Having traveled 4270 km through most of New Zealand by campervan — we are getting ready for a long flight home.

We landed in Auckland about 4 weeks ago. It took a little while to adjust to gravity being upside down and driving on the left side of the road. But with earth being above us the whole gravity issue wasn’t much of an issue. Driving on the wrong side of the road took some getting used to, but we’ve only passed an oncoming car on the right twice — and one of those oncoming cars were definitely turists driving on the right (well, “wrong”) side of the road!

On the North Island we dug for hot springs on hot water beach, river rafted the Tongariro river, snug into the secret hot tub spot (for a hot tub in the forest), and hiked the Tongariro alpine crossing. We did initially have to reschedule the Tongariro alpine crossing due to weather, which gave us time to do a few other hikes and a visit to waitomo caves to spot glow worms.

In the end we had fantastic weather on the Tongariro alpine crossing, partly because we got up very early — which wasn’t much of a problem as there is little to do in a campervan after sun down (which kept our jetlag going for the first 2 weeks).

On the South Island we finally got a proper dose of sunshine in Abel Tasman. Here we could open the campervan doors towards the ocean and enjoy the golden beaches — pretty much without getting out of bed — this also made getting out of bed rather difficult!

When we finally did make it out of bed the sunshine had turned to light rain, and we had the pleasure of hiking around for a day, spending the following day kayaking off the coast passing a few seals and spotting a few lively dolphins from the water taxi!

Heading on we passed pancake rocks before hitting Franz Josef glacier — unfortunately our helihike got cancelled due to weather, so we had to settle for a short scenic helicopter flight without landing or exploring the glacier.

On our way from Franz Josef we made an unscheduled stop at Puzzle World and walked 2.5 km in a maze we thought would only two “smart” adults like us 10 minutes to complete. Arriving in Queenstown we started to take things a bit “slow”, by jetboating or just relaxing a bit with a movie in the campervan. Used the better part of a day driving to Milford Sound, where we spent two hours top side on a cruise enjoying the fantastic waterfalls. It was two hours spent in partial rain and damp weather, so when we got back to the campervan we snuggled up under blankets in the back and had the best nap ever, before heading back to Queenstown.

After a bit of civilization in Queenstown we headed to Mount Cook where we did a few hikes, enjoying the view after going up a 2200 step stairway to Searly Tarns. A view that was greatly enhanced by some homemade tuna salad 🙂

Finally, we’re now sitting in Christchurch Airport waiting to head home — having enjoyed a few well deserved “slow” days in Christchurch: just relaxing in the Adrenaline Forest or taking a private surfing lesson (along the only part of the beach covered in clouds).

All in all we’ve greatly enjoyed our journey through New Zealand!