Day 7: We Are RV People
We got up bright and early at the hostel (thanks to paper-thin walls and the family next door cooking a rather pungent breakfast in the common room / kitchen) and caught the bus to the airport to pick up our rental car & home for the next three weeks: a Britz Campervan!
Public bus in Queenstown. That’s how I roll.
After a short demo and reassurance that there are plenty of instructional videos included in the GPS system (should we decide to watch them), we were off! Igor kept repeating the new mantra we learned from a Kiwi tour guide earlier in the week, “Put your bitch in the ditch,” to remind him which side of the road to drive on.
Watch out New Zealand! You have 2 New Yorkers on the road!
We slowly made our way to Mt. Cook National Park, and – with our newfound freedom – stopped at as many scenic spots as we desired. Right around lunchtime, we saw a sign for a 10km detour to Lake Ohau, so we veered off for a lovely picnic by the shore, parking the RV in what we later discovered was a very deep & loose patch of gravel.
Picturesque lakeside lunch
“Driver? I see something pretty. Pull over.”
Mt. Cook in the distance!
When we got back in the RV to drive off, we discovered we had buried our tires in the rocks. Luckily for us, a biking tour of Australians had just pulled over to drop off some bikers at a nearby trailhead, and noticed our trouble. They also pointed out that our RV was a rear-wheel driving vehicle, so moving the front wheels back & forth wasn’t going to help us drive out. They helped us dig out our back wheels, and then a group of about a dozen Aussies helped push the RV as Igor reversed, finally setting us free!
Australian Angels! We are relying on the kindness of strangers
We arrived at Mt. Cook late in the afternoon, but just in time to hit the visitor center for a quick review of which trails we would like to hike the next day. After checking out the DOC campsite inside the park was more like a Black-Friday Walmart parking lot ($10/pp – only facilities are water hook-up, a shelter with sinks, and toilets – no showers), we decided to exit the park for the more expensive Glentanner Holiday Park: $25/pp for electric hook-up, common room with TV, full kitchen with ovens & BBQs, laundry, and even Wifi accessible from our deserted campsite! Worth every penny.
For dinner, we broke in our new home with a grilled lamb dinner & a bottle of Casillero del Diablo, with a view of the sunset over Mt. Cook in the distance. We are quickly turning into RV people.
Grilling New Zealand lamb in the great outdoors!
Still the best Cabernet Sauvignon in the world.