Camper Van Livin'

   Where do I start?! I haven’t updated for a whole week, and I have done and seen so much! I’ve spent a lovely week in a campervan driving all over the country. The South Island just keeps getting more beautiful the further South you go. I am in awe! But let me start at the beginning:

The plane I would have flown.

   I told you last Monday that I would be flying a plane Tuesday morning, but that didn’t happen : ( I was supposed to fly at 10:45, so I drove to the aero club around then. The weather didn’t look too good on my drive, and the clouds were looking menacing. I met Murray, the flight instructor, and Venny, a girl looking to do whale watching. Normally, the flights are either learn to fly or see whales, but Murray was going to combine the two of our flights, so we would be in the air for longer and see more. I was so stoked! The three of us waited a bit, but the clouds only seemed to get more dense, so we called it off for the morning. Murray thought the clouds might burn off for the afternoon, so he told us to come back at 1. Venny and I hung out for a bit in the meantime. Murray eventually called the whole thing off for the day, as the weather was not improving. I was crushed! I was relieved though, because I would much rather have flown on a nice day than try to navigate the clouds. Murray and I decided to try again the following morning.

   I felt like I had spent my whole day waiting to fly, so I didn’t have much time to do anything now that my plans for the day were cancelled. It was mid afternoon, so I had a little bit of time to do a short walk around the Kaikoura Peninsula. The whole thing took about 3 hours, and was so worth it! It was beautiful. I was pretty high up on the peninsula, and I could see down to the beach the whole walk. There were so many seals everywhere! It was unfortunate that it was so cloudy, because I would have been able to see the mountains behind Kaikoura. I’m still glad I did it though – but I was exhausted after! I retreated to my hostel for the evening and took advantage of the hot tub and sauna after a long day.

I had to cliiiimb up the peninsula!

The walkway was right on the edge... scary!

   Wednesday morning’s weather looked no better than Tuesday. I was so bummed to hear that my flying lesson was cancelled for good. I guess it just wasn’t meant to happen! I didn’t have time to hang around Kaikoura, as I was supposed to meet Thomas in Christchurch. He arrived around 10, but I really wanted to fly, so I didn’t get on the road too early.

   After finding out about my flight, I packed up and got ready to leave my backpackers in Kaikoura. Katie, a British girl I met in the hostel, was trying to get to Christchurch on Wednesday, so I gave her a ride. It was so good to have someone to talk to, and split petrol costs! We got to Chch around 1, I dropped Katie off, and I met Thomas at Jucy, the campervan rental company. We booked our van from Wednesday through Monday, and planned to see Chch, the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, and Wanaka. Since it’s winter time, van rates are cheap, and I reckon we saved money by renting a van instead of a car and hostels. The van was so cool – it had a kitchen (very small), a television, and two double beds!!

   Anyways, we got our van, I dropped off my rental car, and we decided to see a bit of the city. We walked around downtown, and it was pretty depressing. It’s been two years since the big earthquake, and the city is still pretty torn up. There are empty lots and construction everywhere. However, there’s lots of bright signs and graffiti everywhere. It was cool to see so much color in an otherwise grey city. Part of downtown has temporary banks, cafes, and shops in shipping containers, which were all brightly painted and so inviting! The city was pretty sad overall, but it’s definitely recovered a lot in the two years since the quake.

   Thomas and I didn’t want to spend too much time in Christchurch, because there is soo much more to see on the South Island. We drove to Akaroa that night in the rain. The weather was still not looking too good! It was night by the time we got there, but we hoped to see some scenery in the morning. We found a place to free camp (no camping ground, no power) for the night, got settled in, tried (and failed) to make crepes, and watched ET before shivering all night long in our cold van. No heat in the winter time is no fun!

Akaroa was so pretty...

   We woke up Thursday to lots of rain and clouds. I have been having such bad luck with the weather! It seems to be following me! So we didn’t see much of Akaroa, and headed back through Christchuch on our way to the glaciers. We got a ways out of town until we started seeing snow, and eventually the road was closed to the west coast! We knew the weather was bad, but not this bad. We had no idea what to do from there, so we made crepes. We called the road information people only to find out that most of the roads in NZ were closed, or required snow chains... bummer! There was really nothing we could do except drive back to Christchurch. I felt so defeated, because the weather had been making me change all my plans. We found a campground Thursday night in Chch, so we had power for our little heater in the van. It felt so good to be able to sleep without shivering!

We're stuck.

Frustration.

   Friday morning, most roads were still closed to the west coast. The weather seemed to be a bit better, but I was still worried that we would be stuck in Chch another day. We were supposed to be at the glaciers at this point, but we hadn’t done anything yet! We couldn’t do much that day, so we hung around and got groceries. We kept checking the road conditions, since the weather seemed fine where we were. Finally, in the afternoon, a few of the roads were opened and passable. We drove through Lewis Pass to get to the west coast, and eventually made our way to Punakaiki. The drive was absolutely gorgeous! We went through a forest with all the tree tops covered with snow. We saw snow capped mountains everywhere. We drove through a valley along a stream. It was so amazing. I was in awe the whole time! It got dark as we were driving, and we made it to Punakaiki late that night. We found a campground, because it was way too cold to free camp! The van needed some sort of heat to be live-able and sleep-able! We ended up walking to the nearby beach that night, which was so cool. The moon was almost full, and there were big roaring waves. It was beautiful, but cold!

So much snow!!

I am in the most beautiful country!

   The weather seems to be looking up, so hopefully we can keep on with our plans, even if we have missed a couple days. We’re heading to the glaciers next. It should be amazing!