Our day on the glacier sparked our interest for more adventurous activities so we headed towards Queenstown, the adventure capitol of NZ. The drive was much of the same, lots of mountains, lots of water, windy roads and single lane bridges. We had planned to stop overnight in the seaside town of Haast but neither of us could stand staying in another shithole town so we kept driving. We ended up stopping at Wanaka which lies on a huge lake and actually has more than a pub and crappy caravan park. But you’d think that they’d make the most of the lake, wouldn’t you, no lets locate the caravan park as far away from the lake as possible. We do have a slight view of the lake from our van, if you lean back as far as you can and twist your head to the side.
Nothing much else to write about so Warwick and I decided to put together this list for those intending to embark on a similar journey:
Lessons from travelling around NZ in a caravan
- Be prepared for arguments
- It is important to empty the grey water waste from the van routinely (otherwise you’ll end up with yellow stinky water slushing up the shower drain that you may mistake as urine, which will result in an argument over who forgot to close the port on the toilet, see point #1)
- The star rating system used to rate caravan parks is not the same as that used for hotels. Furthermore if you are contemplating staying at a Kiwi Holiday Park that has a cute little cartoon kiwi wearing shorts and a hat and carrying a NZ flag, turn around and drive away as fast as possible. Caravan Parks with “Motor Park” in the title will be crap, usually in the middle of nowhere with only one other van which will be an onsite van housing a single 30-40 yr old slightly scary male (usually a local) and no mobile phone coverage.
- NZers are generally slow drivers
- Local lingo:
“Choice” similar to the use of cool in Australia but it doesn’t really need to be cool to say it, for example NZ: Where are you from? OZ: Melbourne NZ: Choice
“Sweet”, “Sweet as” or “Sweet Bro” – I’m not even going to try and explain this one
“Dairy” this is the same as milk bar in OZ. I found this out when I asked a girl at reception where I could buy some soft drink, she said at the dairy around the corner, this confused me a little. - Be prepared for whinging British tourists in their 20’s travelling on the green Kiwi Experience buses. They will turn up in the most likely and unlikely spots (ie sunbathing topless on an observation pier at Lake Matheson winging about a girlfriend).
- When releasing grey water from the van beware of splash backs. Also be careful not to mix up the hose used to remove the waste water with the one used to fill up with fresh water.
- The full indicator on the toilet may be misleading and/or malfunction
- Keep your eye out for Stotes, they are generally flat furry pancake like creatures found on the side and middle of the road
- Best Kiwi invention – the giant inflatable pillow
- Beware of pissed off Spanish men called Havier that you may encounter in the male toilets of some caravan parks
- Having an onboard toilet may sound like a good idea but imagine cleaning it out after 10 days of use (and we thought cleaning the cat litter was disgusting).
- The North Island is not as interesting as the South Island
- If you are more than 6 feet tall you will not be able to stand up straight in the van and will hit your head at least 5 times per day (this may lead to arguments, see point #1)
- Words beginning in Wh are pronounced F
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