New Zealand Trip Update #2

It’s been awhile since my last update so I figured it’s time to post another written blog post with my news. After doing one and a half loops of the South Island I spent significant time up in the Nelson region (all of May through mid June) getting stuff sorted while staying at the beautiful Maitai Valley Motor Camp. It is set in a pine tree filled valley only 6km outside of downtown Nelson on the edge of the Richmond Range, an ideal spot for a nature loving hiker like myself!

I got all my teaching registration and salary assessments done during this time, setting myself up to finally begin working. While I love the simplicity of most things in NZ when dealing with the government, getting this teaching stuff done was incredibly complex and laborious. I have taught in all sorts of jurisdictions around the world (NYC, Seattle, Bellingham school districts in America, plus various school bodies in Queensland) but this was by far the hardest and most expensive (about 2000 dollars to jump through all the hoops not to mention numerous forms, Justice of the Peace visits and countless phone calls). If I knew what lay ahead of me when I first starting the process I very well may have not bothered. Even now in August the process is not quite complete but I am certainly close!

During this time in Nelson I had my brother and father visit from Australia and we did a trip out to Golden Bay. This area was well worth seeing. The town of Takaka has loads of character and we drove out to Farewell Spit in a hire car to see this rugged coastline as well. It was great seeing them both and a shame it was such a short visit.

Soon after they left I got an offer to relief teach at Queenstown’s only high school, Wakatipu High School in Frankton. I was hellbent on returning to my favourite town Kaikoura to begin relief teaching, but the lure of Queenstown was strong. I was very concerned about my motorhome’s ability to endure a Central Otago winter however, so I immediately got a professional job done insulating the pipes and tanks. It cost way more than budget as a few pipe joints broke during the process of insulating them, but hey that’s life.

Travelling down the West Coast of NZ to Queenstown, I enjoyed the journey but had the storm of the century hit me in Hokitika. I knew the west coast received biblical rain, but this was something else. It was like someone was pouring buckets of water from the sky, so heavy was the rain. Nonetheless, it was an insight into the tough nature of “coasters” as they are known, as I watched a game of rugby being played in the cold rain, supporters still lining the sidelines despite the conditions.

Arriving into the Queenstown area, I first stayed at the 12 Mile Delta campground. The location is possibly the best bit of real estate in all of NZ, and if it wasn’t for the fact it lacked a few services I definitely would’ve stayed as it has great dog friendly hiking trails right out the door. My diesel heater blew up in the middle of the night in the first deep freeze of the winter, minus 7 degrees C, but I was lucky to have a handy long term resident be able to fix it for small charge the very next day. Having something so critical as the heater die on me could’ve been a nightmare given how hard it is to find someone to fix these types of problems.

I’ve now settled in Arrowtown campground where I’ve been staying since late June. I have an oil column heater going 24/7 inside the van given I’m on a powered site here. I can also enjoy long, hot showers in the amenities block instead of the short 30 seconds of spraying to save water when living in the van elsewhere.

This town is certainly beautiful, with loads of history and a downtown area that still looks like it would’ve 100 hundred years ago. It is surrounded by dog friendly trails and the mountains are right here too. So it’s perfect in many ways.

I’ve bought a 4×4 to get around town, as the bus was way too hard to get to schools and go shopping. Having that has also opened up doing stuff that was previously impossible, like going hiking with Molly in hard to get to places away from bus services. Driving the motorhome during winter with all the leads and insulation boards I have meant it was not an option.

So now I’m working three days a week only (by choice), finding it incredibly easy to get work as there is a teacher shortage in the area. The schools are nice and the students easy to teach, so life is settling down nicely. I’ve had all sorts of other issues pop up like lots of plumbing issues with the motorhome, but hey that’s part of vanlife and you just gotta roll with all the punches. Nothing has come close to the gut punch I received from that gearbox breakdown after I’d just bought the van though! I can handle anything after that.

The days are getting longer now and even though this morning was another cold one at minus 5, I can almost sense that spring is right around the corner. One of the advantages of NZ’s alpine environment is that having the high snowline at around 1400m (town is at 400m) means one can hike here all year round, pretty rare for most ski areas. But nonetheless, there’s no doubt the hiking gets even better in summer, so there’s much to look forward to.

So, in a nutshell, I am loving life in NZ. The cultural similarities mean it’s so easy to be understood and to understand them. We are effectively the same country, with our shared ANZAC heritage. I have no intentions of returning to Australia any time soon - but one can never predict the future. The winters are tough for living in a van for sure, so I will reassess at the end of the coming summer. There’s so many epic adventures coming up though, bring it on!