New Zealand campervan road trip: To the South!

After the wonders of Waikato and early Christmas festivities with great friends, it was time to head south. As we travelled down via Wellington we wondered whether the south could match the north for adventure, would we make it to the southernmost point of mainland New Zealand, and could we survive another few weeks in a campervan together. Without spoiling the ending, yes to all three!

Timaru and the penguins of the night

After arriving as foot passengers into Picton on the ferry, a couple of buses and an overnight in Kaikoura (an interesting spot with beaches, whales and mountains where we could have spent more time), we picked up our campervan (even smaller than the last one, observed Rafe) and headed off on adventure! An hour’s drive south of Christchurch, the coastal town of Timaru was our stop for the first night. Although dominated by the container port that looms over it, the beach itself was great and welcomed warmly by the kids who needed a run out after a few days on the move. There were two big highlights here, one expected and one a surprise.

We had been expecting the penguins but nevertheless it was still a thrill to see them. The little blue penguins (the world’s smallest penguin species) nest among the rocks that form an artificial breakwater for the container port, and go out to sea some 20km fishing each day. We went out at dusk to see them returning home on the surf. As it was close to the longest day of the year it was very late before any were sighted and the kids only saw a couple before heading to bed, but Jim stayed out to spot a few more. Being nighttime with small penguins at a distance and a ban on flash photography, you will have to imagine the scene.

Disc golf in the park was the second highlight, and something that would become a recurring pursuit for the next few weeks. It’s not something we’d seen before, but it entails throwing a frisbee along each hole and into a waist high metal basket. Each hole has a par as you’d expect. We didn’t know it yet, but disc golf courses had been set up in various parks and other barren ground all around the south island, and from what we could see are a popular New Zealand pastime. Especially handy for us as we had been gifted a frisbee for Christmas.

The Moeraki Boulders Revisited

Moeraki is a beach a little down the east coast from Timaru, famous for the large and almost perfectly spherical concretions within the Palaeocene mudstones of the Moeraki formation. One of our abiding memories from when we last visited New Zealand in 2016 with Odessa a mere six months old and Rafe 3 and a half, is captured in a photo of us all atop a Moeraki Boulder. This photo has been pinned to our fridge door ever since. We didn’t revisit many places this time, but we had to take the opportunity to come back to Moeraki six years later for another photo op.

Steampunk Oamaru

Oamaru styles itself as the steampunk capital of the world, or at least the southern hemisphere. With one of the best preserved Victorian streetscapes in New Zealand, it lends itself well to the eccentric steampunk vibe, which is a design style inspired by Victorian-era industrialism and science fiction. There’s a lot of rusty machinery and steam engines. Rafe felt a better description was a vision of a post apocalyptic future, but either way, Oamaru has perfectly captured the fun feel of steampunk. The Victorian precinct has galleries, places to eat, a steam railway an an awesome playpark. Dessa had great fun astride the penny farthing, frantically pedalling even though her feet couldn’t reach the motorised big wheel and pedals below. Rafe went straight for the aforementioned industrial themed playpark by the small harbour. Oamaru is a fun place to stop over and release some energy for kids, whilst learning a little about the Victorian heyday of the port and dockside.

Christmas morning on Brighton beach

This particular Brighton Beach, south of Dunedin is certainly a contrast to the Brighton we are more familiar with in the UK; the most obvious difference being that it has beautiful long sandy beaches instead of cobbles. Brighton Beach was a great place to have a picnic breakfast on Christmas morning with the sound of chomping on cereal and the traditional breakfast chocolates mixing with the crashing of the nearby waves. Which we did after opening a few small presents which Santa had left after coming in through the roof vent of the van (much to Dessa’s relief that he found her). To top off the special morning, Rafe and Odessa came across a genuine message in a bottle whilst exploring the coastline!

The South! – Slope Point and Bluff

Two places lay claim to be being “the southernmost” of New Zealand, and both with equal justification. Slope Point is hailed as the southernmost land in the South Island. Bluff claims its position as the most southern inhabited place. Not wishing to exacerbate any friction between the two, we went to both.

Slope Point is little more than a promontory at the far side of a field of grazing sheep. It can’t have been more than a ten minute walk through there to the point marked with little more than a coastguard radio location beacon and a slowly eroding cliff. The contrast with the much more formal and developed Cape Reinga in the north couldn’t be greater, but both great in their own way.

Bluff on the other hand has a little more of a backstory and makes the most of it – like all good X Factor contestants. Bluffites claim the first european settlers landed here in 1823, but it seems pretty well accepted that Kerikeri was visited earlier. What stands out in Bluff is the original harbour pilots’ tower on the headland and the ubiquitous signpost to far-flung places ideal for the ‘gram.

The petrified forest of Curio Bay

Before Slope Point and Bluff we made sure to stop at Curio Bay. For this is the site of one of the best preserved petrified forests of the Jurassic period in the world. It was pretty impressive, with whole trunks of trees clearly visible.

As a side note, we found the whole setup at Curio Bay somewhat curious. It wasn’t at all obvious to us where the DOC, and hence free to use by the public parts (such as car park and toilets) of the place ended, and where the privately run commercial campsite began.

Jack and his 3000km walk

This is a thread that can be traced back to our adventures in the far north at Cape Reinga. As we drove north we stopped for the inevitable ice creams, and on the way out picked up a hitchhiker. Jack, hailing from North Carolina, was travelling to the most northerly point just like us, but his mission was more impressive. This would be the start of his thru hike all the way from the northernmost tip to the southernmost point of mainland New Zealand on the Te Araroa trail. This wouldn’t be his first rodeo, as he has previously hiked the so called triple crown of long distance US trails the Pacific Crest Trail (from Mexico to Canada!), Continental Divide Trail and Appalachian Trail. This is his first such long walk outside of the US. We learnt all this as he sat in the back of the van being quizzed by the kids who were excited to have someone else to talk to.

We were reminded of Jack and his patient answering of quickfire questions when we ourselves, in much less intrepid fashion, reached the southernmost points of Slope Point and Bluff, where the Te Areroa trail will end for Jack in four to six months time. Surely a hiker would hope for a more impressive monument to take a selfie by after such an epic quest?! We hope Jack makes it.

Hiking the Key Summit Trail with the kids

From our base of a few days by the lake at Te Anau it is around an hour’s drive north on the road to Milford Sound to the Divide car park. This marks the trailhead of the multi-day Routeburn Trail. We weren’t going to attempt that with the kids, but we did attack the Key Summit walk, which covers the first hour or so of the Routeburn before branching off and upward to the summit. In all a three hour walk there and back.

This path starts out gently through the forest passing small waterfalls, rockfalls and big views of nearby snowy peaks. As it emerges above the treeline we tackled steeper switchbacks until we were at the Key Summit plateau – and more enormous views of the surrounding mountains.

Odessa and Rafe both did really well, Odessa aided by her speedy new speedcross shoes and Rafe always keen for adventure and learning – from this peak rivers flow down to all four coasts of the South Island. The walk was well worth the effort.

Hokitika

We stopped at Hokitika while driving north up the west coast road towards our overnight stop at the Goldsborough campground (notable as an old gold rush encampment where today campers can still pan for gold). We wouldn’t have stopped at all had Hokitika council not placed an intriguing old wooden ship on the top of their beachside spit, easily visible from the road. Clever. Expertly drawn in, we parked up on that same spit and walked in to explore the pleasant old town. Lunch, ice creams and provisions were duly purchased, a couple of geocaches found and the art and driftwood sculptures admired.

Franz Josef Glacier

There is, sadly, relatively little to write about the glacier itself. Climate change has seen the foot of the glacier recede rapidly up the valley and it’s unpredictability of the ice means the path up to the face is closed. As a result, when you walk up the track to see it the glacier is now somewhat distant. Change brings opportunity, and their is a certain irony that this inaccessibility on foot has seen several gas guzzling noisy helicopter tour companies thrive taking people up to land on the glacier from Franz Josef village. Nevertheless we got to see the glacier and learn about climate change, and most importantly take on the challenging disc golf course set up in the village. There may be more opportunities for glacial exploration in South America later in the trip.

Arthur’s Pass

Arthur’s pass comprises the eponymous village, the surrounding national park and colloquially the #73 road that runs through it. This is one of the few ways across from east to west through the Southern Alps mountain range. As we wound up that road and into the highest points we really did get the feeling of an alpine setting with snow still on some peaks, and clear mountain air. The area is notable for many things, but for us the highlights were the keas and the waterfalls.

The kea is the world’s only alpine dwelling parrot! They were hunted close to extinction in the past because they had a habit of pecking at the fatty backs of sheep, causing a bounty to be put on them. Now they are protected and making a comeback. They are surprisingly big, very clever and some are not at all shy – we saw some near the cafe in the village and also some at Willowbank (see later in this post).

There are several easily accessible waterfalls along the valley. We made the half hour walk up to Devil’s Punchbowl waterfall with the kids, the fairly steep but well maintained path proving just about the right amount of walking to stretch our legs after a morning driving. Another waterfall is even closer down in the village, and is brilliantly framed by the rear altar window of the cleverly positioned small chapel.

Willowbank Wildlife Reserve

Alongside the Moeraki boulders, Willowbank was one of the places that we chose to revisit from our previous 2016 trip. It is a fantastic place where one can see and feed many animals with a focus on native New Zealand species and rare-breed farm animals. We spent the majority of a day here taking in the animal-centred magic show and learning about the animals, their predators and environmental threats. All the local wildlife was present including the aforementioned keas and also a couple of kiwi spotted live in their darkened enclosure – we will never tire of seeing them.

Willowbank would be a great place to visit wherever it was located, but it has the major benefit of being relatively close to Christchurch Airport where the campervan companies are based for pickups and dropoffs, and barely 15 minutes from the town centre. We camped up at New Brighton (another Brighton) which is a suburb of Christchurch on the coast in order to be close to drop off the van in Christchurch the next morning, so a visit to Willowbank was perfect in every way.