31st March 2013
45 or so
days on we’ve given up our cosy camper van and set off for pastures new, across
the Tasman Sea. Before we get there here’s some thoughts on our snail like
existence over the past few weeks.
Snails not slugs. Let’s get one thing straight
first. There are those that refer to camper vans as “slugs”. We think snails is a better description as
like the snail, we’ve carried our house with us and being “responsible campers”
we haven’t left trails of slimy stuff behind us! Our van also had a 3 litre
engine and certainly kept up a good speed.
Adapting to a small
space. Living
in a camper van is basically posh camping. Space is limited, though there were
more cupboards and hidey holes than we’d expected. There was even room for a
reasonable wine cellar to accommodate the fruits of our winery visits.
We quickly
learnt that we had to be relatively tidy and to adopt a routine that meant that
we could make best use of the space and the facilities offered on the camp
sites. The van had a wet room with loo and shower but after using the latter
once, we realised that it was much better to use the “ablutions” on site. The
loo was mostly used at night to avoid unseemly dashes in the cold!
The Camper Van Dance
Step. If you
spend much time in a camper van you quickly develop a new sort of dance move.
Depending on the build and number of occupants it involves breathing in,
twisting and shuffling so that the two of you can pass each other in a confined
space. We perfected this move at meal times when cooking facilities, fridge,
crockery and cutlery were all in the same small space at one end of the van.
Useful therefore if you are fairly intimate with your travel companions at the
start, because you will be by the end of your journey!
Solo jobs. Bedtime was always fun in the
van. (Don’t worry this isn’t going to
get too personal)! Making up the bed involved a fair amount of crawling around
and we quickly worked out that it was better done by just one of us.
Dismantling it the next morning was also a one person job but much easier.
Comfort and
convenience. Despite
our fears, the van was pretty comfortable with good driving and passenger seats
and a firm bed in which we slept well. When driving you sit up high which gives
a great view of the awesome scenery we travelled through. Overall there’s an
enormous advantage in being able to move around at your own pace and not having
to unpack at each new venue.
Rating the Camp Sites. Camp sites in NZ are rated by
“Qualmark” who use a star system between 1 and 5. We quickly devised our own assessment
system which sometimes differed from the official version. Most important (to
us anyway) was the quality of the loos and showers. Cleanliness and design
differed quite markedly even on sites with the same rating. All had the basics
such as hot water and individual shower cubicles but the design of these made
such a difference. In case you think us picky bear in mind is that we had to
dress in the van, then undress in the shower cubicle, shower and get dressed
again so the number of hooks for clothes, ability to keep clothes and feet dry
while dressing and whether there was a basket for shampoo and other paraphernalia
in the shower took on an importance probably not appreciated by the official
rating agency. Certainly far more importance than whether or not there was a
“spa” (hot tub) and bouncy cushion for the kids.
What else
made a difference? Helpful and knowledgeable staff, good internet access (we
needed to keep our readers up to date!) and sensibly designed water and dump
facilities. For those new to van camping, the latter is where you empty the
grey water and nasties from the loo. Some were amazingly inaccessible!
The winner is. Not surprisingly then our favourite
site was that at Franz Joseph which had pretty much everything. Fantastic views
over the glacier, great staff, good internet and at a block of individual
bathrooms, each with their own shower and toilet! Heaven! We stayed 3 nights it
was so good!
The not so good bits. Of course we were novices at this
camping lark and not everything went well. Twice we set off only to be met by
flashing lights and horns from other campers (luckily while were still on site)
which we eventually realised meant that we’d forgotten to unplug the
electricity cable before setting off and were trailing a tell-tale orange lead
behind us!
On another
occasion we’d stopped in the middle of nowhere for lunch. When we backed out of
this very rural site we were somewhat startled by a bang! Turned out to be a
badly placed rock that had leapt up and made a nasty dent in our rear bumper.
Turned out to be an expensive lunch as it cost us our insurance excess
And then
there was there was the temporary blindness in Wellington which meant that we
didn’t spot the sign on the parking metre saying that it was suspended. So not
only did we pay $8 to park for 2 hours but a further $40 parking fine! In our
defence it was raining pretty hard and we’d never been to Wellington before.
All in all, our camper van experience was a good one and we'd recommend it when exploring large areas such as NZ.
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