NZ Van Life Update

Reporting live from day 7 in the van... still going strong! This re-cap will be for days 5-7. We woke up on the 5th and headed down to Lake Tekapo, a turquoise colored lake with mountains in the distance. We checked out the Church of the Good Shepherd which is a tiny little church on the shore of the lake that looks out over the lake and the southern alps.

We wanted to spend some more time in the area so we decided to do a hike around part of a peninsula in a lesser visited area of the lake. It allowed us to see the mountains even closer and take in more of the scenery.

Our next stop was going to be Lake Pukaki, the next lake south of Lake Tekapo, but we were doing good on time and decided to gamble and try to get a spot at the base of Mt. Cook. We’re glad we did because there were lots of spots available and it was SUCH a good campsite. Lake Tekapo is known as a dark sky reserve and that also extends to Mt. Cook. We got to enjoy a sunset and great stargazing, all while sleeping right by the Mueller Glacier. Another perk was that we didn’t have to drive right when we woke up the next day. Our site was next to the start of the hike we had planned on doing to see Mt. Cook which made for a very easy start to the day. We headed out on the ~6 mile hike to see a better view of NZ’s tallest mountain. The hike allowed for views of the glacier we had slept next to and the lake below it, which we couldn’t see from the campsite.

It also included 3 big swinging bridges that moved with the wind which was slightly terrifying because it was a windy day. Made my legs a little weak. The best part of the hike was easily coming up over the ridge to the halfway point and seeing the big glacial lake with icebergs in it below the stunning Mt. Cook. Maybe we’re crazy for visiting NZ in the winter, but I think my favorite part has been seeing the snow fill in every crevice of mountains. This one in particular just really got me! It was such a nice night/day spent at the base and we’re grateful that we had more time than we originally expected there.

We timed our hike well because rain/clouds came in shortly after so we kept heading south by driving through Lindis Pass. We officially completed our self guided loop of the South Island and drove on the same highway into Queenstown we had taken north on our first day in the van. Found a free campsite south of Queenstown on Lake Wakatipu. We woke up today and headed out to the Fiordlands of New Zealand. We had booked a cruise to see them by water but the weather was not awesome and our captain suggested we push to tomorrow (here’s hoping for better weather 🤞) since we no longer had an excursion to do, we decided to hike to lake Manapouri via Keplers Track. Another hike with swinging bridges and dense mossy green trees. When we finally arrived at the halfway point, we came out of the forest to Lake Manapouri with the Fiords finally viewable. We spent some time taking in the views before completing the hike. Grabbed some more groceries for the last bit of our time in the van and headed to a powered site. We will say it was “to power up the house battery” but really we both needed to shower.