One of the key things we wanted to do was try out our options before we took six months off, and see how well we could travel in a confined 6m x 2.5 space for an extended period. I once got into a conversation with the person behind me in a grocery store, who was incredibly happy to describe her experience travelling around Australia for 6 months and the amazing sights that there were to uncover. She did, however, reflect, that the trip was the last time her and her then partner would ever spend in the same room, such are the extremes of living in tiny spaces for anything longer than a weekend.
And what better place to explore living in a confined space than a place that encourages you to always be out and about: New Zealand!
Having already seen the South Island some years prior, we agreed that the North Island would be an ideal location to visit and hire a motorhome for two weeks. Now, as much as we hate being typecast, there is one pattern that we seem unable to shape. Our holidays, no matter how exciting, tend not to get organised until the 11th hour, when all possibility of us not going on holiday has seemingly passed.
It is for this reason that we ended up on a tour of Europe with Eurail passes following us around Europe, never quite managing to catch up in time for us to make full use of them. When they did catch up to us, they had then been cancelled… This led to some hairy trips between countries, but given most trains don’t have assigned seating this was generally manageable. One trip on the TGV, that had to be prebooked but was then cancelled, did require us to occupy the same seats as two other travellers for a four hour journey. Much time was spent inspecting the internal layout of the train… And by the time we felt truly committed to travelling to Tasmania the spaces in caravan parks were all booked (though this did lead to a love of free camping). And so, for our trip to New Zealand, the weekend before we left saw us frantically ringing around motorhome hire places after most websites indicated very little availability, and trying to wring whatever discount we could out of operators who had us over a barrel.
We won’t go on to regale you with the details of every aspect of that holiday, given we’re writing about a trip around Australia, but there are some key learnings that we made from that trip. The first was that if you are unorganised, a motorhome may seem like a great option as you don’t have to commit to being anywhere at a particular time. For us, though, the lack of pre-planning bit us on the bum as every night we spent at least an hour researching places we should be going and things we should be doing the next day. This meant valuable holiday time was spent undertaking planning activities that weren’t that dissimilar from having to work…
We also learnt that the Fear of Missing Out is a huge motivator, but not necessarily the right one. There are so many top 10 lists that it seems like a no brainer to simply refer to TripAdvisor or another tool, to pick out the top items to do in a particular location and tick them off. And while this will ensure you see key sights, it also means that you are experiencing the generic holiday, tailored to the everyperson. Unique experiences don’t exist in lists compiled by amalgamating masses of votes and scores. For us, it took a little while to learn that your personal experiences, and those relayed to you by fellow travellers, especially those travelling in the opposite direction to you so you can share insights from your past and their future, and their past and your future, contribute to the beautiful tapestry of a holiday in ways that an online forum cannot.
It was this fear of missing out that also led us to really getting to know the motorhome extremely well. Particularly the two seats in the cabin. Up front. While driving. In 2 weeks we had travelled to the southernmost and northernmost tips of the North Island, and many places in-between. Now, I’m not sure what your family holidays were like, but I seem to have very few fond memories of the most exciting parts of a holiday being comprised of travelling to and from destinations in a vehicle. The most dull, certainly, and potentially the most painful if you were in a family with three brothers, and even the absolute longest if you were heading somewhere the day before Christmas. But not the most exciting. By about day 10, we had learnt that no matter how much you love your motorhome, time apart from it definitely makes the heart less weary. Given you will be travelling almost everywhere in a motorhome, don’t be afraid to not travel everywhere in it either. And never spend consecutive days travelling for 8 hours. We now have a rule: wherever you can get to by no later than lunchtime will be a fantastic place to stay. We saw an amazing number of beautiful sunsets, but it would have been nice to spend the days in very pretty locations too. Days that could be slightly less full of greys (of the dashboard), greys (of the roof lining) and greys (of the floor).
We also learnt that a motorhome is liberating in strange, unexpected ways. Don’t be afraid to try things because they seem odd! One of my fondest memories was buying a 24 hour ticket at a car park, and staying there for the full 24 hours overnight. It didn’t hurt that this car park was directly next to the Te Papa museum, and the bay, in Wellington. We had our accommodation, and our prize location just a short walk from some of the most spectacular attractions in the city. Car parking may generally be difficult in a motorhome, but sometimes, it is amazing!
