Camper Van Round 2!

Well I don’t think I can top the last post, but the show must go on.

We left the North Island from Wellington and flew to Queenstown. After a pretty turbulent ride, we landed to a cold and rainy Queenstown. We caught a shuttle to the camper van pick up and after getting all the paperwork sorted, we got the keys to our van. Well, it’s safe to say this van is quite a bit bigger than our last. It is a Mercedes Sprinter Van with a couch in the back that converts to one bed, a kitchen and fridge, toilet/shower, and an extra seat that also converts to a twin bed and that’s ALL behind the driver and passenger seat. It feels like a mansion compared to our last van.

We were both worried about the weather and how to drive this big rig. I started behind the wheel and we decided to practice driving a short distance to the grocery store. Once I figured out where everything was, we drove on to our first stop of Wanaka. We pretty much got to our site, acquainted ourselves with the rest of the van, and agreed on a more official plan of our tour around the South Island. Welp… plans change! We woke up to snow and we’re planning on driving to Mt. Cook but the highway was closed due to said snow. Luckily, Wanaka is right by Haast Pass which winds you through the mountains to the South Island’s west coast. Such a blessing that we were able to pivot our plan so easily- hopefully the only hiccup but we’re staying open minded! Ended up really enjoying the drive and we’re happy that the weather turned sunny as we got further from Wanaka. We stopped at almost every pull off, seeing the lakes, mountains, and many many waterfalls. (way more photos on the photos tab) I think the drive was supposed to be 3 hours but it quickly doubled with all of our detours.

We officially entered the NZ west coast and saw mountains on one side and the beach on the other. Went to a lookout to see the Tasman Sea which is the area between Australia and NZ. Kept driving and made it to the town near Fox Glacier and decided to pull into a campsite right across from the Fox Glacier trail head which had an insane view of the mountains. Since we were off grid, we were unsure of what heat we could use so we didn’t have any between 10pm-6:30am… It was COLD! It had to be around 30 degrees in the van…. Not the best sleep of my life. It was all made ok when I woke up and saw the view!!!

We decided to do a 4 mile hike to see Fox Glacier. It was another hike full of mossy green trees that felt like we were in a rainforest until we popped out and saw the glacier. The simple rarity of the glacier had us in awe! We came back, cooked ourselves a yummy brunch, then headed into the town. We saw a sign for the Fox Glacier Lookout and figured we had already seen the best of it, but turns out it got better and you don’t even need to hike. We went out to this pasture and saw the whole Mountain Range including Mt. Cook (tallest mountain in NZ) and Mt. Tasman and could see so much more of the glacier! It was INCREDIBLE! I wish pictures could do it justice.

Continued on to Franz Josef Glacier. We hiked less than a mile to see it and could really only see the top part of it due to the rest of the hike being washed out by the river. Kept heading north to find another free campsite by a creek with the mountains in the distance. (the free ones usually are the best views) We woke up and headed back east via Arthur's Pass. When preparing for this trip, I was most scared about this part of the drive because the road had been called "New Zealands Most Dangerous Road." Luckily the weather was sunny and the roads were clear with no snow. But man was the drive steep-however it brought some of the best views we have seen on the South Island so far!!

(Yes this is the road we drove)

Everywhere you looked there was a new set of snow capped mountains. There was a pull off for caves and since we seem to becoming cave dwellers, we had to check them out. This one was cool because people could go caving from one end to the other and the cave had a heavy stream going through it. There was a hike that took you to see both the entrance and exit of it. Again, splunking isn't really our thing, but we enjoyed exploring the wide openings on both ends.

Quickly drove through Christchurch to see the biggest city on the South Island and then headed to our destination for the night. We decided to stay at a powered camp site to charge up the house battery and luckily this place has a trampoline and mini golf AND we know we will have heat :)