South Island Trip with Julie

Julie arrived in Wellington on the 9th. Three days later, we headed down to the South Island. All told, a great trip. I'll post details and pictures over the next few days. Some general thoughts are, first, that it must be seen. Absolutely spectacular.

Second, however, we did meet a few hiccups. The biggest is that the weather is very volatile, even now, in the beginning of summer. So we had to be very flexible--we rerouted our trip at the last moment, changed bookings for campsites in the 11th hour, etc. It also sheds light on a curious phenomenon here: most campers who aren't backpacking on busses seem to be driving mini-RVs and converted hippie vans. They were far more prominent than in the US, where many people drive normal cars on their road- and camping-trips. Julie and I figured that it makes a lot of sense to have a camper, because of the weather. The downside of not having one is that you either have to (1) endure a cramped night or two in the car (see forthcoming entry on the coastal glaciers), (2) get drenched in the rain overnight (see forthcoming entry on the mostly failed trip to Abel Tasman National Park), (3) stay in a backpackers/hostel, which is fairly stark and uncomfortable (see entry on Kaikoura/east coast), or (4) get a hotel, whose cost probably exceeds that of renting and fueling an RV (assuming certain facts about the quantity of rainy nights you'd see).

Finally, trust the sources about the brutally strong sun here and the sandflies. We loved the sun when we saw it (about 50% of the time), but boy was it strong. And the sandflies were a massive irritant on the West Coast and northern areas. Bring sunscreen and bug spray when you come, and you'll have a great trip.

All that said, we had an excellent time for the most part. Hopefully some of the pictures in posts to come will do it justice. In the meantime, here's a map of our trip, with a few stops numbered for ease of reference in future posts. Click on the map for a larger image.