After a fun night, we had an early wake up to catch our flight on Jetstar from Auckland down to Christchurch on the south island. What we expected to be an uneventful short flight, turned into a crazy small world event. Sitting next to Emily, I caught a glimpse through the slotted seat ahead of us. The hoodie and glasses looked oddly familiar but we were in air in New Zealand - who would I know? The more I creepily stared at him I realized he was one of the guys from the night before at the whiskey bar. Stunned, I shared my finding with Emily who did a double check from her range of view and confirmed the other boy was sitting in front of me. Small world. We got a good laugh out of it and followed the duo off the plane hoping they felt our burning eyes stinging "we know what you did last night" into the back of their heads. Not that we cared, but it was just such a funny scenario.
Once we got our bags, we made our way to the shuttle pickup that took us to the RV rental site. We used Maui for our RV rental which was a 6 person Mercedes RV but there are a lot of smaller options out there. The ones we saw the most were the smaller Jucy vans and then Ian and Lauren had a Britz which was more than accommodating. Lots of options and honestly I don't think there is a much better way to explore the island.
From the RV rental we drove in circles due to some TomTom miscommunication and finally opted to get an early lunch at Patterson's in the Commodore Hotel for some seafood chowder and fish and chips. After lunch we made our first grocery store stop to load up the RV with snacks and meal options for a couple days since our plan was to camp for a few nights. Weird thing - because of the way they produce eggs, they don't need to be kept cold. So shopping for eggs in a normal aisle was a bit peculiar.
I had yet to see the beauty of New Zealand that everyone talked so much about until we started heading south from Christchurch. Slowly the buildings turned into farms and pastures and we started to be engulfed by mountains. It was about a 400km or 4hour drive with a few stops for photos from Christchurch to our first camp location at Lake Pukaki. On our way there we passed fields of cows, sheep and even deer. I had never seen a field of farm raised deer!
Andrew and Jason drove up front while Emily and I enjoyed the 270 degree views from the back of the RV. The whole driving on the opposite side of the road and the opposite side of the car will never make much sense in my brain -- and that is exactly why I was not noted as an additional driver. As we continued to pass through fields, those fields turned to mountains and lakes and it was as if we were driving into a storybook setting.
We drove past the more popular Lake Tekapo and to the next lake over, Lake Pukaki. Cutting down a gravel road, we continued up the lakefront until finding a camp site on the water just as the sun was starting to set. We needed to build a fire but instead we were all setting up cameras and time lapses and drones as if this was the last glimpse of beauty we would ever see.
The sun finally set as we gathered up wood and kindling got the fire going just enough to keep it alive. (Side Note: I am a horrible camper. I don't do well with cooking, cleaning, building fires, setting things up - nothing.) Again, because its winter the sun sets a lot earlier than we are used to in Hawaii so we had a lot of time in the dark. To get to this campsite we had to traverse down a bit of a hill in the RV (Jason is a champ at maneuvering). At the top of the hill was my favorite part of this campsite - an outhouse with an incredible view. After my excitement from the scenic potty faded, we took turns unpacking our clothes and getting things situated and put away in the RV. I had a horrible headache so I just sort of lounged up in the loft bed watching Emily whip up some burgers and sausages like it was a full sized kitchen. We ate by the fire - freezing - and just happy to start the trip.
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