Month: January 2018

From Fox Glacier we continued north along the coast. It rained on and off all morning.

Yanmei picked out a nice, unpowered campsite on a little lake for us to try. We cooked up some pasta and enjoyed the tranquility.

This campsite actually got fairly crowded too, which surprised me for a Monday. Apparently all the schools and universities are still on summer break. These unattended, unpowered camps are low cost but not free, it works on an honor system, you put your fee into a payment lockbox near the entrance. This one was $13 NZD per person. It pays for the flush toilets and some sinks with running water to do your dishes in. A park ranger actually came by and checked if people had paid (we had).

The next day we headed back inland through an mountain pass. I tried recording a time lapse video of part of the drive.

Our destination was a free camp not too far from Christchurch on small Lake Pearson. Luckily we arrived in the early afternoon to get a good spot. Some friendly ducks stopped by for a visit.

Finally the next morning we cleaned up the campervan and headed back to Christchurch to return it. We’re staying in Christchurch a couple more days before flying to Australia.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy the RV experience too much.  I’d rather just rent a car and stay in an AirBnb or hotel at each stop.  The RV is too inconvenient, once you get to a camp in there is something a few miles away you want to do, you either have to stow everything, unplug and drive there in a difficult to park vehicle or you skip it.  We ended up skipping stuff we might have done if we could just throw our luggage in a hotel room and drive a car somewhere.  The actual driving of the RV was pretty easy, it handled fairly well even on the mountain switchbacks.

I understand some of the appeal of being self contained and getting away to enjoy nature, but it didn’t work well for sightseeing.  I also think it would be better to do it at home, so you can load up all your stuff.  We each just have a carry-on that we’re traveling with, so we had all this empty storage space.  If we were leaving from our home we could load up with gear like fishing rods, a yoga mat, a frisbee, my camera tripod, etc. Maybe some bicycles too, which would be a good way to get to nearby activities.  The experience grew on Yanmei and she was enjoying it quite a bit by the last couple of days as she became an expert at cooking in the tiny kitchen and picking out good campsites.

David

We left Queenstown Saturday morning, and stopped in at the local Countdown grocery store to restock our supplies, then headed to the next campsite. Yanmei picked it out, it was a low cost, unpowered camp on the shore of Lake Hawea. We got there quite early and although it was slightly difficult to get to (7km down a dirt road off the highway) there were already quite a few people there. We still found a nice spot with a good view and some shade from trees, but a far walk to the toilets. The shade is important because the sun can make the van really hot.

We barbecued some lamb sausages and some New Zealand salmon and had a nice lakeside lunch. We hadn’t really considered that it was Saturday during the summer. As the afternoon wore on more and more people showed up and eventually a couple of groups pitched tents behind us, blocking us in, the camp was packed.

Finally something I’ve been waiting for since I got to New Zealand happened: a clear night. My first look at the southern hemisphere stars and constellations. It was great, and the fact that we’re were in an unpowered camp away from any cities helped too. It felt like there were more bright stars than the northern hemisphere. Turns out the three brightest stars are only visible from the south: Alpha Centauri, Sirius and Canopus. 👍🏻

The next morning one group behind us packed up, and we were able to squeeze out by about 9am. Then we took a lovely drive through a mountain pass to the west coast of New Zealand. Along the way we stopped a bit at the Blue Pool, which are glacier melt fed. Not that special, but a nice little walk to break up the drive.

After that we continued to the coast and the Tasman Sea, then to the town of Fox Glacier, which is near the glacier, but not on the glacier. This was a powered campsite since we needed to recharge our batteries. Not that great. The weather started to go overcast and rainy again.

Tasman Sea from Knight’s Point lookout.

David