more wanders

inspiration for your next adventure!

Smokin…

Hey team – hope 2024 has kicked off well for you and yours.

We’re doing well and enjoying our wanders. The map below shows our travels since the last blog (which can be found here)

We didn’t spend much time around Christchurch last year but wanted a reasonably quiet spot for Christmas, so opted for the new NZ Motor Caravan Association (NZMCA) park at Kaiapoi, north of Christchurch. Christmas was a fab time to visit since many of the locals escape to the country / beach.

The NZMCA Kaiapoi park is a great spot for travelers, with shops, bike trails and even paddleboarding on the river just a short walk away. This new park, and several other public reserves in Kaiapoi, have been setup in areas designated red-zones following the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes. About 100 hectares (1/5 of the residential area) in Kaiapoi was red-zoned.

This monument was built using some of the letter-boxes from the red-zone.

It was interesting to see how much Christchurch central has developed since our last visit in 2016. We were also impressed with the different townhouse designs being used – always helps when there’s a commitment to create open, green spaces near these developments. The Riverside Market was pretty quiet when we popped in for lunch, although the Rollickin Gelato shop was doing a roaring trade with the sunshine! We also enjoyed time with an enthusiastic volunteer and ex-Air Force gent at the Air Force Museum of NZ. Incredible the time and effort that has gone into restoring, preserving and displaying these yester-year machines.

We had an overcast day for our visit to Sumner beach (third photo below) and over the hill to Te Onepoto/Taylors Mistake, so didn’t have any problems finding carparks, but can imagine these areas pack up in fine weather! The drives around Sumner and Summit Roads are well worthwhile.

Had a rather cheeky Magpie visit the caravan and ute while camped in Christchurch! 🙂

Our driving wanders included Banks Peninsula. We had toyed with camping at Okains Bay, a very popular tent camping spot, although not too many caravan rigs our size!.

We were happy we’d left the caravan behind after a lengthy wander around the peninsular roads (see brief Instagram video if you haven’t already).

We then stayed north of Dunedin in Warrington, an ideal base to explore local areas like Karitane and Waikouaiti – we hadn’t realised how lovely some of these beaches are!

We invited a couple of locals over for a cuppa and got some great tips on cycling options (the hubby, in his 70s, had already done his regular 30km ride!) Being the novices we are we drove the ute into Vauxhall Yacht Club to do a short 12km return ride along the fabulous Portobello Road cycle path to a café… which unfortunately was shut that day!

With options of either heading back to the ute or just double the distance and head on to the next café of course we jumped back on our bikes and enthusiastically powered on! (ok… might be overstating the enthusiastically bit 😉 We had a lovely lunch at the next café and then worked our way back with headwinds and rather cool temps.

Don‘t look too closely at the specialised cycling outfits… (you’re right – there aren’t any 😉

Our plan was then to head south to the Catlins. Unfortunately, heading through Dunedin one of the caravan wheels started locking up and smoking whenever we applied the brakes. A little concerning when you’re reluctant to control the 3-ton elephant behind you by braking! With numerous hills, valleys and tight bends ahead we needed this resolved quick smart.

It’s not easy to find a garage able to take a same day booking – after many calls we were recommended one that had good online reviews and were able to bring an extra person in to check the problem out. With a slow wander down the reasonably steep (but fortunately 50km) hill into Dunedin (and plenty of smoke to entertain other motorists!) we limped into the garage.

We fully expected to be in town for a bit if they needed to courier parts in. We walked around town for lunch and a browse around the shops, and a couple of hours later had a call to say they’d fixed the problem! Fab news! It turned out to be a wheel bearing issue and fortunately they had the right parts in stock to deal with it. Couldn’t complain about the price and the service was above and beyond (not the only example – see below). We love putting positive reviews online for places that provide great service! As travelers we rely heavily on google / other online reviews to find reputable services, so love pointing others in their direction.

After the bearing fix we managed to be on our way on the same day and headed down to a Park Over Property (POP) at Nugget Point (left pic above). POPs are where NZMCA members offer overnight parking at their property, often in a field on a farm – in this case directly opposite the beach.

That night we had gale force winds all night – the forecast wasn’t likely to improve so we canned heading further south and started heading inland. We tried our first freedom camp for this trip at Pinders Pond (right pic above) – a very busy, easily accessible spot for the many small van travelers. We survived three nights there 🙂

The last few weeks we’ve relished basing ourselves on the banks of Lake Dunstan, Lake Hawea, Lake Wanaka and Lake Whakatipu.


We stayed at a couple of spots around Lake Dunstan, close to Cromwell. With Frankton / Queenstown in one direction and Alex(ander) in the other, Cromwell is a pretty cool spot. It has a lot of new residential / light commercial development underway. You’re surrounded by awesome mountain and lake scenery. It also has the “45th Parallel” just out of town – it’s the line that marks the theoretical halfway point between the equator and the South Pole.


We took the opportunity to drive along the Nevis road (including its 4×4 sections), the highest public road in NZ, and enjoy the gorgeous scenery…. This did give rise to the next small repair work, after the number plate and part of the bumper ripped off and disappeared forever into a slightly deeper water / mud hole than we expected 😉

Ahhh well, yet another reminder that even with reasonable care, you might still hit the odd bump (hole?) in the road when trying new things!

The ute was all good and we managed the rest of the water crossings and rocky roads without incident – the views traversing up and down the hills are stunning!

We popped into a local panel beater the next day, they provided a quote that day, and two days later had sourced the second-hand part we needed for the bumper and had it fitted – more super service! Replacing the number plate proved interesting – either get one made with the same Rego number and sent home (not helpful since we aren’t there!) or get a new Rego number. A visit to the VTNZ in Alexandra and $29 later we had a new plate / Rego number and Road User Charges labels printed – now that’s service!

Right is a short vid clip of one bit of the Nevis road.

While visiting Alexander we were admiring a hot-rod parked on the main street, and got chatting to a visitor from Dunedin who mentioned that Cromwell was hosting the annual Hot-rod and Classic car show on Saturday… nuff said, we were keen to pop along! Scary seeing much of what we grew up with being called classics!


Lake Hawea and DOC’s Kidd bush campsite was our next stop. We had a couple of quite large groups of kiwi campers and the usual mass arrival of small camper cars after 5pm, so not exactly a quiet setting, but all very well behaved 😊

We started to do part of the Sawyer Burn Hut walk… and then decided to continue on to the Hut (5 hours return). Amazing views back across the lake. Can’t see us taking on any serious hiking and being “hut-dwellers” anytime soon – you seen the state of that hut? We think caravanning is roughing it😉


A short hop down the road to Lake Wanaka and Glendhu Bay was our next destination – our first commercial camping ground, but a favourite with its huge lake frontage. Last year we stayed a week earlier in January and it was a little manic, so we enjoyed a lovely quiet time this year – paddleboarding, swimming and Brent even did a 13km cycle track into Wanaka.

The bike track was a bit advanced for his biking skills, so he did a bit of walking up and down a couple of the tricky paths… He had great intentions about riding back to camp from town too… but decided to “dial a ute” and Kaz came and picked him up 😉

One of the essentials on the road is getting the regular washing / drying done. One company we appreciate anytime we can find it is the Liquid Laundromat! They offer similar washing machine and dryer options and the same card to pay for services at each site, and most premises are kept tidy – what’s not to like? We might need to get a 28kg washing machine for home 😉

We line-dried much of our washing last year but it did add another challenge to the wash exercise – having weather fine enough to line-dry. So we’ve simplified things a bit this time and dry most things in the 22kg dryer. Have had a couple of items shrink to “rubbish bin size” but on the whole, adding a 30-minute dry time to the 35minute wash cycle keeps us very time efficient (time is money people! Less time costs us more money😉)

We escaped Wanaka just before Waitangi weekend and headed down to Kinloch, at the southern end of Lake Whakatipu (near Glenorchy). Fortunately we ignored the GPS advice to try taking the caravan through a couple of the smaller Queenstown shopping streets (guess it was the faster route) as we headed south. There’s a couple of narrow spots on the way down to Glenorchy, but we didn’t meet anyone bigger than us, so all good 😊

The weather was pretty wet for this wander so the twists and turns weren’t taken at any great speed. We popped out in the ute to check out other camping options on that side of the river, the start of the Routeburn track, and to have a mosey around Glenorchy.

We also enjoyed a quiet day and dinner out at the restaurant directly behind where we were camped for Kaz’s birthday 🙂

Love seeing the warning signs on the “backcountry roads”… and then see how many large rental vans take the road less travelled and are parked up at the trail head!


With the forecast not looking flash we moved from Kinloch to Te Anau. We’ll chat about the camps we want to checkout on the way to Milford in our next post 🙂

Take care and love to hear how things are going in your world!

4 thoughts on “Smokin…

  1. Hi we are at Franz Joseph at the moment for a couple of days, we loved the magpie Diana’s daughter has one in Australia, did you know that Linda is closing the POP that isn’t good, we are very sad they are a lovely couple.

  2. Loving your travel reads! Hope your doing the Milford track! But, at least enjoy a helicopter ride over the track and a trip out on the Milford sound! Enjoy!!
    Talei xx

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