New Zealand - South Island Itinerary
Travel blog #1
Alriiiight blog 2 for today. If you’re interested in my first one it’s in the bottom right corner of the screen - it is an art blog and update for October.
As you may have heard, we did our first roadtrip around New Zealand about a month ago. We drove both islands, in two weeks! Camping in a camper van the whole time (bar one night in a motel). It was both of our first time doing this kind of thing and only my second time in NZ, Dylan’s first time. This is my first time writing a travel blog so it may be a bit all over the place, but here goes.
I’ll seperate it into two parts - part 1 will be the South Island, part 2 will be the North Island, because that’s the order we did it in. In this first one I will outline our itinerary and include a map (if i can figure that out easily). I’ll also describe our trip there and what we organized before hand (the car, must do’s etc.). In the next few blogs I’ll write about each day of the 6-ish spent in the South Island and then I’ll do the whole thing again for the North. Phew it sounds like a lot. I may loose interest part way - especially if it feels like no ones paying attention or reading this, which is most of the time, so just a warning lol.
To organize before hand - car, flights, must do’s, work leave
Campervan - Kuga Camper through Travellers Autobarn
I decided this was the first thing to book because I was unsure how availability would go, and knew that we’d book our flights around this. We ended up booking for pickup of the van from Christchurch, because it was cheaper then pickup from Queenstown! A few hundred cheaper from memory. Drop off was organised for two weeks later in Auckland on the Nth Island.
I went through the rat pack https://ratpacktravel.com who search car providers in the area and find deals to match your parameters. They were good to deal with, much of it was done through WhatsApp for me which was good as I loath unnecessary phone calls. The final booking was done via phone and online forms etc.
We opted for a self contained camper which I wasn’t too sure of to begin with. We wanted to camp around and do it cheap and so this ended up being the best option.
The Kuga Camper - Travellers Autobarn
The Kuga is self contained (but always check that it has the required sticker in NZ) so you can camp in any designated free camp area. The point of self contained which we learnt, is that your vehicle can carry enough water for you to survive easily lol, can carry the waste water you produce from cooking, cleaning etc, so that you aren’t tempted to dump your waste water in the bush or river, AND most importantly, has a porta loo so that you aren’t tempted to do bush poos. I appreciate that this is all geared around encouraging people to camp, but discouraging pollution, which is important to me.
We could both stand up in the Kuga, but Dyl kept hitting his head on things like the door way and 2nd bed. Neither of us are tall, as an aside. The Kuga was super easy to drive if you are unsure about driving bigger vehicles. This drove like a car but with that added height (2.7m clearance from memory), which only really was a problem when looking at underground parking…just avoid underground parking really.
We didnt use the porta loo because NZ is really good with their free camping drop toilets. They’re are usually super clean and don’t smell that bad at all. I wont go into the camper much more except to say that it was good for our first time, I would upgrade to something bigger for our next time and it suited our budget and experience quite well. I’ll do a quick pros and cons below for the camper:
Pros: Cost us $1300 AUD to rent for 14 days, easy to drive, easy to park, self contained.
Cons: Bad fuel economy but only spent about $1000 in fuel all up, not spacious inside, no shower.
We loved bessy - she did us good.
Flights
Now the cars sorted I knew where and when we needed to get there. We flew from Brisbane on sat morning to Christchurch. Air New Zealand was my choice and flights were only about $750 each return. It only took about 3.5 hours to fly to and back and is an enjoyable flight. Flights back were from Auckland airport to Brisbane again.
With these date locked in, now the rest could fall into place.
Must do’s
Hobbiton was my first must do because its a magical dream world where I would spend every waking minute if possible. We ball parked a day in week towards the end of the journey as Hobbiton is only a couple hours from Auckland. My advice, always go to Hobbiton when in NZ. But i am biased.
Milford Sound is another must do. It’s very touristy, but its worth it. We almost didnt go here, but Dyl has never been. I get into it more when I write about that day. Milford is so magical.
Our must dos list was very long, but we knew that we would just fit in what we could. The main objective was to have a holiday and enjoy ourselves.
Itinerary - New Zealand South Island
Day 1: Sat 23rd August, Fly Brisbane to Christchurch
Day 2: Sun 24th August, Wonder around Christchurch city
Day 3: Mon 25th August, Pickup car from Travellers Autobarn then drive along the coast South to Omauru, the inland to Omarama free camp.
Day 4: Tues 26th August, drive from Omarama South via Lyndis pass to Queenstown, then to Te Anau (huge day).
Day 5: Wed 27th August, drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound, then to free camp just South of Queenstown.
Day 6: Thu 28th August, drive from Free camp to Queenstown, to Arrowtown, to free camp Lake Pukaki.
Day 7: Fri 29th August, from free camp Lake Pukaki to Lake Tekapo to Spencer Beach caravan park.
Day 8: Sat 30th August, Spencer Beach to Picton parklands holiday park.
That’s it in brief! My later posts will cover the days in further detail so keep an eye out.
Google maps itinerary for South Island NZ trip!
Cheers,
-b.