Wow 2 years! Where did that time go? I can hardly believe that it’s been that long since I moved into my fifth wheel to start my adventures on the road. It doesn’t seem that long, yet it seems even longer – I know, that sounds weird.
I did spend my first 3 1/2 months parked up in Auckland while I was finishing up at my job and then I had a few overseas trips to do. Once all of that was completed I hit the road and headed south to get to Wellington while stopping in a couple of places to catch up with friends. Then it was onto the ferry and hello South Island.
South Island
I spent 6 weeks in Blenheim catching up with family and realising that the fifth wheel was too big, so I put it up for sale. Then I headed to Wanaka to work over the summer at a campground. It was in my last week there that I sold the fifth wheel as well as my truck. So within 2 days I became homeless, carless and jobless. So it then became a race to buy a new truck and get all of my stuff back to Blenheim – mission accomplished!
Once I got back to Blenheim, I then made a trip to Nelson and brought my current caravan. I had to wait 10 days before I could pick it up. I got it back to Blenheim where I then started the task of downsizing again to get what I needed into the new caravan and letting go of even more stuff. It’s not until you are living tiny that you realise that you really don’t need much stuff in life. Most of it is just junk that ends up hanging around.
2 weeks to the day from picking up the caravan NZ went into a lockdown! I was stuck in Blenheim! Oh well at least I did have family around.
On the road again
I ended up spending about 4 1/2 months in Blenheim. Come early July 2020 I finally took off and headed to Nelson. That had originally been my destination after leaving Blenheim, but it did take a while to get there. Once there I ended up spending a month there. Partly because I had to get some gas issues fixed. However once fixed it wasn’t the end of the problems.
From Nelson I went to Kaiteriteri, what a beautiful place. I spent a week there and then headed off to Golden Bay, driving over the much feared Takaka hill – I didn’t find it an issue. Easy to drive really. I ended up spending about 10 days there as the weather wasn’t the best for sightseeing. Then back to Kaiteriteri for another week. From there I was planning to head to the West Coast, so off to Murchison I go and park up at an NZMCA park with no power – found out the gas water heating wasn’t working! So back to Nelson for another few days to get that sorted out. Back to Murchison – weather looking shocking on the West Coast so I decided to go East and ended up in Christchurch for about 10 days. Found out I had issues with the solar, so yep you guessed it – back to Nelson. Although I changed the route and went via Kaikoura and Blenheim so that I could catch up with family again.
So I got a solar upgrade – an additional panel, a new charge controller and a couple of other things done. Then yep back to Murchison. Was snowing as I was packing up the next morning. This time, even though the weather once again looked shocking for the West Coast, I decided to head there anyway.
So I went to Westport and stayed there and did some day trips, going as far as Karamea to the north. Then I based myself in Hokitika and had a look around that area. From there headed down to Franz Josef and then Haast. Then it was inland to Wanaka for a couple of weeks and then Arrowtown. From there it was onto Lumsden and Te Anau where I did a cruise on the Milford and Doubtful Sounds. Once I left that area I headed to Southland and then I went through the Catlins and up to Dunedin. From there it was back to Wanaka for some work at a campground over the summer.
On leaving Wanaka I made my way back up to Blenheim via Tekapo, Timaru, Christchurch and Kaikoura. I spent a couple of months there before getting on the ferry and it was back to the North Island. So in all I spend about 18 months in the South Island.
If you are interested in seeing more of my travels I have a YouTube channel that you can view my videos.
I have been back in the North Island for 3 months and I’m loving it. I will go back to the South Island some time as I still haven’t seen a lot of what it has to offer, and there is always family to see. Even after 2 years in a caravan I’m still loving it and definitely not ready for this adventure to end any time soon.