Caravaning

Our Route to caravanning

So why caravanning? We all know how frustrating it is being stuck behind an HGV or someone towing.

Hannah and I first tasted some of the freedom of the mobile lifestyle when we borrowed her parents motorhome.  Its a lovely vehicle, and is under 3.5T maximum laden weight, so no extra driving tests for LGV.

But borrowing wasn't ideal, as we would have to make 2 hour drive down to them, before we then could unload our car, load our dogs in and then get on our way.  And the same was true at the end of a holiday too. Not insurmountable, but we wanted some freedom for ourselves.

In January 2017 we embarked on our biggest adventure yet.  We flew to the North Island for 2 weeks of holiday in a motorhome.

I could talk for a long time about that trip, but I'll try and summarise with a few photos:

This was the hired vehicle. With the all important fully self contained certification, meaning we could stop anywhere that camping was permitted.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few people camping on the cheap with station wagons converted to have a bed in them, and in the rural sites, there weren't facilities, and you could tell!

We were able to stay in many remarkable places. most of them as I would describe it as country parks or nature reserves.  Just switch the engine off, the 3 way fridge to gas, slide the bbq out, and away you go

Woodville Ferry Reserve, beside Manawatu Gorge, near Palmerston North

Te Kopahou, on the south western edge of Wellington.
That was the windiest place we ever stayed, I think that night the wind was gusting at over 100km/h according to local weather stations during the night!

It was a good way to tour the country, with everything we needed with us. Being able to swim in the see or lake, then hop in the shower and rinse off, before continuing on further adventures

A few times we ended on short stretches of unsealed gravel roads.  Driving along them at 15 mph because we didn't want to shake all the crockery out wasn't so fun.  Even less fun was in Wellington, when we found ourselves on a narrow road with hairpins, and carefully negotiating our way through. So caravaning seemed like an idea, being able to leave some of the bulk of our holiday gear for nipping to the shops, while still having a home from home with ourselves