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Published: October 17th 2009
So, we left a very hot Australia behind and headed even further away from home towards Auckland. We had been wanting to do a flight over the great barrier reef but when we went out to the reef from Airlie the helicopter had crashed (joy!) so it was out of action, but as we took off from Cairns we had the most amazing view of the barrier reef and we flew over it for nearly an hour, so we managed to get our trip over it one way or another! We arrived in Auckland at about 7 at night, it was cold, it was dark and it was raining! after finding out taxis are worse than at home we got a shuttle bus which drove like racing driver to our swanky self contained apartment. I spent the first day in Auckland in my pjs watching tv on the sofa and the second day sorting our spaceship out. we tried to book it a few times but they said it was quiet so no need, only to find there were no spaceships to be had in Auckland! In the end they agreed to fly us over to Christchurch to pick up a
spaceship and pay for our ferry - can’t ask for more! Oh and we got a power lead, a side awning and all sorts of stuff - nice one spaceships! So we spent our afternoon in Auckland trying to find a hot water bottle hats and gloves. The place where we stayed let us leave one of our bags there so with just the solitary large back we set off to Christchurch. On landing in Christchurch we realised we had slightly underestimated the temperature and were starting to think maybe we had made a mistake getting a camper with no heating! Our night in Christchurch was spent in a very bleak holiday park in the suburbs lashing it down with rain. We left Christchurch and headed towards Dunedin further down on the east coast. the landscape was pretty uninspiring, grass, sheep, cows, rain, all very English really! As we got closer to Dunedin the landscape changed and became far more Scottish. We stayed in Dunedin a couple of days, both of which it chucked it down so we occupied ourselves by visiting the Cadbury factory (God knows why, not been to the one at home!) and trying to find seals
at various beaches on the Otago Peninsular. On our last night in Dunedin we went to the horse racing but not your normal horse race, trotting races. It was like being in Dunstall on a wet bleak Friday night but we had a laugh and even backed three winners which paid for our beer and hot beef rolls! After about race 5 we went back to the campsite as we were getting wetter and wetter and there’s nowhere to get dry or warm in the van! at this point I don’t think either of us knew exactly what to make of New Zealand, it wasn’t what I had expected so far but all this changed when I got behind the wheel! I didn’t drive in Australia, not sure why, lost my bottle a bit so I was determined to drive here. The 5 hour journey from Dunedin to Te Anau was just incredible, every twist and turn along the rugged west coast was amazing and I started to change my opinion pretty quickly. We found a gorgeous site right opposite the lake and had the most perfect evening eating and drinking under the stars. I knew it was pretty cold
outside but when I got up at about 3 to go to the loo everything was just frozen, apparently it went down to minus four that night! We stayed for another lovely sunny day and had a long walk around the lake followed by sausage and mash and a lovely bottle of red! Hard life eh!
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