March 22

I made it to bed around 1am the night before after showering at the campsite. It took a bit longer than planned since the campsite had a shower stall they were working on so they turned off all the water. Oh, well, ’tis life.

Alarm goes off at 6:30am and time to get the van prepped for travel. I make my bed, err couchbed, err vanbed, fold all the sheets and put them away. You really don’t have an option if you want to be able to use the features of the van comfortably. Eat a banana for breakfast, brush my teeth and off to the dock which is 25 minutes away. The skies are overcast today and there is a light drizzle coming down. At least this will get all the bugs off the windshield. The check in for the interisland ship was easy, just gave my last name and they sent me on through. “Pull into lane five,” the shack guy says. I pull around and wow, there are 5 full lanes of vehicles getting on this ship. The ship actually had two floors for cars/semis/RVs! The cars were actually driving up to the second parking level (floor 5) and pulling a U-turn around the top center stack to get to their spot. I’m in the RV line and we are the last to pull in; there are maybe 25 RVs. As I pull in, there is a pretty steep and narrow ramp on the right side leading from floor 3 to floor 5. Hmm, I wonder if we’re goin…yup, we’re going up that ramp. To add to the entertainment, as fate would have it, I get to the top of the ramp but have to stop because the RV in front of me wasn’t sure where to go. Time to test out the hill assist on this vehicle, a.k.a. my left arm for the ebrake and my clutch skills. No pressure, it’s not like there aren’t a bunch of people everywhere watching or a line of RV’s behind me. I pull the ebrake, engage clutch and rev engine to 1700 rpm, slowly release ebrake, movement, annnnnd….stall. Dammit, my Kiwi street cred just took a hit; I blame it on the engine. Restart the engine, rev it to 2200, release clutch and ebrake with more aggressive throttle this time and make it up the ramp with a slight bog. I should have just been more aggressive on the first one.

They force everyone up to the 7-10th floors and away from the car floors before the ship leaves. It is a 3 hour voyage to the south island so I make my way to the cafe and get some bacon (ham), eggs, sausage, hashbrown and toast with honey. I’m not sure if the honey was meant for the toast, but that’s how I used it. Twenty new Zealand bucks later I’m wandering trying to find seat. The ship is pretty full so I end up splitting a table with these two early 20s kids. Half the people are sitting sleeping, some found couches to lay on and some just laid on the floor. It feels like a ship full of homeless folks, but less smelly. The ship announces that the theater on the second floor will be showing Taken 3 with Liam Neeson. I don’t even know which I saw last but I’m pretty sure I know the plot to this one. Good ol’ Liam. I wander around the ship seeing what they have and check out the observation deck for some views as we pull into the south island. The views are fantastic. The ship goes through a straight surrounded by mini islands/cliffs on both sides which make for some great scenery. The captain announces whales on the starboard side of the ship. I follow the stampede to the right side of the observation deck, but did not see any whales. Oh well, I’ve been to Sea World a bunch of times, they have whales there and I’ve seen those whales do cool tricks. I doubt these will have any tricks up their sleeves.

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The rest of the drive is boring except for the awesome views, so I’ll spare you the details. I did pass through Christchurch to see the town real quick and get some more information at an isite. The city looks neat but there is construction everywhere. They are still rebuilding after the massive earthquake took the city down; they have a long ways to go. I check on the weather for the west coast and it is not looking good. Oh well, what can you do, just keep driving. I couldn’t get a hold of the campsite in Queenstown so I stopped in a town 50km sooner called Cromwell. At least my drive is now 40ish minutes shorter. I made the most out of driving a campervan through the mountains and even had a couple pass multiple cars at the same time with my beastly driving skills. Imagine a minivan RV overtaking multiple cars on a mountain road for a second. It is not the fastest of passes; it’s like watching paint dry. I think the 100-120kph time on this thing is like 10 minutes; I miss acceleration and this is why I believe small cars are better than larger vehicles; that and handling. Speaking of handling, some stuff in the back of the van got tossed around a bit. I forgot a few times that I have a HOUSE in the back of the van. Whoops. Aside from that, I ran into a closed road on the trip so I had to find a detour. I can tell I’m driving through some pretty steep mountains and cliffs, but can’t really see anything beyond my headlights. Might have been a cool drive in the daytime. I arrive at the destination around 11:30 pm. Apologies to the neighbors for the sliding door as I got in and out of the campervan and for the noise as I set up the bed in the back.

Anyhow its 1am again and I can tell I’m rambling now. It’s been a long two days. Hopefully the hurried trip down pays off these next couple of days with good weather. We’ll see.
Cheers