Road-Tripping In A Spaceship
Hiring a campervan in New Zealand is one of the easiest and best ways to see the more remote areas of the country where there isn't extensive public transport. Back in April 2015, I hired a Spaceship campervan for ten days, she was called Vesta (yes really, all Spaceships have a name!) and she was awesome. As we had already seen a lot of the country while travelling on the Stray bus, we decided to head to the North Island's East Cape, planning to follow the coast round as far as Napier before returning to Auckland. Although I have never driven abroad elsewhere, hiring a campervan in New Zealand was very straightforward and there are plenty of hire companies, such as Spaceship, Jucy and Wicked. All you need is a full driving licence and some insurance, which you can get by either paying a little bit extra per day (the safe and sensible way) or by leaving a credit card number, which they will charge around $3000 to if anything happens, regardless of whether or not it's your fault (the much riskier way).
Why You Should Road-Trip
New Zealand is an absolutely gorgeous country with lots of remote out-of-the-way places that you may miss if you only travel on public transport. It allows you to go at your own pace rather than relying on timetables and schedules and driving lets you go wherever you want, to stop off at that interesting little town or see what is at the end of that road. There are so many amazing photo opportunities that a visit to New Zealand, I think, should be as much about enjoying driving around than just focusing on arriving at your destination. In my opinion, if you tear around the country on buses or fly between the cities then you miss out on seeing so many of the best things.
Where To Stay?
Finding places to stay with a campervan is also pretty easy. The Department of Conservation maintains basic campsites around the country which are usually cheap to stay at and in some beautiful locations that you may not otherwise get to see. Make sure to check the level of facilities before you arrive however, as some of them are very basic (think a field with a Portaloo!). There are also holiday parks dotted around, these are more expensive but have lots of facilities such as an indoor kitchen, bathrooms and entertainment rooms. Although they do cost more, you may enjoy their relative luxury once you've been on the road for a little while. We definitely appreciated the opportunity to cook indoors, with lights and a proper cooker rather than in a field, in the pitch black, on a tiny camping stove, hoping the gas wouldn't run out halfway through cooking a chicken curry!
The Not-So-Ideal Bits
To be perfectly honest, I can't think of many bad things about travelling in a campervan around New Zealand. However, if you are travelling towards the end of the summer then be aware that daylight savings time ends in April (when we had our campervan) and so it gets dark by about 5:30pm, making the days very short. If you have visions of lounging around in the warm evening sun then go in the height of summer. Having said this, campervans and campsites are incredibly popular during summer and the prices rocket (spaceship-related pun intended) so any trips need to be planned and booked well in advance. Finally, and this is probably an obvious point, campervans can be very cosy, especially for a week or longer and there is no escape, so pick your travel buddy/buddies carefully!
While the beauty of the landscape is one of the best things about driving in New Zealand, it can also make it risky. The terrain should be a major consideration as a lot of the country has small, narrow roads through the mountains and forests or that wind very closely around the coast. A lot of roads are pretty remote, in some areas you can go a whole day seeing only a couple of other cars, also not all are sealed and landslips are common, especially on coastal roads. In the countryside, sheep and cows are big hazards as they like to wander freely across the roads and you will almost certainly come across a 'Kiwi traffic jam' at some point on your travels! Another hazard is the single-lane bridge, something the Kiwis seem particularly fond of. These tricky obstacles often seem to require you to give way to cars on a blind corner or next to a perilously steep drop, so don't take any unnecessary risks. As long as you drive sensibly though and heed warning and speed signs then you should be fine driving in this incredibly picturesque country, although try not to get too distracted by the views!
Time For A Road Trip!
Spontaneity is one of the best things about a road trip. Most days, we didn't know exactly where we would be spending the night, we pretty much had a list of campsites and picked whichever one we managed to get closest to. The first day of our road trip took us from Auckland to Thames in Coromandel, just a few hours' drive away where we spent our first night on a very secluded campsite several kilometres down a narrow gravel road. From there we made our way along the Bay of Plenty, through Tauranga and stopped at a lovely campsite with a long, sandy beach and a beautiful sunset just the other side of a sand dune; it was very different to the forest we had spent the previous night in.
Continuing on towards the East Cape took us along some wonderfully scenic coastal roads to our next stop, a night spent in a field by the beach, again at the end of a long gravel road. The only thing about this field was that it was also populated by cows, quite a lot of them, just roaming around. After attempting to go for a walk on the beach and being stared down by a couple of the beasts, we decided that it wasn't really necessary after all! The campsite was near to the East Cape lighthouse, one of the first places in New Zealand to see the sun rise each day. The idea was to get up to watch this first sunrise, but in reality what happened was a brief glimpse of the cloudy sky out of the window before going back to sleep.
Next up was Gisbourne and a more 'luxurious' holiday park. After a stressful drive into the town, running exceptionally low on petrol (an issue on the remote east coast) with visions of being stranded in the middle of the countryside, arriving was a relief despite an evening of rain. From there was an odd night in a waterfront car park in Napier, next to a large cargo port and then a very long day's drive down to Wellington.We hadn't originally intended to get that far south but in all our spontaneity, that's where we ended up. It was ANZAC Day and we thought it would be really cool to spend it in the capital city, so after staying overnight in Lower Hutt, we headed in for the dawn service and the ANZAC Aussie Rules Football game. It was a great day and my first experience of the sport, which I decided was similar to the Quidditch of the Harry Potter world due to the three goal posts.
Our return trip north took us through Whanganui, National Park and Taupo over a few days; on one day, we stumbled across a festival for the Dutch National Day in the town of Foxton, purely because we were curious about a windmill and went to have a look. Arriving back at the 'Spaceport' in Auckland after our ten day trip was an emotional affair, we had grown very attached to Vesta and it was sad to say goodbye. Even now, some ten months later we still talk fondly of her and I at least, still get excited if I ever see a Spaceship driving around Wellington!
Personally, I think that any trip to New Zealand should involve a road trip of some kind and hiring a campervan here should definitely be near the top of your bucket list. It is a beautiful country and to really do it justice, I'd recommend seeing it at your own pace, going wherever you want to and allowing yourself to get a little lost sometimes.