We’re exactly halfway through our trip now with 11 flights under our belt. In all that time we’ve had so much good luck, everything seemed to just fall into place at the perfect time.

From being invited to holy Buddhist ceremonies with our Sri Lankan homestay hosts to meeting the right people in Thailand when directions were needed to just being in the right place at the right time. From the generous Melbourne bus driver to being invited into the airplanes cockpit to meet the captain at Sydney.

Our incredible good fortune just kept flowing, to the point where something (that might seem minor) would happen and John and I would just look at other with a knowing smile as if to say ‘here we go again’ – until we got to New Zealand that is.

The moment we stepped foot into New Zealand (at Christchurch airport) we knew it was going to be a bumpy ride. We were stopped at customs and had to pay a $400 fine for bringing in two used tents. We skimmed over the declarations form with bleary eyes whilst on the aeroplane and neglected to read it properly, New Zealand has some very strict import rules, they confiscated our banana, lime and very expensive Manuka honey.

We paid the £205 fine through gritted teeth and vowed not to let it affect the rest of our trip – until – hiring a our first campervan that is…

We booked our Jucy camper van six months ago, the day before pick up they email to say it had been involved in an accident and was no longer available. They had transferred our booking to Britz camper van. It was a complete bag of shite. No heating, unclean and after three visits to garages we’d had enough.

We had high hopes for our second campervan hire in the North Island as this was a campervan from a private owner. First day out we have to call the breakdown as it needs a new battery, owner not happy as it cost him $400, we are not happy as it lost us half a day.

We had booked an Uber from Auckland airport who refused to take us because we had to much baggage! This ended with an argument where HE reported me to Uber 😎

In very general terms we feel NZ isn’t as friendly as any of the other places we’ve been to up to now. I think the tourists in the snail trail campervans are tolerated (as we bring in a lot of money) rather than welcomed. There’s also an apparent undercurrent of being ‘anti Chinese’ too. In fact, the only thing worse than tourists in campervans (it seems) is Chinese tourists (not necessarily in campervans)

The day to day running costs in New Zealand aren’t too bad, the food and petrol for example are tolerable. However anything touristy is hugely overpriced, 30 minutes jet boat ride = £200, a days cycle hire = £100, 20 minutes in a mud pool = £95. It seems that large corporations have taken over the tourist industry and funnily enough, one if them is THL which also owns Britz.

One of the reasons I’m not blown away with NZ is… it’s too much like England and us brits can be a bunch of miseries too.

South Island is like Scotland on amphetamines and North Island looks like – well – Derbyshire.

 

 

This post is meant to be a moaning vomit if negativity so I won’t mention the wonderful hosts Sally and Warren – who we stayed with in Christchurch and the fact that they lent us their car for nothing.

I also won’t mention the absolutely stunning and amazing snow capped mountains and mirror lakes of the South Island or it’s amazing isolation, peace and tranquility.

I’m not even going there with the North Island’s fantastic geological thermal region of Rotorua, the hot beaches (hot water comes up from under the sand, dig and make yourself a private jacuzzi).

I won’t let you all know how happy we still are despite a few hiccups and that actually we got a shit load of money off the crap camper van from Britz, John’s complaining skills are second to none – well, apart from his Dad’s – he was the master.

You’ve not heard it from me about how much we’ve all enjoyed our 4 weeks on the road in our camper vans, tootling around at 60mph, freedom camping and cooking/ sleeping/ pooing and playing all within a 7m x 3m plastic boxed space.