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Motor Home holidaying in New Zealand
The South Island of New Zealand is an island full of must-dos and must-sees however travelling as a ‘mini tour group' a family of five with three children under the age of 11, getting to those musts can be challenging.
Our solution was to journey around southern South Island in a fully self-contained Pacific Horizon motor home. We travelled in September, taking advantage of less tourist traffic and cheaper hiring rates.
Despite the motor home being 6.5 metres long and weighing almost four tonnes, it was surprisingly easy to drive and quiet manoeuvrable despite its bulk. With diesel around 58 cents per litre it also proved economical to run.
The motor home cruised comfortably at 80-90kmph on the drive south from Christchurch to the first must-see, the dusk parade of blue penguins as they waddle from the sea to their burrows at Omaru boat harbour.
We easily negotiated Dunedin's traffic to park at the railway station – the best place for camper parking before boarding the red double-decker bus for an informative tour of this Scottish inspired city.
Strong winds created a driving challenge on the cross-island drive to Te Anau, the starting point for a visit to the famous glow-worm caves. This well organised tour included a pleasant cruise across Lake Te Anau. We found the tour well worth the effort.
A big advantage offered by a motor home holiday is flexibility. You can stay in caravan parks, or almost anywhere there is flat ground you can pull up and spend the night, as we did at some fabulous spots on the Milford Sound road after leaving Te Anau.
We found the full-day introductory ski lessons at Coronet Peak near Queenstown were cheap and proved the highlight of the trip for the kids. Just as enjoyable was Puzzle World at Wanaka, where holograms, a two-level maze and a fun sloping room kept us amused for several hours.
The alpine Western side of the island presents more hilly and winding roads, reducing our average speed to 40-50kmph. The motor home's slow ascent of hills meant everyone had ample opportunity to take in the magnificent, constantly changing scenery. It also made it easy to pull up at interesting spots for compulsory energy-consuming bushwalks - a must for the kids.
The alpine experience continued at Franz Joseph Glacier – with a fantastic walk up the glacial gorge to the glacial terminus. Seeing the tiny figures of guided groups high on glacier reinforced the scale of this glacier as it flowed down from Mount Cook National Park.
We found most roads had ample rest areas where it was possible to stop the night. New Zealand's Department of Conservation has some fantastic places to overnight in national parks for a small fee. Many of the DOC stopovers have walks of 10 minutes to three hours duration through primeval looking beech forests and over amazing swing bridges.
When free camping the only ties with civilisation are linked to emptying the waste tanks at 'dump points', stocking up on fuel, water, doing the washing stop when you run out of clean clothes and buying food.
The overnight stops, without the intrusion of TV, meant family activities such as card games prevailed and combined with the daytime walks and other activities, soon had the adage that the journey is more important than the destination clearly ringing true.
Strong winds rocked us to sleep on our final night free camping at Arthurs Pass before the final run back to Christchurch where the children said sad farewells to the 'beloved camper'.
Visit 'Destinations' (http://www.reservationheaven.com/wiki/index.php?HomePage) and tell us about your travel experiences.
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