Hello everyone again,
I'm Gonzalo Pasquier, a photographer and lover of adventure and nature. I'm lucky enough to work at Blue Banana and share my travels and those of other adventurers like me, so you can use them when planning your own.
This time I'm bringing you a trip to one of the most special countries I've ever visited, New Zealand.
New Zealand is a country located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, close to Australia and all those tropical paradises we see on Instagram every day, like Tahiti, where a global WSL event (World Surf League for the uninitiated) is held, or Moorea, a lost island where all the influencers take photos with rays and sharks in dreamy turquoise waters.
Anyway, I'll talk about those places another day. This post is about the best campervan trip I've ever taken, and it was on the South Island of New Zealand.
The places we saw were the following (links to the days):
Day 1: Arrival in Queenstown, beer and relax seeing the town
Day 2: We rented the van and headed to Milford Sound, stopping at Wakatipu Lake and 4,752,323 other places because everything is super beautiful .
Day 3: Morning fine and heading to Glenorchy, a town we hadn't planned to go to.
Day 4: The most improvised excursion of the trip and undoubtedly the best: Mount Alfred
Day 5: We regain our strength with great views at Rob Royce Glacier National Park
Day 6: We lose our minds climbing 2,200 steps in Aoraki National Park
Day 7: We rested and enjoyed Tekapo Lake in the morning and ended up seeing seals 3 hours from the lake with a car instead of the campervan.
Day 8: We return home, Australia.
I'll leave you MyMaps so you can find your way around:
Like all great trips, this one was improvised. But because we had no other option. We booked everything about a week in advance due to the RV rental, which worked out as follows:
The problem is that many car rental companies offer a service called "relocation," which gives you a limited number of days to move one of their vehicles from one place to another for a much lower cost than a regular rental. This happens because most travelers take the reverse route from what we did, that is, they rent the campervan in Christchurch and end the trip in Queenstown. This causes a large backlog of rental vehicles in Queenstown, and as a solution, companies offer the reverse route for a much lower cost. However, the number of days is limited (5 to 8 in our case), and the offers come up on very short notice and go very quickly.
To give you an idea, we paid $600 for an 8-day rental with unlimited mileage and comprehensive insurance. There were 5 of us, so about €70 per person—a steal for a country like New Zealand!
The website where we rented the motorhome was this one:
https://www.imoova.com/imoova/relocations
You'll see that they also offer to start on the south island and end on the north island with the ferry paid, so if you have time I wouldn't think twice!
Day 1: Arrival in Queenstown, beer and relaxation while seeing the town.
Once we managed to book the relocation, we booked the tickets and headed to Queenstown, the adventure sports town. You can do everything: skydiving, rafting, paragliding, mountain biking, water skiing, and snow sports in the winter. It's a paradise for any adrenaline junkie! But we didn't do anything, haha.
We arrived in Queenstown a day before the rental, as flights were cheaper and we were able to see the town while we were there. For our first stop, it wasn't bad at all, not to mention the prettiest town we'd ever seen. We took a walk and went for some beers, definitely the most relaxing day of all!
That night we slept in a cheap hostel in the center called Base Backpackers Queenstown, and the next day we woke up early to check in the campervan, do some shopping, and head for the southern fjords.
Day 2: We rented the van and headed to Milford Sound, stopping at Wakatipu Lake and 4,752,323 other places because everything is super beautiful.
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We woke up at 6 a.m., and while some went shopping, others went to get the campervan. By 10 a.m., we were already heading to Milford Sound, the only part of the fjords accessible by vehicle, and the only one you can visit in one day. There are fjord routes that start from Milford Sound and take you to wild waterfalls and lakes, but you'll have to dedicate three or four days, and they're not exactly cheap, since, as I said, you have to understand that New Zealand is expensive! |
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Anyway, on the way to Milford Sound, we stopped at Wakatipu Lake; the water was as crystal-clear as it was cold, but we went for a swim anyway. Who knows if we'd ever go back there! I highly recommend the exact spot where we stopped, because it was an area of the lake that had sand and was like a beach, and you could park the van right in front of the water. It was called Kingston Lake Camp. After a good swim and a hearty plate of tomato pasta to kick off the road trip, we continued on our way to the fjords. |
We made a thousand stops because every place we saw seemed more beautiful than the last, but that's what it's all about, isn't it? The photo above is in Egliton Valley.
We arrived at the last minute, and it was so good that we had it all to ourselves, look how cool it was:
Aside from the spectacular scenery, boats depart every hour from Milford Sound that take you through the fjord to the open sea. They're reasonably priced, and with luck, you might even see dolphins and seals. But by the time we arrived, it was already closed, so there was no one around. One thing for another, you can't have everything in life!
That night we had planned to sleep in a campsite nearby, but we went without a reservation and it was full, from there they sent us to another campsite that was about half an hour away, and when we arrived they told us that it was also full (you can't call because there's no coverage) and from there they sent us to another one 45 minutes away, but since we were so tired, we thought the most sensible thing to do was to look for and sleep in the first camp we saw, and that's what we did.
Day 3: Morning fine and heading to Glenorchy, a town we hadn't planned to go to.
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Early the next morning, we learned it was illegal after a police patrol woke us up at 6 a.m. to fine us for sleeping outside the campsite in an area where wild camping wasn't allowed. We happily paid the $40 and continued on to our next destination, Glenorchy. Glenorchy is a small town near Queenstown that we hadn't planned to visit, but from the plane when we were about to land we saw a mountain in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rivers that flowed into a huge lake and many snow-capped mountains around. |
We decided to find and climb that mountain, and so we did. We searched the area on Google Maps and found what we were looking for: Mount Alfred. And we included it in our schedule for the second day.
The nearest town was Glenorchy, so this time we booked a campsite a few hours in advance and headed there. What we didn't know was the road to get there... WOW!
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We made a few stops along the way and arrived in Glenorchy. That night we had an early dinner and went to bed, as the next day was the day we'd climb Mount Alfred, which, from what we were told at the campsite, wasn't a walk in the park!
The campsite was called Mrs Wolly's campground ;)
Day 4: The most improvised excursion of the trip and undoubtedly the best: Mount Alfred:
We woke up at 6, for a change. We had a hearty breakfast and headed to the starting point of the hike, which was 15 minutes from the village. These are the coordinates:
-44.782594, 168.353443.
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It was a very, very exhausting hike, but as we gained altitude and saw more and more scenery, we didn't stop until we reached the top. And I don't need to tell you how brutal it was! We had the Alps on one side, Wakatipu Lake on the other, and in between were a bunch of turquoise waterways that looked like they were painted.
We ate at the top and made our way back down at a leisurely pace, exhausted after nearly three hours of uphill climbing and over 1,000 meters of elevation gain. We arrived back at the campsite and, after a good nap to recharge our batteries, headed for our next destination, Rob Royce Glacier National Park. We only had a few days left and there was no time to waste!
That night we slept in the national park parking lot, which has bathrooms and is legal. The last stretch (almost an hour) is unpaved and requires taking it easy. We arrived at night, and while one of us drove, the rest of us were up high watching the stars and seeing the deer and rabbits hiding when they saw us.
Day 5: We regain our strength with great views at Rob Royce Glacier National Park
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The next day we took it easy; it was one of the first days and we were already exhausted... we were due for a more leisurely hike, a two-hour round trip to see the glacier and a waterfall, and as expected, it didn't disappoint! The suspension bridge in the video was straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. |
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We took a leisurely afternoon relaxing in the meadows there, and at the last minute we headed to Aoraki National Park, one of the most famous places on the South Island and in New Zealand for having the highest peak in the entire country, Mount Cook, at 3,724 meters. F*CKING CRAZY! |
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Day 6: We lose our minds climbing 2,200 steps in Aoraki National Park
There were plenty of hikes to do throughout the national park, the typical and most popular, as it requires the least physical effort and rewards with spectacular views, is the Hooker Valley Track, 5 kilometers long and with 100 meters of elevation gain. However, we weren't in New Zealand's most famous national park for a walk, so we chose the Sealy Tarns Track, a very vertical route, with 2,200 steps to be precise, which offered the best views of the valley, with the glacier and Mount Cook in the background. We had climbed over 2,000 meters of elevation gain in 3 days, we were completely crazy, but we weren't planning on stopping until we caught the plane back home!
Devastated but very happy, we finished the trip and booked a campsite very close to Tekapo Lake, the next point of interest we wanted to visit.
We arrived at the campsite (Tekapo Motels & Holiday Park), showered, and between beers and card games we fell asleep, and that night we slept like logs.
Day 7: We rested and enjoyed Tekapo Lake in the morning and ended up seeing seals 3 hours from the lake with a car instead of the campervan.
The next day we had no excursions planned, just to see Lake Tekapo, and if the weather was good, we could go for a swim, sunbathe, and eat al fresco near the water. And that's what we did. The color of the water was unbelievable; it was a blue none of us had ever seen before, a glacier blue.
We spent the last day of our motorhome relaxing and arrived near Christchurch Airport at midday to check out.
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But the trip didn't end there; our flight was the next day! Everything was planned. We dropped off the van and rented a car from the rental company across the street (they were all in the same location near the airport), and headed to Kaikoura, just over a two-hour drive from where we were. Kaikoura is a coastal town famous for being home to a wealth of marine wildlife. Depending on the time of year, you can see orcas, sperm whales, a wide variety of dolphins, and even penguins! But we weren't there for any of them; we went to see the seal colony that lives at Kaikoura Head, which is free!
Honestly, we would have loved to see whales and dolphins, but we knew the prices weren't right. Now, if you can afford it, I recommend doing it from a small plane. If you're into these things, it could be the experience of a lifetime.
Here's a link to a company that offers this spectacular service:
https://www.airkaikoura.co.nz/
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As soon as we arrived in Kaikoura, we went straight to see the seals; the sun was setting, and there was no time to waste. There were tons of them, maybe more than 100. The babies were all huddled together in a kind of natural pool, playing and screaming, and we were truly amazed seeing them in their natural habitat.
This is the location of the colony: Peninsula Walkway, Kaikoura 7300, New Zealand
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Afterwards we went to the hostel (Dusky Lodge Backpackers) and enjoyed our last night in New Zealand, super happy with the experience we had had and "sad" to go back home... but, to be honest, we were going back to continue living life in Australia, so we couldn't complain either! |
The icing on the cake was returning from New Zealand without having to fly for 30 hours. In just three hours, we were home, jet-lagged free!
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