Today finds us at a beach front park up, just south of Dunedin.
We’ve discovered these things called ‘Freedom Camping’ spots. They’re places that self contained vans are allowed to stay for a day or two free of charge. Coming from the regulated and often vanlife un-friendly UK, it seems amazing to us that New Zealand encourage people to do this.
It’s excellent.
Happily, our experience of New Zealand travel so far is that people readily follow the simple rules just fine. In the evening, a few vans flock together and then once the sun rises they quietly resume their journey.
I guess we’ll find that there are places where this is a challenge. For example, space is at a premium in the super popular national parks. We’ve heard from fellow travellers that there are some pretty hefty fines (£200-£400) if you stop in places that aren’t approved.Â
That’s a consideration for future Sally and Toby though..
For tonight we stay for free, in one of the most incredible locations we’ve ever been.
Looking out over the ocean, it struck me that if I set off swimming on the same latitude the next land I’d reach is Chile. Strangely, when we visit Milford Sound, on the other side of the country, if I did the same thing the first land I’d reach would be Argentina.
There’s not too much land this far south.
For tonight though, the little spot we found is as close to perfect as we could want.
Thanks for reading as always, watch this space for the next part of our New Zealand adventure and remember to subscribe if you want to get our blogs as they are posted.
Toby and Sally
Oamaru
We journeyed south along Highway 1 from Mount Sunday. Originally, we’d planned to go up to Lake Tekapo but the weather wasn’t great so we decided to cut the driving and have a day to take stock in Oamaru.
The driving is epic.
This might be a highway but it’s certainly not a boring motorway. The road winds its way up and around the much more hilly terrain than we’d expected. And right beside the ocean. It’s such a treat.
Oamaru, we find, is a charming little town on the ocean and our site was in the botanical gardens which were also beautiful. The European history dates from the 1800’s and is nice but the Maori history goes back nearly a thousand years. We’re keen to learn more about this as we travel.
There’s are a colony of small blue penguins that live at the end of the harbour but apparently they only come back after dark. We missed them but did find a replica on the walk and also our first sight of seals!
Dunedin
Dunedin is the biggest city we’ve really seen in New Zealand as we didn’t really give Christchurch a chance.
We’re a bit taken a back as we wind our way through the suburbs toward the old city centre. To our surprise, we find it’s named after Edinburgh and there’s a strong Scottish connection with the place names all around here.
We park by the old railway station, which is striking and grab lunch in one of the cafes nearby. To be honest, we’re not wowed by the cities and are keener to head out to the solitude of the coast again.
