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Published: March 31st 2010
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So with another country over we arrived in Christchurch airport sleepy, smelly and mildly irate after a long day/night and little sleep. Before leaving Australia we’d sorted ourselves out a campervan from Jucy for our time in New Zealand ... originally thinking about getting a little car/campa we plumped for one model better for another $10 a day, giving us a proper little campervan with a indoor stove, sink, table/bed, safe, and a few other bits and bobs thrown in for good measure. This was pushing the budget a wee bit, but we figured we’d make it up elsewhere along the way - doubtless by eating instant noodles for days on end instead of something tasty! However on arrival at the Jucy depot they persuaded us to partake in reducing our insurance excess and other things by paying a daily premium.
The way I saw it was that they were basically leaving us no option but to opt for the “stress-free” insurance as they call it, as we would be leaving ourselves liable to all sorts of repairs, new tyres, windscreen fees etc if we didn’t take it. Oh and they have a sign up saying that in New Zealand motor vehicle insurance isn’t compulsory. Sealed the deal for me. At this point the budget was officially wrecked ... after paying for the campervan, insurance and ferry between the two islands we only had enough money left for petrol ... no food, no drinkies and certainly no activities. Bugger.
I guess we’ll have to increase the rent that my brother’s paying to live in our house while we’re away! *Only joking Andy.*
Throwing another spanner in the works was the news that our (well, my) long held belief that in New Zealand “freedom camping” - parking up your campervan in any suitable spot and staying for the night - was something that we’d be able to do to avoid any further accommodation costs. This belief was swiftly turned on its head after conversations with the Jucy staff and the local information centre. There are a few places in New Zealand where they’re more than happy for you to freedom camp (Hawkes Bay and Gisbourne being the two main places) but the majority of places won’t let you and it’s a definite no-no anywhere around Queenstown. But being the rebels that we are, after getting some food sorted from
the supermarket, we headed off in search of somewhere out of town to park up for the night and do some freedom camping. Finding quiet countryside areas wasn’t that difficult - Christchurch is pretty small - but getting some space off the road to park up was another matter. After driving around the backend of nowhere for ten minutes or so we found a small patch of gravel by a road junction, and decided to call it home for the night.
Having bought some ingredients from the local supermarket to make a lovely vegetable Thai Green curry, we set about using our little stove for the first time. The stove is positioned at the back of the campervan and after I’d prepared all the vegetables (none of this washing the veg before eating of course, just chopping), Matt started frying it off and boiling the rice with the back door open. Looking up to say to Matt how lovely the Thai green curry smell was, I noticed that I was obviously not the only one who thought there was a beautiful aroma wafting around for there was a field full of cows standing by the fence closest to our camper van, staring intently at us. They obviously wanted some curry too. No chance. Good job we weren’t eating beef, or we’d have felt very guilty at that point!
We quickly realised that the first day’s sunshine had lulled us into a false sense of security as that night was very cold and the next day started with rain. Knowing then that we would need much warmer clothes than we had with us on our world tour, we took the shops by storm and stocked up on fleece jackets, long sleeved t-shirts, socks, hats and gloves. Oh and I bought some shoes, okay well two pairs of pumps and a pair of black winter boots to be precise. Well they were cheap okay? That was another cost that we hadn’t accounted for. It seems that global travel hasn’t beaten the shoe-shopping habit out of my wife. After the shopping spree was over we headed for another night of freedom camping, this time to Sumner Beach (recommended by the nice lady working in the carpark ticket office) where not only did we get to camp by the sea without paying any fees but we also got a $10 petrol voucher
for filling in a council research questionnaire, result.
So our time in Christchurch was pretty much spent in the previously mentioned manner; battling with money difficulties and buying extra clothes to see us through the cold weather. Despite getting myself a special “global” credit card from Abbey before leaving, it regularly gets declined in shops in Australasia ... pretty annoying and mildly embarrassing. To add to our frustration we were also having difficulty getting money out of our main account as they regularly decide to freeze the atm facility and run some checks to see whether someone is committing credit card fraud from New Zealand with our card details or whether in fact we are just here on holiday using our own cards - despite telling them numerous times that we are travelling the world, this has happened in most countries so far ... pretty frustrating when it’s put together with your credit card consistently getting declined. The biggest money issue however was when I put my card into a Westpac atm machine to get some cash to buy more groceries, only for the atm to display the message “this machine has an error, and will now shut down”
... swallowing my card when we’re half way around the world from being able to get a replacement one! I called the atm company who assured me, despite my protestations, that there was nothing that they could do and my card would be destroyed once an engineer finally came out to fix the machine.
Really clever for such a touristy country to not be able to accommodate the tourist when their stupid machines swallow our cards. Luckily I have my joint account card still so we are still able to get access to cash. I must have some seriously bad money-karma!
Frustrated with cold weather, lack of appropriate clothing, budget-busting campervans and swallowed cash cards we thought that it was definitely time to head out of Christchurch and decided to check out the Banks Peninsula and the town of Akoroa - famous for it’s dolphin swimming tours. In truth we were never actually going to go dolphin swimming as we were still feeling far too broke, but we just needed to head out of the city, so while our trip to Akoroa was a cool drive and our first look at NZ’s stunning scenery, it was pretty useless really
... we drove two hours there, spent 20 minutes looking around, then drove the two hours back to Christchurch for the night to spend our first night in a proper camp ground ... and have our first shower since arriving (long over due!).
We really are disgusting. I have never had showers so infrequently. The next morning - after another shopping trip to try to find some suitably warm clothing we left Christchurch for good. Destination: open road!
Matt and Cate x
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Eric
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I really enjoyed your New Zealand post. I have always wanted to go there. My blog is looking for travel photos. If you have the time, check us out a dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric