Posts

,

Ten Tips for Campervan Living in New Zealand with Kids

If you get the opportunity to travel New Zealand in a campervan with your kids, here are some tips to maximize the fun and minimize the headaches.  These are ten tips from the Paradise Family who traveled with their three ‘tweeners in November of 2017.

  1. Don’t go far on Day One It’s daunting to pull out of the campervan parking lot with a large, heavy vehicle, drive on the left, maneuver narrow roads and single lane bridges and navigate where you want to go.  The last thing you need is pressure to be at a certain place because you have a reservation.  You may very well push yourself past your instinct for safety.

    You can enjoy views like this and stop whenever you need to stretch your legs.

  2. Driving is a two-person job One person needs to be the co-pilot: a second set of eyes, a reminder to stay left and navigate.  Copilot also gets the lovely job of entertainer (arbitrator) of the kids, if they’ve come along.
  3. Stay connected Get a local SIM card for your phone. I got the $19 rollover card from Spark and used it once or twice a day to book places while driving, keep in touch with fellow travelers or to call the rental company with various campervan mysteries (deflating tires and missing knobs, etc.). Seriously consider the mobile wifi unit that your rental company will offer you.  They work wherever you can get cell service and it’s so nice to be able to read the NYT while drinking the morning coffee.  It takes the whole experience from camping to glamping.

    Another perfect and free camping spot.

  4. Structure There’s a dance between leaving space for the spontaneous event, like swimming with dolphins, and having a set itinerary. On the one hand, last minute bookings for activities and campgrounds may be impossible and on the other hand, who wants to be stressed out to stay on schedule when you’re on a vacation. This is all personal preference, but what worked best for us was to reserve the “bones” of the trip:  heli-hike on Fox Glacier, the cruise on Milford Sound the Thanksgiving dinner with cousins in Dunedin the powered camp sites; and then be as fluid day-to-day as possible.  A few times, I called to change the reservations without consequence, but the really popular spots do book up.
  5. Solar Bring solar chargers for your devices. We are not big tech people, but even our few devices were hard to keep charged when you’re only powering up every three or four days.  Our two solar chargers were great to keep phones and readers with a minimum charge for navigation, reading and a few email check-ins.  We kept them going on the dashboard all day and out on the picnic tables while we were at camp.  Here are our favorites.
  6. Bug protection! Make sure you have spray and long sleeve / pants.  The sandflies are vicious outside of the cities (which is where you’re most likely headed in the South Island.)
  7. Download the Apps It’s a modern world and the easiest way to navigate is by the internet… when you can get the internet… and keep your devices charged.  Campermate is THE app.  I also toggled between Rankers Camping NZ and FreedomCampingNZ.  On these sites, you can get up-to-the-day user suggestions and comments, like another social media avenue.  You can get the pin drops for google map directions to trail heads or make dinner reservations.  If a dump station is not maintained, other campers will let you know.  Incredibly useful.  And you won’t need to get the extra GPS navigation gizmo’s like Tom-tom or Garmin that the rental company will offer you.
  8. Check online for current road conditions We did our initial research for the driving itinerary from books and (apparently) out-of-date online sources.  A major earthquake near Kaikoura had recently closed the entire access to the Northeast coastal route we quickly realized in talking with people and confirmed with the Campermate app.  If your time is limited, you will want to know these things before you leave home.

    Kitchen, otherwise known as Lorna’s bedroom

  9. Pack for All Weather We traveled in November and we had all kinds of weather: hot, cold, rain, wind.  The Kiwis we met all said that their weather is totally unpredictable the last few years so plan for all four seasons of weather – no matter the season you’re going.  We were mostly in camping clothes, but it was also nice to spiff up a bit for the city or a nice dinner out.  If you want to have some nice dinners, perhaps pack a top that will make you feel as if you’re not camping for the night.
  10. Consider a Three-Hour/Day Driving Goal We had a LONG driving day on our fourth day out and the kids never let us forget that that was too long.  It’s great to break up the driving so that there’s just a bit each day.  It seemed that the rear-facing seats and the sway to the larger vehicle make it more difficult to take the motion for long periods.  Our three kids had strict daily rotation plans so that they all got to sit in each seat.

But whatever you do, do it.  These are days you will remember.  Here are our highlights and road schooling plans.

/by
,

Roadschooling: Swim With Dolphins When You Can

Ship Creek Beach just before we swam! There are very few photos when you’re really living in the moment…

Sometimes, you need to take off your shirt in public if you want to swim with the dolphins.  And you need to be prepared to get cold.  Really, really cold if you want to follow a dream.  This was the unscripted lesson plan on November 18, at Ship Creek Beach, New Zealand.  We pulled off to do a short hike, stretch our legs while heading down south to Queenstown.  This was a diversion, a rest stop, on the way to the destination.

As we were reading the informational placards about dolphins outside the bathroom, a kind woman interrupted to say that there was a pod of Hector’s dolphins over the dunes, swimming just off shore.  Come quick.  So we scratched our systematic roadschooling schema to race toward the beach.  In the crystal-clear turquoise ocean down below were these rare, diminutive dolphins jumping, surfing and surfacing in tandem. We watched them in wonder for ten minutes. “Let’s go in,” my 13 year-old daughter says to me in her puffy jacket.

“Gosh, we should.” I reply standing beside her in my fleece and leggings, as if someone should but not the 47 year-old mother that I have become. Not the woman who sees each and every potential hazard around her.  Not the woman who had a plan to get to the town of Haast by lunchtime.

“We might never get this chance again,” she says.

And in me was this cavalcade of why nots: Sweet Jesus, that will be cold. Doesn’t this ocean flow toward us from Antarctica?! There’s a ton of people here so I will ruin their videos and selfie-stick-photos of dolphins behind their shoulders. What if the surf is too strong? What if I can’t really swim out past that surf break?  But when I look at her, I know what a good mom should do.

I don’t see any offending offshore rocks or signs of a riptide and secure in the knowledge that my daughter is a competitive swimmer, I take off my fleece, T-shirt and shoes and stand next to her in my jog bra and leggings.  “Come on.”

And we do it.  We watch for a break in the waves and wade into the frigid turquoise waters of the Tasman Sea to swim towards this pod of wild dolphins.  As a way of encouragement, a man towards the shore says that we should make clicking noises to attract them once we’re in.  Duly noted. So we time our entry in between wave sets and easily swim past the break.  Once I can finally catch my breath about fifty feet off shore, I start making a frantic clicking noise and look back to my husband on the beach to direct us toward the dolphins.  And Lorna and I swim side-by-side for more than twenty minutes next to these gorgeous creatures with squeals of delight shared between us.  They never surfaced closer than five feet away, but we could feel them and hear them swirling underneath.  Click click sounds at our feet.  It was one of the highlights of my life.

But the lesson here is to swim with dolphins if life gives you the opportunity.  Be willing to bear your 47 year-old torso or your 13 year-old self-consciousness to onlookers.  Be willing to get uncomfortable for a while, to even spend hours reheating yourself for the chance to look a wild dolphin in the eye, to look your daughter in the eye, to fulfill a life dream. Be willing to get publicly pummeled by a wave on entry to look your daughter in the eye after a breaching dolphin dives before you both and know that you’re striving to be the kind of adult that you want your daughter to become.

This is what “roadschooling” is really about: to live a life outside the box, to follow your passion and your dreams.  Maybe it’s ok that we haven’t been making as much time for math lessons, as we’d planned.  Maybe these learning standards that we are living will fuel them to conquer future long division in ways that are unmeasurable.

/by