dinged’ to her that I was winning…James and I had a motorhome picnic and then drove back to Lake Tekapo via the observatory, unfortunately it wasn’t open as its Christmas Day.
Back to the campsite we watched a grumpy old man park his caravan. It was quite funny, he was trying to get a ginormous caravan into a fairly small plot. We wondered whether to get the bbq out as we had planned for dinner, as the smoke may blow into his caravan. We got out the bbq.
We didn’t manage to bbq the chicken very well…we pretty much smoked it. I think that the bbq wasn’t quite hot enough when we put the chicken onto it. We ate it with turmeric rice, yogurt and bread. Once the sun had gone down, we went to the beach for a failed attempt at night photography!
26th December
We were up and on the road by 8:30am for a very long day today. From Lake Tekapo, we drove through Timaru and onto Oamaru. We parked up an went for coffee before joining in on a Zoom session with the McCafferty clan. It was still Christmas day for them back in the UK and Ireland, so we got to share some festive cheer across the world.
There is a penguin colony on the coast of Oamaru, we cycled to it, but sadly we didn’t see any. The information centre was closed, so we cycled back via the esplanade. Never mind! After this we were feeling slightly peckish, so stopped in at the Moaraki Boulders café. We didn’t actually get to the boulders, instead we ate food and fed some alpacas! There are three alpaca and a deer, when you shake your bag of food, they come running across the field and shove their little faces right up to the fence. It was so cute.
Following the alpacas we drove towards Dunedin, through the main part of the city and out to Larnach Castle, on the Otago Peninsular.
Larnarch Castle is lovely. Because we were fairly late in getting to the castle, we opted to just wander round the gardens, rather than going inside and getting the full tour. It’s so photogenic.
Next we checked into our next campsite. It was cute, with Scout camping vibes! We didn’t connect up to power yet, as we drove up to the Royal Albatross Centre. However, we saw no albatrosses (or should that be albatrii)and I got pooped on, so overall not a very successful trip, but fun nevertheless.
27th December
Today we did a lot of driving and a lot of walking!
We left the Portobello camp site and drove to Saint Clare, a beach area in Dunedin. We had an amazing breakfast in a café there, Salt. James had a ginormous portion of scrambled eggs (James) and I had Eggs Benedict. Yum!
The first place we ended up visiting after driving out of Dunedin was Tunnel Beach, recommended by my friend Georgette. The walk is lovely, but SUPER steep! The DoC website classes it as an ‘easy’ walk, which technically it is…but my goodness it’s got quite the incline!
We drove along the Southland coast and through the Catlins National Park, along the Catlins Coastal Area to Nugget Point Lighthouse. It was a really nice [easy] walk to a pretty lighthouse, where you can see sea lions (and hear them). James and I were impressed that there were signs everywhere telling you that this was a no drone area!
Next we decided to go and see Jack’s Blowhole! Along the way there was a 9km detour as one of the bridges was being refurbished, so we had to drive all the way round one of the lakes.
To get to the blowhole, it’s a 3km round trip, and very pretty. You walk through what feels like coastal farmland and then suddenly arrive at a very dark, very deep blowhole. Magnificent!
After driving a little further, we went to Purakaunui Falls. Apparently It’s an iconic and well-photographed sight in the area. The walk to get to the waterfall is under the cover of the vegetation of the forest, and it’s a nice easy walk. Evidently there hadn’t been vast amounts of rain in the area recently, and the waterfall, though flowing, wasn’t terribly dramatic.
It was very pretty though.
Our final adventure of the day saw us trying to camp at most southerly point of NZ. However, we couldn’t find a campsite, so ended up freedom camping in a DoC site along Wier Road. We had to really search to find this site too!
I was reading about the location online and it seems that the local farmers aren’t impressed with a lot of the freedom campers and the mess that they have been leaving. We didn’t find any evidence of messy/dirty freedom camping, so I think all is well again.
Having said that, we didn’t leave the camper at all because the site was inhabited by the least friendly looking people I think we could have camped next to. So freedom camping is much easier if you have everything in the van and don’t need to physically get out to do anything!
28th December
Today we drove to Invercargill. We had intended to find the swimming pool and use their showers (which is a great service that they offer I think), but discovered that it didn’t open for a while, so went off to Bluff to kill some time. While there we found out that there was actually a campsite where we could shower. Bonus.
We drove back into Invercargill and did a little shopping an visited two transport museums; one was dedicated to motorbikes and the other to mostly trucks and tractors. Both museums were very interesting, although I preferred the motorbike museum personally.
Walking around the city later, we stumbled across Mexican restaurant (Amigos). The food was amazing, but we were sat at the world’s smallest table. James had epic fajitas and I went for three tacos, each with different fillings. They were very tasty.
Then we went to Starbucks. No day out is complete with a trip for coffee!
I drove the van out of the city, following the Coastal Route, to Manapouri. Along the way we found an alpaca farm, where we took a tour of the farm 😊. They were so adorable. While we were there I bought wool for making James a hat.
Eventually we made it to Te Aanau, a gorgeous lake front town and found a campsite. Following check in and setting up our van, we cycled into the main town and ate dinner while watching the helicopter flights take off and land.
29th December
This morning we went for a helicopter ride and my goodness it was amazing. Words (and photos) can’t do it justice!
We also drove to Milford sound and took a boat ride. A busy day!
30th December
Today we drove to Queenstown and headed straight for a FergBurger.
While we waited for our order to be cooked, I went and bought a new coat. I feel like as a large hub for snow sports, I’m going to be far more likely to find something that I like here than in Wellington. And I did! I wanted a coat that could have a fleece or warm layer zipped in. The first place that we looked told me that I wouldn’t be able to find anything like that here in New Zealand, but lo and behold, we made our way to the North Face store and they had exactly what I was looking for 😊
For a few days now I have known that I forgot my camera charger, so we needed to do something about it, given that we’re seeing all these lovely sights and sounds. And because we obviously want photos of our honeymoon. We phoned around to the camera shops in the area and found one open and with stock of the bits that I needed. So we drove to Wanaka to go pick everything up.
On the way back, James decided to cycle some of journey. One of the roads, Crown Ridge Road, is a lovely big hill with a load of switchbacks, all downhill from Wanaka to Arrowtown, so he wanted to give it a go. The journey was mostly uneventful, but he looked shattered when we met up again!
This meant that I was the one to drive the camper into the campsite and have to park our rather large van into a tight plot, in front of LOADS of people, all watching! It was fine in the end, I managed to park well and everyone actually seemed very impressed!
That evening we found a lovely cocktail bar tucked away along the main stretch in Arrowtown. It was lovely, we had an Old Fashioned (James) and an Amaretto Sour (Me). They were quite busy, so a barman from the restaurant across the way came over to help. It was a really nice sort of underground style pub bar…if that makes sense.
We eventually ate our dinner in another pub back down the road, the Fork and Tap. I had an amazing lamb burger and James had a pizza. Both were lovely.
31st December
We booked the canyon swing. Scary!
Before the canyon swing, and to take our minds of it, we drove into Queenstown and did some mountain biking. You can purchase a ticket that allows you to line up with your bike and then you get into a gondola and your bike is attached onto the side with a big hook. This means that you do the fun downhill bits, but less of the uphill. Apparently the mountain bike park here is New Zealand’s first-ever Gondola assisted one. Excite.
We queued for 40 minutes before getting onto a gondola, a bit of a wait in my opinion. Once at the top, we found one of the easier green labelled routes, ‘Hammy’s Track’ and set off. James and I are used to the mountain bike tracks at Makara Park, here in Wellington…I can tell you that the green routes in Makara are a LOT easier! This green did not feel like a green; it was lumpy with tree stumps and rocks, gravel and sand.
However, it was a lot of fun, even with my commuting bike basket on the back of my bike!
We went back to camper an got changed, showering in camper before our upcoming adrenaline adventure. The shower in the camper wasn’t terrible but I wouldn’t recommend doing it every day. We also thought that we should probably eat as well, so we got tacos and then had a bit of a wander about before heading over to the Canyon Swing office.
We met up with the other people booked to jump at the same time as us, and then we got driven to the Canyon Swing. James and I were both very nervous about the whole thing, but we decided to go first if we could, and then we’d not have to watch everyone else!
We were soon kitted up with harnesses and being led out to the platform. We chose to just get the pin pulled on us, which is basically where you get winched up in a seated position, moved out so that you’re suspended above the canyon and the bloke just lets you go. It was terrifying, but also very fun. I think I enjoyed it more than James, who tells me that he will NOT be doing that again.
Drinks in the Fork and Tap followed by an epic Italian meal in Arrowtown topped the night off nicely. We both ate FAR too much and had to go to bed with Gaviscon. #Adulting
– For starters we shared bruscetta and arancini.
– For our mains, I had cannelonni and James had Nduja Pizza.
– For pudding, James had an Italian pastry and I had a white choc mousse.
The food was phenomenal.
1st January
As it was New Years Eve last night, the campsite was a mess this morning. And everyone was still in bed when we got up! There were a few grown ups walking round cleaning up after groups of teenagers, but that was about it.
We drove to Wanaka, got coffee and went straight to Puzzling World. Puzzling World is great, there are five rooms strangeness and an epic maze. We went to the strange rooms first, each all really interesting. The have things like 3D pictures that are different depending on where you stand, there is a room that has almost 100 faces molded and they appear to jump out and follow you around the room, and then there is a room with a wonky floor that really gets your spatial awareness freaking out!
After Puzzling World we drove onwards, over the Haast Pass, stopping at Fantail falls along the way. It pretty much rained the entire way across the pass. When we stopped for coffee just before Hokitika, we ended up getting back into the van fairly quickly as the place was swarming with sandflies and we were both getting quite bitten!
We continued on to Franz Josef. Just before we got into the glacier area, however, our van began to go slow and an engine light came on. Apparently this is ‘limp home’ mode, when the van can tell that there is something wrong, so it conserves energy by not letting you get full ouput of the van. Needless to say we text Pacific Horizon to let them know!
Once we were settled into a campsite, we went for a wander, finding a lovely place for a drink and then dinner; Alice May. We settled on arancini for a starter and then vegan chicken curry (Beki) and fish and chips (James). So the vegan chicken curry was lovely. We laughed at the name! It was actually ‘Vegan Yellow Curry’, but you could add chicken for an extra $3.
When we returned to the van we had hoped that the engine lights might have gone off…no such luck! We reported back to the van rental company.
2nd January
Upon waking up, the van rental company explained that we needed to take the van to Fox Glacier, where a mechanic could look at the van. So we drove to Fox Glacier and saw a lovely man at the DPS garage. He made the engine light go away, but wasn’t sure what the larger problem was that was causing the error. He said that sometimes wires get caught or something random sets off the engine light, and it needs a bigger garage to do a full diagnostic. But he made the light go off, so we were happy.
It didn’t last long though, as the light was back on by the time we were back at Franz Josef. Bugger!
Not letting the van news dampen our day, we cycled to the glacier in the torrential alpine rain. It was fun, even in the heavy rain. Once there, we took a few walks around the glacial area and saw all of the glacier lookouts. It turned into a lovely walk, even despite the rain.
Back at the campsite, we organised a camper replacement for the next day and then went to chill out in the Hot Pools. It was amazing. My limbs felt like they were being messaged and all free!
3rd January
As we drove towards Hokitikia this morning, we pulled in for some photographs and saw Weka! It was lovely. They are so curious. I’d never seen one before, so it was a real highlight for me!
When we got to Greymouth, the van rental company confirmed where we were going to meet their representative for swapping the campers. We still had a few hours to kill, so we went to Punakaiki Pancake rocks. It was very scenic and the rocks are just amazing, put it absolutely heaved down the entire time we were walking!
We drove back through Greymouth, and onto Arthurs Pass to swap the van at the Bealey Hotel. The new camper was a bit of a jump. It was HUGE! We originally had a two berth, the new one was a six berth. There were so many beds, but much less storage space.
Once we’d swapped all our stuff into the new camper, we drove a little bit further to a campsite on Lake Pearsons. It’s a DoC site and very pretty, right next to the lake. It’s a freedom camping space, so there’s not much there.
4th January
In the morning, the DoC Ranger came to have a chat, we’d paid for the wrong night! It wasn’t a big issue, she explained that the online payment page is a little temperamental.
Leaving fairly early, we drove to the Cave Stream Scenic Reserve Tracks where James decided that he wanted to go caving through the caving track. We both walked down to the cave and James went for a nosey to see what it was like. He came back to tell me that he was going to try the entire track, and then came back about five minutes later as his torch had given up! Admitting defeat, we drove on towards the Kura Tawhiti Conservation Area, also known as Castle Hill Rocks, where we walked around a bit before having our lunch and moving on.
As we drove through Christchurch, we decided to stop for the night at a nearby place, Maruia Hot Springs. It was very nice, albeit a very healthy place. We had dinner in their restaurant, it was a set menu of three courses. we had:
– Starter: Kombucha and devilled eggs.
– Mains: Fish platter with veggies (Rebecca) and plant based curry with veggie (James).
– Pudding: Meringue (Beki) and chocolate fondant (James).
We also had pink gin all round!
5th January
Today we drove to Greymouth, then Westport and then Saint Arnut. We went through Nelson to Okiwi Bay, but sadly there was nowhere to stay and no freedom camping sites. Instead we drove to the DoC campsite at the Pelorus Bridge.
We had a candlelit camper dinner for James’s birthday and fell asleep quite early. Perfect!
Our map
For those of you that want to see where we went, here is a picture breakdown of each of the 15 days. You need to read each row from left to right, then move down to the next row 🙂
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