I'm back!

After an incredible five weeks of to-ing and fro-ing - I'm finally back in the Land of Smiles. From being a Lord of The Rings ninja, whale watching, penguin spotting, watching the fireworks at Darling Harbour and being reunited with my bff - it truly has been a magical few weeks. 

I've spent hours upon hours changing my mind about how I want to layout my blog for my travels in NZ. Do I take it day by day explaining what I did, or do I set it out place by place - and the truth is I don't think either way truly encapsulates just how much there is to see and do in NZ. But I must say, if WHEN I go again - I certainly will not attempt to see the entirety of the two islands in just three weeks, it is impossible. 

So here tells the story of two girls ladies (daughter and mother) and a campervan in New Zealand - and let me tell you it was one hell of a ride!

I'll start off by telling you a little about my family. We've always been incredibly close, a little crazy with a tendency to take ourselves off on little adventures. So, after years of mithering my parents to go to NZ, we finally booked the tickets and began planning our journey (this was about three weeks before we were due to leave.) [This still does not beat the record of us booking a week skiing in Italy the night before we went - told you we were spontaneous!]

After spending obsene amounts of time researching, plotting and map studying I had a fair idea of where I wanted to go and when I planned to be there. Originally we had planned just two weeks in the South Island - that was our summer vacation, until  mum sneakily proposed the idea of myself, and her, flying out a week early to Auckland and driving down to Christchurch to meet dad a week later. Rather hesitantly dad agreed - actually hesitantly isn't the right word, us travelling for a week without him wasn't a problem, I think it was more likely due to our tendency to freely spend money. Don't get me wrong, we won't spend money on things that we don't want/need - but when it comes to holidays, we like to enjoy every single aspect and take full advantage of our surroundings.

Let me give you the general gist of the journey so you know what to expect. We drove approximately 3500km in three weeks, with some days barely driving and others we spent the entire day driving - you need to find your balance and see what places appeal to you. I didn't have THAT much interest in the North West coast, or the west coast in general really so we spent a full day driving from Wanaka - though I would still spend a full day doing the drive along the Haast Pass as with the unpredictable weather conditions and countless photo ops you will want to spend a lot of time out of the van! 

A little tip - the Pass gets closed at 17:00pm so you want to make sure you are out the other side before then!

We spent a few nights freedom camping, some on unpowered sites but mostly on powered sites. If you would like to have a gander at my list of pros and cons of staying at each, just click here.

Now, let's begin our journey through New Zealand.