Ray of Sunshine Travel

Hello all! Wanted to let you know I’m alive and well after these last couple whirlwind weeks!

My visit with Grandpa went really well; he was very lucid and awake the first day I was there, so I got to talk a lot with him. Unfortunately, jet lag hit me harder than I thought, so both he and I were asleep a good deal of the afternoon on the second day. Nevertheless, I’m so glad I got the chance to go back.

I hopped back on the plane the evening of that second day and was back in New Zealand Easter morning. You know you’ve done a quick turnaround when your flight attendants are the exact same ones you flew over with…

I landed in Christchurch and picked up our group’s home for the week about noon. Not going to lie, this campervan was by far the biggest thing I had ever driven; I think the next biggest was my grandma’s SUV… On top of this, I was the only one allowed to drive it, since all the other girls (Ashley, Alyssa, and Lindsey) weren’t 21 yet. Hooboy, we were in for a time!

We set out right away for Kaikoura, which was about a 2.5 hour drive. Our first campsite was a little ways outside town right along the coast, which was pretty amazing!

The first night was pretty rainy, so we played cards to pass the time and got to know the camper (which we quickly nicknamed Sharon…) a bit better. We waited until dark to cook dinner, which we quickly figured out was a mistake because you have to leave the camper doors open when using the stove to help ventilate, and then all the bugs are attracted to the lights and swarm into the van. Thus, we had quite the mosquito massacre that night, which was pretty entertaining.

Monday was also unfortunately pretty rainy, but we made the best of it and headed into Kaikoura. After a grocery run, we spent some time on the coast along Kaikoura (beach doesn’t really feel like the right word because there wasn’t any sand…). It was still very pretty, though, and we got to see some seals! (Photos courtesy of Ashley).

The campsite also offered showers and laundry services, so we readily took advantage of those. I found the fact that the shower was limited to six minutes a bit challenging, and when the dryer was quite ineffective, we had to get creative with a makeshift clothesline. We didn’t realize at the time what luxury we were living in: electricity, showers, running water in the campervan, clean (if not dry) clothes…

Tuesday was considerably clearer, thank goodness. We headed out that morning for Picton, but not without a stop on this little beach, where there were some cool makeshift dwellings.

Once we arrived in Picton, we made a pit stop at the local mechanic to get a leak in the roof patched up. While a bit of a setback, it also meant a couple hours of free wi-fi and time to work on an essay I hadn’t managed to work on before break.

And Picton was beautiful. Wish we could have stayed longer!

After our van was patched back up, it was back on the road again. We did make another quick stop at this neat suspension bridge, which was fun. And the river was so pretty!

Our final pit stop of the day was just outside of Nelson. We couldn’t resist being so close to the beach at sunset.

We finally stopped for the night in Motueka. After cooking dinner and getting settled, we realized that our parking spot close to the beach did not allow us to stay overnight, which led to a bit of a wild goose chase. We eventually found a spot in town, which, while less scenic and without bathrooms, would become our home for the night. We made ourselves comfy and watched Pretty Woman, a thrift store find. (Another time I’m glad my laptop comes with a CD/DVD drive!)

Another one of the downsides of our home for the night was that we had to vacate it by 7:00 the next morning, so we became rather early patrons of the nearby McDonald’s on Wednesday. Their $1 hot chocolates (and bathrooms with running water!) were a dream come true.

Because of early eviction, we had to stop somewhere and make breakfast, since we weren’t enough of early risers to make it before seven. We decided it would be nice to to have a scenic lookout for our Nutella and pancakes and kept our eye out for the perfect spot. The one we found was better than we could have asked for. Oh, the perks of having a home on wheels…

After a short drive and our first encounter with potholed gravel roads, we made it to Wharariki Beach, located on the very northwest tip of the South Island. It was so warm and beautiful, and the short hike there was also gorgeous.

My friends are so acrobatic. I, on the other hand, was quite content to be the one taking photos of them.

After a couple of enjoyable hours there, we headed slightly north to Farewell Spit, a very skinny peninsula that protrudes from the northwest corner of the South Island. A 360 viewpoint provided a great view of it.

We unfortunately couldn’t walk all the way out to the tip, but we went out about as far as we could. The east side wasn’t the prettiest and was very still, but once we hiked about twenty minutes to the west coast, it was gorgeous, especially at sunset. Imma just gonna dump a bunch of pictures here, because I really can’t decide which are best. (Credits for the first one go to Lindsey!

I really couldn’t get over how the sunset kept reflecting off the wet beach… SO gorgeous!

We were able to hustle back to the campervan at twilight and find a camping spot, this time under a bridge just outside Takaka (yikes, this sounds so sketchy as I write… It actually was a little sketchy, but I promise we locked the doors, and it was a designated spot for campervans!).

The next morning, Thursday, was another early one; it was ANZAC Day, which is a day of remembrance for all New Zealanders who have served their country but started out as honoring the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps members who fought in World War I at Gallipoli (if this sounds familiar, it’s because I mentioned Gallipoli in my Wellington post). Anyways, there’s dawn memorial services across the country on this day, and since we were so close to Takaka, we wanted to experience one for ourselves. It was pretty neat, especially since New Zealand has been a small but mighty ally of the US. In the photo below, you can see the poppies left at the memorial, a tradition on ANZAC day.

Afterwards, we looked for a place to fill up our water tank, as we’d been driving on empty for a while. While we weren’t successful, we did find this spot in Takaka that had 4 minute hot showers for $2. Remember how I was slightly worried about pulling off a six-minute shower earlier in the week? Well, your girl now knows it’s possible for her to wash hair and body and have a minute leftover to enjoy hot water in the span of just FOUR MINUTES. Crazy, right?!

We also utilized their sink to wash our dishes that had been piling up since we last ran out of water. Life in a camper van is spontaneous and fun.

And plus, there were great views.

4-minute hot showers, water to do dishes, and great views – what more could you ask for? Thanks Takaka!

Next up was Abel Tasman, another one of New Zealand’s Great Walks (for a previous Great Walk adventure, see my post about Kepler). If Kepler was all about stunning mountain views, Tasman was all about stunning coastal views.

And even when the track didn’t directly follow the coast, there were cool things like this former homestead, now a hut, to see along the way.

I swear, New Zealand has it all.

The original plan hadn’t really included Tasman from what I understood, but I’m so glad we did a part of it. We really lucked out and had just enough food for the hike, which was really nice because most stores opened late on ANZAC Day. We weren’t quite truly backpacking, but we did have backpacks and stayed in a tent at Mutton Cove, which was really cool.

After arriving, my friends, mostly Ashley, quickly took advantage of the tall trees near the beach and set up aerial silks. If you don’t recognize the name, the pictures below might help.

My friends are seriously so talented.

I, meanwhile, went climbing across some rocks. My hiking boots, of course, were not well suited to this task, so I did it barefoot. Probably not the best decision I’ve ever made, and my feet have certainly been happier, but I think it was worth it. You can barely make me out in the photo below, creds to Alyssa.

After a dinner of couscous, we hit the hay pretty early, which was good because we decided Friday was going to be a very early morning. Since we wanted to catch sunrise over at the next beach along the hike, we got up at 4:30. Despite some rough terrain, no major setbacks getting there, and it was pretty cool to watch it go from complete darkness to sunup.

The rocks here were also pretty cool.

After sunup, we headed back to Mutton Cove, and we decided to spend most of the morning there.

And I’m so glad we did, because these four little guys came to join us.

THEY WERE SO STINKING CUTE. They stayed here for over 30 minutes, just playing. I swear they were showing off and eating up the attention. And they got so close! The photo below is not zoomed in one bit.

After a morning of soaking up sunshine and beautiful views, we reluctantly decided to pack up and head out a little past noon. What a great time.

We then hopped back on the road again and set our for Moetueka, where we had parked a couple nights before. Somehow none of us had remembered the road as being that curvy, so we were pretty confident going in the dark wouldn’t be that bad. Not only was it curvy, but it was a mountain pass under construction. Whoops. We made it out alright without a scratch, though!

The next morning (Saturday), we were again out our parking lot home at 7:00 and again went to the same McDonald’s for hot chocolate and some electricity. After finding that it didn’t have outlets, however (what McDonald’s doesn’t have outlets for the public???), we changed plans and headed to a small cafe nearby. And it was much cuter, so I was content.

I also got a few hours of work done, so that was nice.

Saturday was mostly a driving day, which worked out well because it was raining. The rain also provided something else: rainbows.

We started counting, and the final count I’m pretty sure was nine. How crazy.

We decided to take a more inland route back to Christchurch, partly because we wanted to see new territory and partly because it was quicker. It still took a long time, probably 7 hours.

We did make a stop at one point for a view and lunch at some falls near the road and just happened to run into the Otago Kayaking Club as they were taking out. Too funny! It seems like some of them decided to go over the falls. Not quite my cup of tea, but fun to watch!

We stopped for the night about forty minutes outside of Christchurch, then headed into Christchurch the next morning (Sunday). After a few hours in a Starbucks cranking out some more homework, we stopped on adorable Regent Street for some postcards.

We then made the most of our last few hours with the van and headed towards a market on the edge of town. What I thought was going to be a smallish farmer’s market turned out to be a sprawling market with several vendors. I got to indulge in a bratwurst, and we saw some pretty cool stuff for sale. Lindsey and I also splurged on a giant bag of factory-rejected but still delicious cookie pieces, which have been some of my favorite soft cookies I’ve had here. I was really glad we went.

After an adventurous week in Sharon, we sadly cleaned her up and took her back to her home at Britz. We were then conveniently picked up by another ISA friend and driven back to Dunedin. The drive was pretty, though long.

We finally made it back however, and indulged in Poptarts at my flat. I had brought these all the way from the States, and we had planned to eat them for breakfast one morning when we were at a powered site. We were too cheap, however, to pay for a parking space, but refused to eat the Poptarts without a working toaster, so we just hung on to them until the end. If you ask me, it was well worth the wait.

Don’t mind us crazy Americans, missing and craving our fatty, over-sugared, over-processed foods.

And that pretty much concludes our trip! Before I end, some quickish random memories and photos:

• singing the ‘da da da’s alternately in “I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)”
• filling up pots and pans with water when we ran out
• trying to parallel park Sharon…yikes.
• making mac’n’cheese with pancake mix when we didn’t have any flour (true story)
• crawling over and around each other all the time in the van
• Ashley cocooning in her aerial silks at night at Abel Tasman because we didn’t have a fourth sleeping bag
• the many amazing views of mountains we got the entire week in all sorts of lighting and weather
• being so grateful for passing lanes because we were moving slow
• how bad our fridge smelled after several days of not being on
• finding a big bag of apples at a roadside fruit stand for $2!! (We stopped there twice)

And finally, the official song for our road trip – “Wanderlust” by James Bay. May all of you get wanderlust at some point in your lives. It can result in some incredible views, wonderful friendships, and forever memories.

(Cheesy, I know, but how else do you end a nearly 2500 word post?)