Category Archives: Motorhome

Part 12 – Te Wai Pounamu

We got up, drove to the check-in and got in line for boarding the Bluebridge ferry to the South Island of New Zealand/Aotearoa. Once in line, we took the time to have breakfast…right next to the Connemara, our ferry for the day. Having been to Connemara two years ago and also because of Fiddler’s Green we had to listen to “Connemara” a couple of times this morning. Good fun!

From the moment our line started to move, bording was a rather quick affair. Up and up we went to get from the belly of the ship onto the deck. Bye bye Wellington! See you in a couple of weeks! It actually takes almost an hour to get out of Wellington harbour so we moved along the bays, the same route Flo and the kids had taken on their bike tour. At some point, a pod of dolphins joined us briefly. Dolphins make everybody happy.

Crossing the Strait wasn’t too bad, I just had to be on deck the whole time. I get nausea as soon as I go below deck. The last hour was spent moving through the sounds to Picton. By lunch time, we were on the South Island, Te Waipounamu, Te Waka a Maui. No. 3 started to make jokes about how he didn’t get a paddle, now that he was in Maui’s waka and I realized that it’s pretty awesome that the kids know the story about how Maui fished up the North Island.

From here, we made it to Nelson for our first freedom camp in the South. Nelson allows freedom camping in the large parkings lots in the middle of town. So convinient. It allowed us to explore on foot, have an ice cream and later on dinner in town. Only downside was that Flo still had to work and couldn’t sample any of the crafts beers around.

The next day was a bit of a stretch. We’d managed to get a booking for canoeing in the Abel Tasman National Park tomorrow the earlierst, so what to do? Flo really wanted to visit Te Waikoropupu springs again. However, there and back again was quite the drive over the Takaka Hill. We started with a visit to a beach at the side of the road so Flo could call his sister whom we hadn’t talked to in a while. After the call, it was close to lunch time already. We stopped at the next lookout, Hawkes lookout, had lunch and a look around.

Over Takaka Hill and then we were there: Te Waikoropuru. The tapu spring. The cleanest water we have ever seen. It’s still very impressive even though didymo has arrived at the place now. We took our time to take it all in…afterwards it was too late to go on the hydro powerstation hike. Instead, we went back over Takaka hill and enjoyed a night of freedom camping at Hawkes Lookout. It was about as far away from Kaiteriteri, our starting point for canoeing, as Marahau but it was for free. 🙂

Part 9 – Out and about

Our first weekend in Wellington already had a fixed activity…Saturday evening, Mat made it a date to have a port night. As Flo has to work every week night and thus misses most of the conversation amongst grown-ups, we also made it a date to go out on Sunday evening for dinner. Just the four “adults” Mat & Liz and Flo & me. To be able to do this has been a real treat as we managed to have their kids babysit our kids. Zeph especially was great as a babysitter but then they are a professional by now.

Weather was still nice so we needed some outdoor activity. After the much needed laundry, we headed out to Zealandia shortly before lunch time. Lunch was had along the way at a French cafe, then we reached Zealandia after a terrifying drive through Karori tunnel…we realized too late that Timmy is too tall for the tunnel and had to do the same thing buses do: Drive in the middle of the tunnel.

Zealandia is just a great place to be. Showing the kids native bush and birds, we even finished up with finding a weta. Just an overall great day.

In the evening, we got to hang out with lots of cool people that we haven’t seen in forever. We used to roleplay with almost all of them at some point while we were still living in Wellington. I had too much cheese and just about enough chocolate and enjoyed the whole thing.

On Sunday, we were just tired. Some plans were made and then dismissed. In the end, we stayed in until we went out to dinner in the Wellington CBD. Flo had an itch to eat in one of our favourite place from ages ago (that is still around) so we dined in Capital next to the Embassy theatre in the end. It was a lovely night even though we didn’t make it back to Plimmerton before the gorge was closed and Liz had to take a detour through the outskirts of Wellington instead of going on the motorway.

No. 3 going native…barefoot in pak’n’save

Part 7 – Wairarapa

The amazing stop at Te Paerahi Beach was the last one for a while. From here, our next destination was Carterton where a former collegue of Flo is now living. She’d let us stay in her flat in Kuala Lumpur in 2015 on our way back to Germany and we had also met her in our flat in Frankfurt when she was visiting Europe in April 2018.

Now it was our turn again to visit, this time with two kids. Over lunch, we stopped at Pukaha national wildlife centre. Flo and I have never been there but we are familiar with Zealandia, a Wellington institution.

We managed to see a lot of wildlife with a talk about eels as the last highlight. Time to head towards Carterton and see Sonja. It was lovely to catch up. The kids enjoyed the amenities of having a bath tub, a sand pit, a community pool around the corner and of course, lego and children’s books. Not to speak of Sonja’s company.

The next day, we explored a bit of Carterton together, then headed out after lunch. The final stretch towards Wellington, our second home. Before we got there, we picked sunflowers though and stopped for schoc chocolates in Greytown.

Finally, finally, we got to Wellington. And kinda just past it, as we planned to live with Mat and Liz in Plimmerton. It was so good to catch up. These are very good friends I met in my first two weeks in NZ about 19 years ago. The kids are all grown up now. And they have three dogs now. So happy to be here!

Part 5 – Glow-in-the-Dark

It’s been a while since the last post – hasn’t it? It is a sign of how this trip is different in a few ways from our usual. Not at this point yet, but later. There is a lot of work, and at the times where we are not working, we are trying to absorb as much of the moment as we can. And so, photos and blogging falls to the wayside a little bit.

This is still the time to absorb. We have switch to travel mode – planning ahead a day or two and trying to enjoy ourselves as much as possible.

The Waitomo Caves were really high up on the list of things that I wanted to show the kids. Since they are too small for Black Water Rafting, we booked a tour through Aranui cave which is a walking tour with a boat ride at the end. Glow worms really like wet environments.

Thus, the tour was the first thing we did today. It was a big hit with the kids, gliding through the dark in a boat with a starry sky above us. It was just one cave though and the boat ride was over quickly.

We left Waitomo and drove towards Taupo and Wai-o-tapu, the next big item on our “what to show the kids” list. Looking for a lunch stop and something to do over midday, we came across Te Waihou Blue Springs in Waikato in the lonely planet. A spring, a nice walkway…we crosschecked it with a NZ website which told us that the walk is closed but you can still get to the river at one side of it. We decided to try it anyway. It turned out to be the side of the river, where all the locals go swimming on hot days. Today was such a day and it was well frequented. The locals also jumped in from a fallen tree trunk. The water was freezing cold, not even the kids wanted to go swimming. Cooling down our feet was also lovely though. We stayed for much longer than we had anticipated and took the arrival of a whole class of teenagers on an excursion organised by their marae as our clue to bow out. It probably would have gotten energy-ladden as the young, mostly men, started doing push-ups before jumping into the water. It was super cool to see them and to hear them all speak te reo with each other. Our kids helped with the counting as far as they knew the numbers.

We stayed at another freedom camp that night and finally had the BBQ that the AoE was so looking forward to. Lake Okaro was right next to us.

The next day, we started with the Lady Knox geyser eruption at 10am. It is made to erupt every day at the same time. Wai-o-tapu was great (again) and both kids did an exceptionally good job with walking. We went all the way to the green lake.

In the afternoon, we stopped at Lake Taupo for a nap (Flo) and some playtime at the waterfront before heading east. Our original plan of taking the desert road and stopping at the volcanoes was thwarted by a two-month closure of state highway 1 for maintenance. So we had to go around and decided to head towards Napier. Somewhere along the road to Napier, there was the Kaweka Forest Park with a doc campsite within.

It was a campsite right in the forest, even without reception. Unfortunately, it was raining slightly but Number 3 used the time to draw a fantastic picture of our view of NZ bush.

Part 4 – Almost a holiday

Having gotten through all my requested watercolours in the Auckland Art Gallery and with many more hints what else might be useful, I tried to switch to the other mode of our NZ time: Holidays. Checking the spots on the North Island, that we wanted to show the kids, I realized that it is summer and we should have booked those way earlier. No Matamata for us now, Flo and I keep that in mind for our way back up to Auckland shortly before we leave. Also, the Waitomo Caves had a three day waiting period in which they were fully booked, whereas Wai-o-tapu has no restriction on visitor numbers per day. Anyhow, the kids needed to see glowworms. So we had a weekend to fill before having a cave tour booked for Monday now.

Here, Flo’s completionistic streak kicked in and he went “let’s show the kids Coromandel!”. Which turned out to be lovely but a heck of a drive along those windy roads. We left Woodturners Cafe towards Coromandel town for some smoked mussels (Flo!) and a surprise pick-up of sausages (Agent of Entropy!). Thus, we now had to have a BBQ sooner rather than later. We kept going but it was late afternoon before we made it to Hahei. Hahei is still my favourite beach spot despite having a miserable Christmas here in the remnants of a cyclone and a completely rainy experience when we stopped here in winter. The kids immediately loved it. There was no freedom camping however and I got slightly worried where we would stay tonight.

NZMCA to the rescue! We managed to talk the kids into abandonning their beach experience which had just started in order to go swimming tomorrow morning and left for a NZMCA POP over the next hill. Which was lovely and also a big hit with the kids who built intricate structures out of pebbles.

I missed out on the swim at Hahei beach due to having to work on my laptop but we left at lunch time and drove to Waitomo. Arriving there, both kids were knackered. Still, the Top 10 Holiday Park came with a pool and it was quite hot so 3/4 jumped back into the water for a second time.

Unfortunately, it started to pour and neither our BBQ nor the night walk to the glowworms seemed to still be viable…

Grumpy kids ensued. Luckily, the weather cleared up right around bed time so we did get to go on the night walk. It was quite the experience for the kids: being in the NZ forest at night (being told to keep the torches turned off) and seeing glowworms.

Very, very tired we returned. Just to have our scheduled cave tour the next morning when we saw more glowworms, this time mostly from a boat in the cave.

Now towards Rotorua and Wai-o-tapu tomorrow.

They were kind enough to let us run our d&d game until 10am, so we returned the favour with an order of second breakfast

Part 3 – Always Auckland

We may be out of our AirBnB and fully reliant on Timmy now, but still in the grips auf Auckland. Two days and one night more for Nina to finish her research at the Auckland Art Galery.

Thursday was all about getting used to our new lifestyle and putting the final touches on our setup. Buying some camping chairs, a few bits and bobs. Picking up my NZMCA membership card, so that we can take full advantage of that. We did a loop around the eastern outskirts of Auckland and gave the kids a chance to spend some time at the beach. That night, we spent the convenient but louder of Aucklands two freedom camping spots. Right at the motorway, it attracted an odd collection, but we got through the first night just fine.

On Friday, we left Nina in town for her bus to the Auckland Art Gallery. I upgraded to “stay-at-mobilehome-dad” and took the kids west all the way to Whatipu. We did a bush trail to see kauri trees and visited the black sanded Whatipu Beach. The kids had a blast, even with the 2 hours of driving over windy and even gravely roads. At mid-afternoon, we headed back to Auckland to pick up Nina and leave Auckland for good this time. It was a mildy cursed endeavour, first clipping the side mirror on a badly parked contruction truck, then stuck in traffic and finally we got a send off gift from Auckland’s finest: Turns out, the CBD has a general 30 limit, so we got a kind 120$ information at the last turn before the motorway as helpful reminder.

This night, we tried a NZMCA “Park-over-Place” for the first time. What a great thing – safe spaces organised by NZMCA members where one can spend the night for a small fee. So we enjoyed the parking lot of Woodturners Café entirely to ourselves. Much more quiet. Now, the holiday part can start …