Camper van grump

POSTED BY SI

We had an awesome time in New Zealand, as I’m sure you can tell. But it’s not all roses. And you know how much I love to be grumpy, so here’s my attempt to dampen your ardour if our little trip has made you think “Hey, maybe we should do a campervan holiday…”

- There’s an awful lot of driving.

I mean a lot. It’s a driving holiday, I know, but still. In order to see so many places in so short a time, clearly you have to travel between, but just like I hadn’t really appreciated just how much it rains in a rainforest, I was unprepared for just how much driving there is on a driving holiday. It’s a bit like being in a road movie – Thelma and Louise, Bonnie and Clyde, The Blues Brothers. Watching road movies, I think again you never really appreciate quite how much driving is involved.

We did well over 4000ks, but that’s only half the story – it’s not the miles, it’s the hours. Many NZ roads are narrow, windy and steep. They’re in good condition and the scenery is spectacular. Around every over bend is yet another breathtaking view. After a while you get a bit blasé about it. You have to. Especially the South Island. Driving through the mountains of the central South Island, if you stopped to look at every view you’d actually start to go backwards.

Children, views or no views, do not consider seven hours of driving a day to be a holiday. And to be honest, if you’re in the back of the van, you don’t see any views. You’re just killing time for seven hours.

It’s like being on a rubbish fairground ride. It’s pretty bumpy and you get thrown sideways every few seconds. You can’t read, much less write. If you’re determined and highly skilled, you might be able to watch a movie on a laptop with headphones without being sick.

When we started this holiday Maddie had only seen The Lion King once. She now knows every word. Not just the songs, the dialogue. All of it. Izzy is half way through series five of Friends.

Flick through all the road movies you can think of in your head. Count how many children there are in them. I’m just saying.

Other things to be aware of in a campervan:

- It’s not like a canal boat where one of you can be cooking while the other one is driving. Standing is inadvisable. Anything not put away or tied down will either be smashed or turn into a missile on the first corner.

- You cannot go anywhere or do anything until everything is washed up and tidied away. Think leaving the house with kids takes ages? Try taking the house.

- Cooking anything other than boiling water is a mistake. It is simpler and more effective to liberally drizzle the floor, walls, surfaces and all your clothes and bedding with animal fat than to cook a sausage.

- You will stay in campsites. Communal everything. Other people’s food, noise, rubbish.

- It’s a 2x3x6m box you share with three other humans for weeks on end. If you were cattle that would be classed as animal cruelty.

- You are carrying around your own excrement. There is no way to make this not disgusting.

- Take everything four people are going to need for a month. Or in fact, everything you think you’re going to need, which is an inevitable combination of way too many clothes but not enough underwear, roughly 25kgs of stuff you don’t need at all, and a whole heap of stuff you wish you’d remembered but didn’t. Empty all that into the 2x3x6m box. Try and find anything.

But you do get to go to an awful lot of places in a relatively short time. I can’t think of another way to do it, until they invent the Star Trek transporter. Other than by helicopter. And we’ve already established we’re going to get one of those. So there’s the answer. Helicopters.

Swimming with dolphins

POSTED BY IZZY

  

Yes, that’s right, swimming, in the sea, with dolphins. Oh yeah!

We were booked in for the 9 o’clock boat trip out but the day was looking very foggy outside. Never a good sign. So mum and I got into our wetsuits – dad didn’t want to swim and somebody had to stay with mads who was too little to swim – and bootie things. The woman gave us some snorkels, but not to use to breathe underwater, but to bash together to attract the dolphins.

So, off we went, out into the beautiful ocean.

We were back in 20 minutes: Fog.

Pretty annoying, it even looked for a minute that we might not be able to go at all. But they said that the fog should burn off in a few hours. They invited us back at 12 o’clock and that was fine by us, only that it meant that we had to pack up the campervan before the dolphins rather than after.

You probably don’t know, but the swimming with dolphins experience was infact, our last newzealandish (I know is not a real word) experience. We were packing to catch a flight out to Fiji for four days!

Anyway, we packed up the campervan, had some “fush ‘n chups” and then went back to the centre. We went through the whole palaver of the wetsuits again, and it didn’t help that there were a lot more people so it was more squashed and it took longer to get into the wetsuits.

So finally, off we went, out into the beautiful ocean… and this time we were in the water within 20 minutes. The dolphins were really easy to find, it only took about 15 minutes, until we found a pod. It started off with only a couple but by the time we got out, there were a good dozen.

It’s a strange feeling, being in the water with those weird booties on because they want to float so you’ve got to kick your legs under the water to stop yourself flipping upside down. But it’s even more strange when you get out and they’re all full of water.

Now, on to the good stuff. The dolphins. The particular species that we were swimming with were called the Hectors dolphin and were sadly endangered. There are only 7,500 left in the world and only around 1,500 in New Zealand. 

They’re quite small, around 1.2 metres, and that’s only the adults. The babies are even smaller, around this sort of size:

Actually swimming with them was awesome. Sometimes they came right up to you, and sometimes they jumped up really high in the air. We weren’t allowed to touch them because their skin is as delicate as the skin under your eye. And the bacteria under our fingernails might be enough to kill them.

Another once in a lifetime experience.

Lake Tekapo

POSTED BY SOPH

Beautiful lake, sun drenched mountains, hot springs with waterslides, free WiFi in the cafe, sizzling stone dinner - all good in Tekapo. 

Just one night left in the camper. Heading to Akaroa just east of Christchurch.  Have booked a swim with dolphins - if we're lucky - for the last morning before heading to Fiji. Yes I am aware just how crazy that sounds!

Wanaka

POSTED BY SI

We're in Wanaka. Wanaka is known as one of the most amazing places for stargazing, as it's high and remote and has almost no light pollution. There's an observatory here on the top of a mountain that's, like, world famous. 

Tonight, it's cloudy. Here's what we saw:

Sheep news

POSTED BY SOPH

So there are NOT 43 million sheep in NZ. No. There are only 29 million. You see sheep are no longer the main export, no one wants NZ wool anymore. The cows have taken over. Also deer. Odd to see deer in a meadow, so obviously being cultivated for slaughter, when at home their sightings are rare and rather wonderful moments, usually dangerously at dusk and too close to the car!  That said I can't be too squeamish as I love venison. 

Other sheep facts: a one year old is called a "twotooth" as it has only two teeth, a two year old a "fourtooth", three years "sixtooth", four "eighttooth" and over four years a "fullmouth". Weird eh?!

Milford Sound

POSTED BY SOPH

Yesterday we took a coach to and boat out on Milford Sound. A "sound" is a flooded valley which was originally created by a river. A fjord is a flooded valley originally created by a glacier. Technically Milford Sound should be named Milford Fjord.

The journey through the mountains to Milford was spectacular. All rain forest again, so raining obviously, with glimpses of misty ethereal mountain peaks through the trees. 

We stopped a few times, here to see a Chasm formed by the river creating a series of spiral rocks and holes - my camera doesn't do it justice. 

We also met this guy in the car park

Many men, many years ago, took pick axes and, by hand, hacked their way through the mountains to make a tunnel to get to Milford from Te Anau. Mad. But crazily beautiful, the things we do just because we can. 

The waterfalls over the mountains only flow when it rains. So we were fortunate it rained - these "fairy falls" are streaks of bright white punctuating the giant grey never ending slabs of mountain. 

We got up close to the mountains on the boat. They are shot through with minerals  - copper, gold, iron - which give the water it's azure colour. 

There's a floating 'discovery centre' in the calmest bit of the sound, which goes 10 metres down below the surface, like a sort of reverse fish tank - the fish look in on the people.

We saw fur seals, who are (ridiculously) nocturnal. But that meant they were lounging around on rocks, sleeping. 

We also got right up close to one of only two permenant waterfalls, permenant as they derive from glacial melt not rain, for a Glacial Facial - witty guide banter! 

It took 9 hours to do the full coach/boat/coach trip. A long day, again. But all good!

Cold turkey

POSTED BY SI

This is a sad tale. A tale of woe. A tale of fortitude and sacrifice and stoicism. A tale of abstinence and deprivation.

We arrived at Queenstown, and I uncurled stiffly from a five hour drive with a kind of ungainly stretch in the cab of the van, and my phone tumbled from my pocket and fell six feet onto concrete.

I have been without twitter, text, iMessage, whatsapp, email, wikipedia, movie podcasts, cricket podcasts, cricinfo, the guardian, and google for three days now.

I’ve hardly whined at all.

iPhones: more addictive than nicotine.