Big surprise- I’ve taken way too many pictures of our trip, so I’m going to separate them into more than one post. But, beware, this one is a long one!

Some trip highlights are:
Visited both the South Island and North Island flying into Christchurch to start the journey and flying out of Auckland to return to AU.
Traveled over 3,000km (over 1800 miles) on some of the curviest roads (without guardrails) that I’ve ever traveled.
Spent 19 nights in a motorhome without going too terribly insane.
Took more pictures of lakes, beaches and mountains than I thought possible.
Was colder and rainier than I expected it to be, but that’s been our story since we’ve arrived Down Under.
Brent only needs to take a plastic shopping bag of clothes next trip since he only wore two outfits the entire time (we did do laundry a few times thankfully!).
Kids traveled well- only had to call Santa twice, but did really well considering the amount of time they were in uncomfortable car seats.
Santa can find you anywhere. He brought presents to the RV while in Greymouth, NZ and left some in Australia for our return.
Would do it again, but don’t need it to be 3 weeks.

Here was our trek of the South Island (not the best quality as it was an actual map provided to us). We traveled almost 3/4 of the island (highlighted in black). We didn’t go to the area on the northeast part of the island because we weren’t planning on it, but also that was the area that was recently damaged by the earthquake in November. That part is crossed out by the camper rental agency because of some damage to the roads.

So… onto the pictures!

We traveled into Christchurch on an overnight flight so we only spent the morning in Christchurch to eat breakfast and pick up the camper. It was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2011, and we were surprised to see that much of it is still being rebuilt and under reconstruction. We stocked the camper with groceries and were off on about a 3 hour drive to get to Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki. Because it was just too much traveling on day 1, the kids were melting down by the time we arrived at our first place to stay. I was a bit worried about how this trip was going to go at this point… but once we found a fairly level spot to park, with this view and fresh air, we were all feeling a bit better.

As a side note, campervans (as they call them) are a very popular way to travel through NZ. The regulations allow you to “freedom camp” or basically pull over and camp where ever you want as long as there is no signage saying it’s prohibited. There are other designed areas for freedom camping as long as you are self-contained (meaning a toilet onboard), and then there are the traditional campsites (basic to full amenities). We stayed in a variety of locations, but definitely enjoyed the freedom camping nights the best.

Here we are staying at Lake Pukaki on our first night with Mt. Cook (highest mountain in NZ) in the background. I’ve never seen a lake that is this color of blue (which continued to be the theme for most of the South Island). I enjoyed watching the differences in light and color as the sun set and rose each day at our various locations. I got several pictures from our first night of the changes.

The next day we traveled to south of Oamaru and stayed along the beach in a freedom campsite. We were looking directly at the beach and if we would have pulled in any further, we would have been stuck in the sand. We enjoyed the town of Oamaru because it had a place for everyone to enjoy- cute shops, a nice playground, a brewery and whiskey tasting shop. You can figure out who enjoyed which aspect.

The next day was our longest trek in the camper. We traveled to the lake of Te Anau. We stayed in our first official holiday park, so were able to get proper showers, use the kitchen facilities to cook and clean up, do laundry and the kids got to play on the playground. The kids learned about jumping pillows at this site, and it quickly became one of their favorite activities of the trip. Here we did one of Brent’s favorite activities of the trip and took a tour of the cave to see glowworms. We had about a 45 minute boat ride on the lake to get to the cave.  We, then, walked about 200 meters into the cave which I didn’t anticipate to be walking on wet walkways along raging rapids as I’m holding kids. For the last 50 meters in to the cave, we got on a boat and had to be very quiet in order to see the glowworms, and it looked like a starry night in there. {For more information on what glowworms are, click here. The short answer is they are worms that glow to attract their food, and the insects that they attract get stuck in a sticky line that they produce.} We spent most of the morning reminding the kids that they couldn’t talk when we got into the boat to see the glowworms, and I couldn’t believe how quiet Greyson was during it. Once we got out of the boat, here the dark cave and rocking boat had put him to sleep!

Next we were on our way to Queenstown. It’s probably the most popular area to visit in the South Island and considered the adventure capital because of the lake and mountains.  There are activities year round for about everyone. We took the gondola to the top of the mountain to see the view and ride the luge. The kids loved it, but perhaps Brent even more! And the ski lift picture which is a silhouette is Brent and Greyson riding with their luges underneath. Brent’s mom is having a heartache right now!

We continued on the scenic drive north to Wanaka. By the time we arrived to town, Greyson was sleeping so we took turns walking through a few shops and continued along the drive to our campsite along northern portion of the lake as driving past Lake Hawea (yet another gorgeous blue lake). Here we stayed at a Department of Conservation campsite (government site) where you paid $8/night for adults and paid into a lock box on the honor system. It was very windy so we lots of “huts” along the beach to break the wind. The kids enjoyed playing in them, and Brent enjoyed it as a “man cave”.

The next day, we made our way to the town of Fox Glacier with a hike along the way to the blue pools. It’s just amazing how crystal clear and blue the water was in the stream. We also got to see the west coast for the first time. Then, we hiked to the face of the glacier that afternoon. Hard to tell where it starts in the picture because it is covered in dirt.

The next morning, we drove past Franz Josef glacier which was visible from just the parking lot. We were baffled to find glaciers in a rainforest environment. The big tourist activity to do in this area was to take helicopter ride over the glaciers and Alps. We didn’t do that, perhaps another time!

By this point, it was Christmas Eve so we made our way to Greymouth on the western coast. The holiday park sounded nice since it was to be right on the beach, but it was okay once we arrived. It wasn’t the type of beach that you actually swim in, and big surprise, it was cold and rainy anyhow. The important point was that Santa found us there! I think we lured him in with the broken cookie and one carrot!

On Christmas morning, we had a nice breakfast, did some laundry and tried to decide what to do since the town wasn’t quite what we expected. We decided we’d drive north to see the pancake rocks and blowholes. As we started to leave, I asked Brent if we should just continue driving north rather than backtracking to the campground we were staying in, and he agreed…. so we set off on our Christmas day adventure which turned out much nicer than the original plan!

We visited the pancake rocks and blowholes, but didn’t see the blowholes because it was low tide (the crashing waves during high tide make spraying water that look like blowholes).  Then, just up the road, we did a short hike to the beach and got to visit this waterfall. We continued the drive further north towards Westport and stopped to see a seal colony. There were a lot of them including little babies crawling around. The kids really enjoyed seeing them.

By this point it was dinnertime, and I could have made dinner in the camper, but we figured that we’d just eat dinner in town. {We intended on a nice BBQ dinner, but since we left the campsite, that plan changed!} The only places open were an Indian restaurant and a fish and chips shop. We opted for the Indian restaurant. Who would have thought that’s where we would have Christmas dinner, but it was really good.

We found a place to stay at a freedom campsite along the beach so we spent time playing on the beach. After the kids went to bed, some locals pulled in and had a bonfire on the beach. We were expecting a party that would keep us up, but it turned out they set off some really nice fireworks. Again, who would have thought this was going to happen! It was one of my favorite campsites.

We then continued to the top of the South Island and stayed in Motueka which is a town near Abel Tasman National Park. I wish we would have had more time to explore this area. It was beautiful, partly because it was actually sunny and warm for a change! Ideally we would have done some sea kayaking, but that’s not an activity with the kids, so we opted for the scenic cruise and got to stop at one beach and do some hiking before we got the boat back to town. (The national park is only accessible by boat). I’m bummed that I didn’t actually take our bathing suits because it ended up being the only day on the trip that we could swim (weather-wise). The kids played anyhow and ended up back in the boat in half their clothing because the others were too wet.

Our last stop on the South Island was to catch the ferry to the North Island. We originally only wanted to tour the South Island, but the the rental agency required us to return the camper to Auckland if we booked it. So that’s how we ended up determining our final itinerary. It was a three hour journey, and we now know that I’ll never get Brent on a cruise. It made him seasick.

If you are still reading (haha!), I’ll post pictures in of the journey through the North Island in the next post. So, stay tuned!