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Published: August 9th 2017
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Geo: -42.9061, 171.549
Back in favorable New Zealand, so I am glad my parents have moved back here, it's a good excuse to go back and a good excuse to have another road trip.
We jetted over to Christchurch to spend 2 and a half weeks in the South Island, having a one week road trip and spending time the the old folks before we head over to the other side of the world.
Things had wrapped up nicely before we left Melbourne, I managed to sell my car but unfortunately at a smaller price than I had hoped.
We arrived in to Christchurch on the Sunday and enjoyed the next few days at home with mum and dad in some glorious sunny and cloudless weather. With the great spot where my parents live, each day gives some great views regardless of the weather.
We popped over the other side of the hills to visit my Uncle and Aunties for lunch in Lyttelton which also gave some great views of Lyttleton Harbour and Governors Bay on yet another sunny day.
The next day saw us head in to the still closed and deserted city center. Unfortunately there are still a lot of demolition jobs still going and
it looks like a long road ahead, but I look forward to seeing what it will look like when everything is in order.
At this stage we had had more sunny and warmer days than Melbourne in a total of 6 months, well that's a bit of an overstatement but the weather was amazing.
It was time for our long awaited road trip to the west coast then south to Wanaka and Queenstown where some extreme activities were to be taking place.
We had booked a campervan with Jucy because they had a promotion of one free ski pass valid for 6 days when hiring with Jucy, so that enticed us as we added skiing and snowboarding in Wanaka to the list of activities on our road trip.
Another great thing is that campers in New Zealand cost around $30 a day (excluding insurance), which is extremely cheap and good value for money as New Zealand is a popular campervan country, compared to Australia at $60 a day where you spend whole days driving.
We headed to the west coast from Christchuch via Arthurs Pass. The weather was still sunny and the backdrop of snow-covered mountains added to the excitement of what was to
come.
We stopped off at a reflective lake, one of many throughout NZ, then proceeded to the town of Arthurs Pass where towards the end of the day we walked for about an hour and a bit on the Otira Pass walk which gave some great views of valleys and mountains.
We pushed on about 6km south past Hokitika to a lake called Lake Manipuha just before the sun dipped in to the horizon. I had been here before about 3 years ago when I did kiwi experience and really liked the place.
So we decided it would make a good place to set up camp for the night. We parked close to the waters edge and woke up to some beautiful views.
It was a bit annoying when two locals jetted around in a speed boat which ruined the peacefulness of the morning, but it stopped eventually as we chowed in to some breakfast on the pier.
Day one of the road trip was quite stunning and we were looking forward to what was coming up in Fox Glacier..
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