Part 22 – Aoraki and the Southern lakes

We started the day with an injury. Flo and I were discussing something while preparing breakfast, and when I (incorrectly) bent down to get something from the fridge, Flo bumped into me. It felt like something snapped. My back immediately started killing me, and I lay on the ground screaming. I was convinced that I had slipped a disc. It hurt like a m**********. Flo gave me painkillers, and while I was able to sit, I could still barely walk. That was utter s***.

It was a glorious day, and we were on our way to Aoraki, New Zealand’s highest mountain. It was still a drive away. I spent the entire time researching what I should do next. By the time we reached Aoraki, we had come to a few conclusions:

It was no use going to a hospital. Even if I had slipped a disc, the waiting time for surgery was over four months, meaning I would be back in Germany by then.
I really needed to take painkillers and keep moving—staying still would bring its own set of complications.
I probably wouldn’t be doing any hiking today.

None of this was the news I wanted. While Flo and the kids prepared for a hike, I felt depressed that I couldn’t go. Aoraki is a fickle mountain—its summit is usually hidden in the clouds. Not today. I had never hiked in this area before; the only other time I was here, it was super windy, and a storm was coming up.

I told Flo and the kids I would slowly follow them, but nobody really believed I would make it anywhere. A fresh round of painkillers later, I hobbled out of the van. In the end, my stubbornness got me to Kea Point—it just took me twice as long as it should have. Still, I rarely see my family as happy as they were when I appeared at the rest stop at Kea Point. 🙂 I just missed the small avalanche tumbling down Mount Sefton, as I left before them again.

Getting back down also took time. Flo drove us to Tasman Lake to see Tasman Glacier. I took a nap first, though. The glacier is melting at a considerable pace—when Flo and I were here ten years ago, there was much more ice.

Done with this day of hiking and high mountains, we left Aoraki in our rear window and drove to a freedom camping spot at Lake Pukaki, which offered the most amazing mountain views. The kids loved it, and the adults got to watch the sunset. I was feeling better. The painkillers had gotten me through the day, and I probably hadn’t actually slipped a disc since my back was improving incrementally.

The next day, we hopped over to Lake Tekapo, which is only about 30 km away. We spent some time at the playground and waterfront before heading to a café called “The Greedy Cow” for lunch. After lunch, we checked out the famous Church of the Good Shepherd.

Having only traveled 30 km that day, Flo and I debated whether to stay or drive a longer distance. Keeping my pre-booked time in Christchurch in mind, I opted to move on—and so we did. We drove for quite a while but managed to stop in Fairlie at the Fairlie Bakehouse for coffee and cake. As a delightful extra, we found real bakery-made hot cross buns, which turned out to be the best ones of our entire trip.

Finding a campground for the night with reception was a little harder today. In the end, we stayed at Mayfield Reserve, a lovely but budget-friendly communal campground. The best part? There was a swimming pool right next to it. Although it was already closed, we could get the key for an hour for just five bucks—a great way to end the day.

It was another day spent on painkillers, but now, I was noticeably better.

Part 21 – Moeraki and Oamaru

It wasn’t quite that easy to leave in the morning. We said good bye for a good while and sat in the warm kitchen, having coffee and not actually leaving. It was starting to rain and a rainbow appeared over Timmy which looked very pretty.

When everybody had left for school, kindy and work, we also left. Today, we went up the coast to the Moeraki boulders. These boulders are fun, spherical boulders lying around at the beach. It’s a geological oddity but it makes for very pretty photos.

A new restaurant and an alpaka farm have opened right next to the beach access now which I hadn’t seen before. After lunch in the motorhome, we took a walk along the beach before heading up to Oamaru. One more stop at All Day bay for a coffee and some beach time. Then, it was time for Oamaru where we stayed the night at a park over place next to the race track. It was very convenient to stay in town. Also, we arrived early enough to have time for another BBQ.

The next day, the weather was still very grey and drizzling. The small bakery shop in Oamaru was still a must, Flo and I had been here before. They were still setting up so we waited for more, still warm, baked goodness to arrive. Apart from bread, we also bought sweet treats for a later coffee time.

Exploring Oamaru’s historic town center was fun. The i-site/museum wasn’t quite the plan but it started raining and the ladies at the counter kinda talked us into it. It was much fun to try out old toys, have a ride on the penny farthing carussell or have a look around the old shops. The schoolroom was a good reminder of the horrible practises that had been used to keep kids from fidgeting.

Leaving Oamaru, we turned inland. Driving up the Waitaki valley, we stopped next to a hydrostation and a dam. It was still raining quite heavily and wasn’t much fun to go out. In the end, we made this a long driving day, driving almost all the way up to Twizel today. We stopped at a lake right before the town of Twizel and stayed at the edge of the plateau above Lake Ruataniwha on a freedom camp.

I’m sure, Timmy is smiling too. The kids were very excited by the frequent rainbows in NZ.

Part 20 – Friendzone: A weekend in Dunedin

We had plans to see other travel / motorcycling friends, Janet and Scott, later this afternoon. By now, they also have three kids so we were invited for a catch up and dinner after naptime at 3.30pm. Which meant, we had almost a whole day to kill first.

So we opted to spend a good chunk of it at our favourite place in Dunedin: Celia’s and Tig’s house. There was time for showers, schoolwork, playtime, food, even more coffee…everthing that happens when 5 adults and 5 kids are in the same place. In the end, Celia came up with the plan to go on a walk at Mt Cargill. It took some time packing snacks, water and whatever the kids needed to go on a walk, but then we were off to a car ride and a walk. The weather was nice, everybody enjoyed to be out and about and the views of Dunedin were quite spectacular. The photos tell most of the story, really.

We were back at Celia’s and Tig’s place just in time to pack up and leave for Janet’s and Scott’s place where we would also spend the night. It was so good to see them again and meet their kids. After a lovely dinner with an astonishing amount of food having been eaten by 4 adults and 5 kids, we got dessert in form of banana bread that their eldest had baked. The two younger of their three girls took quite the liking to the AoE and not long after, they had a make-up party on the top bunk bed.

In the evening, we slipped right back into the good conversations we used to have when all four of us were living in Wellington. Good times were had!

After breakfast the next morning, we said our goodbyes as Janet plans every day very thoroughly, especially the weekends. It reminded me a lot of myself when we’re at home. So many things to do!

For the rest of the Sunday, we got Tig and the two younger kids to join us at St Clair Hot Saltwater pools, while Celia and Charlie went off to train for their big three day hike coming up in April. The pool was very cool, actually pretty warm and it had toys and goggles for the kids to use. Both our kids were IN LOVE with the goggles as they allowed them to dive without the sting in their eyes. So we stayed even longer than our friends, having an extra round of splashing and diving.

Back home at Celia’s and Tig’s, everybody was knackered. A rather quiet evening was had with one more conversation with the adults. I had managed to get through all my pre-prepared lists for the Hocken library in 4 days. Thus, we will leave Dunedin tomorrow after one week here instead of the planned two weeks.

Part 19 – A week in Dunedin

Monday was supposed to be my first day at work…until I checked again and realized that the Hocken Library is closed on Mondays. Thus, we had Monday to explore a little bit of the Otago Peninsula. Dunedin looked quite a bit similar to Wellington when we moved along the harbour (minus the high-rises). Our first stop, for lunch, was a playground next to Macandrew beach. The kids enjoyed the play time (and the ice cream), before we continued to Te Rauone beach where we spent the afternoon and the night freedom camping.

On Tuesday, we had a brief look around Taiaroa Head but couldn’t visit the Royal Albatros Center as now I had to be at the Hocken Library at 10am. After this, I was mostly out for the rest of the week.

Flo: So while Nina slogged away at the Hocken, both kids and I got to explore and go on adventures. We started local, but non-the-less awesome at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. I remembered it fondly, and the broad selection of exhibits and topics was a hit with the kids as well. That night we cowed from first real rain on our trip right at the heart of town. Dunedin’s Freedom camping policy is awesome.

Another (rainy) day, another museum. Tūhura Otago Museum, a “British Museum” style potpourri of different exhibits. Including the fantastic “Relics” touring exhibition of “Where’s Waldo”-style Lego dioramas built into “relics” of humanity. Plus, a butterfly greenhouse, for some reason. Great fun was had.

The big one came on Thursday – hopping on to the Taieri Gorge Railway on the first sunny day after the rain had passed. The kids were 100% on board (get it?) and had heaps to tell mom, who came to pick us up after coming back to town and because why not, we added a whole steet art walking tour in the afternoon.

On Wednesday and Friday we came back to our friends Celia and Tig’s place to give the kids more chances to hang out (plus ok, maybe some personal hygiene). It was amazing getting the time to hang out. A personal marker for the outstanding quality of people we call friends is how effortlessly we find into a rhythm even after years of not seeing them. One more huge shoutout to them and their amazing tamariki! Our kids will sure remember the time here.

After that full week, we had more of a low key day on Friday, exploring the Dunedin Botanical Garden, catching up on sleep and preparing for a shared evening meal with our friends. The kids were suprisingly engaged in the “plants selected for their fragrence” section.

Part 18 – Getting to Dunedin

After the Milford Sound cruise, Dunedin and my time working there were really on the forefront of my mind. But we still had the weekend to get there! One of the locations on my wishlist was another visit to the Catlins, however that was looking like a stretch from here. Flo and I decided to try it anyway.

We spent a bit more time at the Totara Campground this morning to give the kids some playtime before hitting the road for a long stretch. Lunch was had at the Sandfly cafe in Te Anau and then it also started to rain so we just drove on. A town, another town, heading further south, but not as far south as Invercargill… (our eternal nemesis, once again just skirted).

Quite late we stopped in the Catlins, at Papatowai. The road had been very pretty even in the rain and the beaches looked fantastic. We kitted ourselves with all our rain gear and hit the beach for a beachside walk. It lasted exactly for three waves. That third wave on the long flat expanse was just so incredibly high that we were all caught by surprise. It was thigh-high, water was running into our gum boots, our pants were wet…and we were laughing our butts off. With that, we drove on to a doc site to stay there for the night. The kids made friends with another set of German kids. This family had just emigrated to New Zealand from Germany and they were on the road to try and figure out where they wanted to settle. Good luck to the four of you! 🙂

The next morning, we took a “dry” beach-side walk at Papatowai. It was a lot of fun and absolutely amazing to be out there, pretty much alone. Afterwards, we let the four kids play together till almost lunch time.

For dinner, we had an invitation in Dunedin with our friends Celia and Tig and their family. Enough time to stop at Nugget Point, one of my favourite places. A lighthouse in the Catlins, usually with seals playing in the surf. We didn’t see as many seals as last time but I still enjoyed having shown the place to the kids.

Dunedin…just was a blast. Celia and Tig haven’t really changed. They are still some of the nicest people we know. Plus, the kids just hit it off. We entered their home and the kids were gone. For most of our time here, we don’t have pictures of the great hospitality and lovely company. We just enjoyed it.

Picking up where they left off in the evening

Part 17 – Must Do’s in NZ

Now that all is sorted, we are ready to do the most of the time remaining before heading to Dunedin. As we arrived late last night, we took our time at Kinloch and explored the estuary of the Dart River. Before heading out, Nina and I felt it was time to acknowledge the bravery and generally good behaviour of our Tamariki and present them with their Taonga, their Ponamu necklaces.

After the first 10 km of hoping not to rip Timmy apart on the shoddy gravel road, we were back on tarmak and ready to cover some distance. Almost. Just one more stop at Lake Wakatipu for a splash and Lunch and off we were.

The KM ticked up and the landscape changed. But the most memorable time came late this afternoon. We finally picked up our first hitchhiker, Taiga. A guy from Japan hiking the lenght of New Zealand, he has been walking for over 100 days and almost at the end of his journey. We dropped him off at Te Anau to re-stock his supplies and went off further down the Milford Road to make camp for the night.

After a rougher start, the day at Milford turned out to be an absolute stunner, with brilliant sunshine and reasonably calm seas. We enjoyed the cruise and also the leasurly trip back on the Milford Road. We passed through the tunnel once more and found another splendit DOC campsite along the road. A bit crazy to realise that I still work more than half a day every weekday night throughout this adventure.

Part 16 – Queenstown, the affluent city

Today, at 9.30am, a workshop would check out Timmy’s problem. Finally! We got up early and drove to Queenstown. We stopped at one lookout on the top of the hills, motor running, to look down on Queenstown from above. But mostly, we just needed to park Timmy at the workshop and hope for the best.

Once parked, we walked into the inner city to sort out what we’re actually going to do now. Queenstown, Queenstown is the city where you need money. I mean, yes, things are expensive, but mostly you need money to do any of the cool things on offer here. Wanna go bungy jumping? Wanna go on a jet boat through the canyon? How about paragliding? Or a tiger submarine on the lake? Maybe take the steamer over the lake? Need a drink at the ice bar? A helicopter ride? All of these things sound like fun and they all are bloody expensive.

After all the stress of driving Timmy for the last couple of days, Flo got to decide while we had lunch. He decided that we would take the gondola up the mountain. YAY! And then, he and Number 3 would go down the mountain in a go cart. *shrugs* Okay then. It was all good and well until he decided to book 6 go cart laps for me as well. To say the least, I was not amused and also terrified. BUT…going down the laps 6 times…it started to be fun at some point. 🙂 I didn’t partake in of the racing the rest of my family engaged in. It was by far the most loved activity for Number 3. He LOVED it! He beat Flo in two of the races they had. And Flo drives a mean wheel, you know.

Afterwards, I got my sweet treat at Patagonia chocolates. That was my “must happen” in Queenstown. We took Flo’s coffee to the playground and hung out. Word about Timmy got to us: The alternator was broken, the new part could be shipped in for tomorrow. YAY! Timmy will be okay tomorrow!

This information made our very expensive campground stay tonight feel less bad. Also, the campground turned out to be AMAZING. It was by far our favourite campground. Super nice views, great facilities and a GAME ROOM with an ARCADE GAME for the kids. I think Number 3 will move to Queenstown if he ever has enough money for it.

On Thursday, Timmy had his operation at 11 am. It was scheduled to take 3 hours after which we would be free to go whereever we wanted to go again. This time, we took it slow. We spent as much time on the amazing campground as we could (latest check out was 10am), then dropped off Timmy. Today, we hung out at the lakefront of Lake Wakatipu and used the playground some more. We also used the time to go into the doc visitor’s center where the knowledgable lady suggested a walk along the route to Glenorchy for us and the kids. It sounded good so after getting a fully repaired Timmy back, we made our way to Glenorchy and stopped at Bob’s Cove for a walk. Picnic Point was a great lookout.

For tonight, Flo had booked a doc site at Kinloch, which is around the top of the lake from Glenorchy. The whole route down there is such a scenic drive, only the last 10km of gravel are in such a bad condition that I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the campsite. But we made it and it was a lovely place to spend the night.

Part 15 – Wanaka, our (last) best hope

The weather this morning matched our mood: It was raining, fog was hanging everywhere. Still, we had a shower and (freshly cleaned up) we had a mission. Today, we would use the charged starter battery for as long as it would run, no stopping, to make it as close to Wanaka as we could get. At least halfway, so that the AA would have to tow us to Wanaka instead of back to Haast.

The first half felt quite tense. It was also hard on the kids, especially Number 3 was worrying a lot. After Haast pass, the tension started to ease…we would definitely be towed to Wanaka now. Also, we left the clouds and the rain at the west coast. Going down along lake Wanaka, the sun was shining. Oh, Wanaka, why are you so pretty?!? I was quite sad that we couldn’t stop at any of the lookouts or walks, it all looked so wonderful in sunshine. We crossed over to Lake Hawea which was equally marvellous.

We got something better though. Timmy lasted us all the way to Wanaka! We even managed to get a powered site at a campground before the battery was completely drained. In the end, trusty Timmy got us the 140km to where we needed to go. As we had to get here in one go, it was only lunch time. It being Sunday meant that we had a whole afternoon in Wanaka to fill with sunshine and fun before any workshops would open up again tomorrow.

That’s what we did. We hung out at the lake, had a splash, relaxed and treated ourselves to a lovely dinner at Kai whaka pai in town.

Monday morning came around. Now we needed a real fix for Timmy. Our hopes sank again. Nobody was able to check out our problem with the motorhome until the middle of next week. By this time, I already needed to be in Dunedin to research. Around 10am, Flo’s luck in talking to any mechanic in a 50km radius was turning. A workshop in Queenstown offered us an appointment on Wednesday! Not nearly what we had hoped for but much better than waiting for another week. That settled things…we would spend another day in Wanaka, today, and then go to Queenstown tomorrow. Two days in Wanaka and two days in Queenstown sounded like a holiday rather than a wait for a mechanic.

Since it had gotten very cold overnight (seriously Wanaka, 27 degrees yesterday and then just 2 degrees at night? What is up with that?), we spent the morning in Puzzle World, walking the gigantic maze and doing the 8 illusion rooms. In the afternoon, the kids spent a lot of time on the playground and we walked to see #ThatWanakaTree.

In the evening, the kids befriended another German kid on the campground’s playground so that we had lovely company and good conversation for a good long while. 🙂

View towards the mountains from our campsite in Haast

Part 14 – Grinding to a … limp

We really enjoyed our time at the freedom camp spot at Cargills’ Road, also this morning. Unfortunately, I left Flo’s jandals at this camp and we are missing them sorely ever since. What is NZ without jandals?

Our destination for today was Hokitika. It’s a laid back small West coast town and I’ve been here a couple of times now. It’s good to hang out at the beach which always has a lot of driftwood and it’s famous for its greenstone galleries. One of the things on my “to do” list was to buy a pounamu pendant for Number 3. So we arrived in Hokitika, had yummy lunch at the Hokitika Sandwich Company and then headed towards Waewae Pounamu. Number 3 picked a hei matau as his shape but the AoE is just a tad too small to pick a pounamu for herself. In the end, Flo bought a beautiful hei matau for the eldest and a sliver of pounamu for the younger one. They both have to wait to be given the pounamu though. Pounamu has to be given or earned and that also extends to kids.

Everybody was knackered after the weight of choosing the right pounamu. So we had beach time to relax. In the later afternoon, we headed out to Hokitika Gorge to walk the loop track. Unfortunately, one of the suspension bridges is under reconstruction so now it is a 45min in and 45min return walk instead of an hour to loop around. We still managed to get to the water access and Flo had a swim in very cold water. Nobody else from our family felt the urge to go in.

The only other thing to do today was finding a camping spot. Another freedom camp at the beach seemed amazing but we didn’t have reception which Flo needs to be able to work at night. So with a heavy heart, we moved on. It was getting late by now so we pulled up at the next doc site and stayed at Lake Ianthe for the night. Luckily, the reception was okay here.

The next day, we took it slow. It had been late yesterday so we took our time in the morning. Our plan was to have lunch in Franz Josef. Shortly before we arrived there, something in our motorhome broke.

The display showed an issue with our alternator and suggested a visit to the workshop asap. Unfortunately, the West Coast of NZ is not known for its abundance of workshops for motorhomes. Feeling very insecure and unhappy, we stopped and had lunch in Franz Josef. Of course, it was Saturday as well. The only mechanic in town was out and about and would be back at 7pm. Luckily, he was reachable via phone. After the phone call, we had a new plan: The mechanic had suggested to do everything normally today but get as far as we could towards Wanaka as our car would probably not start again tomorrow. With that horror scenario in mind, we had a nap at Lake Matheson (it was too windy anyway) and tried to find a different mechanic in Fox Glacier. The lovely mechanic in Fox Glacier said the same thing though so we drove on. We had the same issue as last night, we just couldn’t find a freedom camp or doc site that had enough reception for a stable connection.

In the end, we drove until 7pm (felt like it) and ended up on the Top 10 holiday park in Haast on the last powered site they had available for the night. We rolled onto the site and Timmy…stopped working.

We had completely drained the battery which didn’t recharge anymore while driving. Very sad and unsure of what to do now while we are living in a gigantic brick, we put the shore power into the motorhome. To our surprise, the battery started charging again! Shore power was our new way to charge the starter battery, now that the alternator had stopped working! We have a chance to charge the battery and then get to Wanaka tomorrow! Using Sunday to limp to Wanaka and then pin our hope on one of the mechanics in Wanaka! We have found our silver lining!

…the other wishes she had school work to do *shakes head*

Part 13 – Waka Ama to the West Coast

Wednesday at 9.30am, we went on a waka to canoe around the first stretch of the Abel Tasman National Park. First, I was slightly disappointed when we couldn’t book kayaks as the AoE is just a bit too small in the operator’s opinion. The kids were very disappointed but their faces lit up when the chance of going out in a waka ama presented itself. We as a family were on the bigger of the two wakas which took 12 people. Our two guides Thomas and Lea praticed paddling with us but also educated us on a lot of the tikanga around wakas. It was awesome and heart-warming and we whole-heartedly recommand it.

After all the paddling, the stop at a beach with a snack and afterwards some swimming in Kaiteriteri, we were all pretty knackered. However, our next destination was the West Coast and we hadn’t really planned to stay up in the area around here for three days so off we went towards the West Coast. In the end, we made it to another lookout, near Glenhope, Hope Saddle lookout, and stayed up there for the night. For once, we were the only ones at a place. It was pitch black outside and when going to the public toilet the thought of “I’m never gonna find the motorhome again if my torch fails” kept crossing my mind.

The next day was a big driving day. We went all the way to the coast, turned south without going to Westport and only stopped when we got close to Punakaiki. The national park down there, Paparoa, has some amazing walks (even a great walk) but we took the shortest track to a secluded beach. Truman track had been recommended by the lonely planet and it was well worth the walk. At the pancake rocks in Punakaiki we stretched our legs again on the 20min loop walk. This night, we stayed at the most amazing freedom camp at Cargills’ Road with two other campers. We even had time to BBQ home-made burgers so the kids were incredibly happy about the end of this day. The wekas were so curious and completely used to humans that one of them even jumped up on the BBQ to check if it could get some of our food. Crazy birds!