Lakes – we just can’t get enough of them! Our last blog (see here) had us finally heading towards the West Coast, to explore Lake Kaniere and Lake Brunner.
Lakes have been a big part of our travels this year. Our water experiences back home are typically in and around Northland beaches, so it’s been fun enjoying the stunning South Island lakes. We think that we’ve barely scratched the surface, and are looking forward to exploring more spots off the tourist route on future visits 😊
We’ve updated the map below for our recent travels and included short videos of our activities. If you follow us on social media you may have already seen some of these video clips.
[The greyed-out areas on the map have been covered in previous blogs]
Costs?
Of course, the BIG question you’re all asking yourselves is: What would a wandering lifestyle cost us? To help you on your way 😊 we’ve summarised costs for 4 months of travel, using an Excel pivot table (phew… still remember how to do that!)
Why just 4 months you might ask? ‘Cos we needed costs for end-of-year tax stuff, but weren’t keen on wading through even more months of expenses 😉
[Click on any of the images to get a bigger pic]
We’ve adjusted some annual costs (e.g. the DOC Accommodation pass; Other costs; Vehicle insurance) to show the amount relevant for just a 4-month period. Roughly speaking, we could triple the total cost to see that it would cost us $43k to travel for 12 months.
We also incur costs for having a home-base and health insurance, but we have excluded these costs as they may not apply to other travellers. The Other costs category (see Vehicle issues below) may not be relevant either if you don’t break things as often as we do 😉
We rarely use commercial campgrounds for accommodation, as our self-contained caravan enables us to stay off-grid in remote locations for extended periods.
Are you more of a picture person? 😊
Vehicle issues while travelling?
We have had a few “bumps in the road” on our wanders, but have been fortunate to resolve any issues quickly:
👉 Shortly after Christmas we had a wheel-bearing fail on the caravan as we were driving down steep hills into Dunedin. This meant the wheel locked up(!) anytime we put the brakes on. Bit hard to avoid using brakes when you are going downhill, or driving around town! After a frantic phone around, we found a garage able to make space for an inspection that morning. Then incredibly, they had the right parts on hand to have it fixed for us to be back on the road early afternoon 😊
👉 We then lost a number plate and some of the bumper on one of our 4×4 excursions! The panel beater we contacted managed to source, and have fitted, the replacement bumper part only two days later. In that time we’d also managed to get “new” number plates, rather than wait for a replacement plate with the old Rego number (which needed to be sent to our Auckland home address… and then sent on to us somewhere in the South Island!)
👉 Our last small issue was just before we left the South Island. After traversing steep and windy hills on our drive from Kaiteriteri towards Picton we had the engine develop a slightly strange noise. We nursed it into Blenheim and had it checked out by the AA. The intercooler hose had split, so we were fortunate that we hadn’t lost noticeable power while towing. The call-out person was actually from a garage we were planning to visit on Monday, and he arranged to have the part fitted and have us back on the road again Monday afternoon 😊
Home sweet home?
Brent’s brother has looked after her ladyship (KitKat) fabulously while we’ve been away and has also kept an eye on our home base. He popped into our place a couple of days before we arrived home and discovered a water leak when he turned the mains tap on! Fortunately, we were able to track down a plumber who could visit on the same day we arrived home. We topped up the caravan water tanks just in case we had to leave the house water off.
Thankfully the plumber resolved the issue before we arrived home 😊
Can’t beat a good clean!
We give the caravan a “light” clean (Kaz’s description – Brent thinks it’s a great clean 😊) each time we move sites. But we love taking everything out of the caravan once in a while and giving it a complete clean, top to bottom, inside and out.
So what about the ute we hear you say? Our trusty Shark vax is excellent for cleaning the caravan on the road, but it wouldn’t survive a Brent ute clean… (Does anyone else have a partner who can kill an appliance with just one serious use?!?) Our heavier-duty Kerrick vax is much more suited to the task!
[Click on any of the images to get a bigger pic]
Wet weather activities?
We had occasions on this trip when it rained for several days in a row and we’ve spent a lot of time inside. Apart from reading, we both have laptops and usually broadband access via our 4G router.
Sometimes we’ve both been streaming programs for entertainment! (we can have slightly different watching tastes 😉)
The travel update
[Maybe check your audio volume before you play these clips. YouTube can default to max volume which isn’t great if you’re at work and don’t have headphones on! 🙃]
When we left the Ashburton Lakes in our last blog we headed to the West Coast via the Lewis pass. The DOC Marble Hill camp is almost in the middle of this pass and is a lovely scenic spot.
The first of our two West Coast lake visits was to the Hans Bay DOC camp at Lake Kaniere. We popped into this site for a look-see last year and were keen to return with the caravan. It’s not a big camp but we were one of only two caravans when we arrived, so had the pick of locations! Later in the day, a group of fifteen(!) 5th-wheels arrived (large American-style caravans) for a get-together, so we’re glad we arrived early.
We did a short wander from our Lake Kaniere camp to explore Hokitika Gorge. Amazing how much stunning scenery is around! 👏😊
The weather turned quite wet as we headed out of Lake Kaniere towards Lake Brunner. We’ve stayed at Lake Brunner a couple of times previously, including Christmas last year which was a lot of fun. The area has a large number of not-so-small holiday homes, but in the off season, it’s pretty quiet. The TranzAlpine train, which travels between Christchurch and Greymouth, passes Lake Brunner on the way.
Unfortunately, it rained for most of our visit this time so we weren’t keen on the usual water activities. Ahhh well, guess we can swap lake swims for a hot tub? 😂 We did jump on the bikes to wander through the Lake Brunner Scenic Trail, being built along the lake edge.
With the temps cooling down a little earlier than we’d expected (and a job in the pipeline for Kaz!) we decided to make Kaiteriteri our last camping location in the South Island. We stayed at Bethany Holiday Park which is a short walk to the beach, close to the mountain bike park and has wonderful facilities! It offers an excellent off-peak stay rate for NZMCA members 👏😊 The National Waka Hourua Festival started the day we arrived, with waka (Māori canoes) from across Aotearoa. Amazing craft and crews!
We enjoyed 3 days of gorgeous sunshine and then 4 days of strong winds and heavy rain. Was like being in a high-pressure car wash, even in our 3-ton caravan!
As noted above, we had a small ute issue when we headed away from Kaiteriteri towards Picton, so wound up going into Blenheim to get it resolved.
We booked an early ferry crossing in the belief that conditions would be better first thing… and had a lovely cruise. One of the benefits of crossing early is we can cover quite a few kms before finding a spot to camp. We stopped at Taihape and had a fab time catching up with Kaz’s cousin and her hubby again 😊
We then wandered up to the Cambridge Raceway and used it as a base for a lovely visit with Brent’s sister and her fam. Can’t complain about watching horses being exercised in the morning, or seeing horse and greyhound racing later in the day out the caravan window!
Trust things are going great in your world, and as usual, we love to hear about how things are going for you and yours 😊