New Zealand Outdoors Community

Thought Id do a rough write up as a guide for others thinking of a south island roadie.

Credit goes to my partner for this as she's the one who does the research and planning for this type of thing. The guidelines we had were we had 2 weeks and wanted it to be affordable but comfortable so as it would be enjoyable. So we decided to fly to chch I think Mrs hh found flights for about $40ea and hire a spaceships basic camper (toyota previa) all we needed was a dry weather proof bed. This one wasnt self contained but had cooking gear and a little fridge in it for I think $35 a day. We went with this type of camper as its more car sized its fast and easy to park etc and ok on gas. We used around $50 gas a day.

We started at chch and went up around the top and spent a week going down the west coast and then a week going up the east coast. We stayed in basic doc camps at $8 a night each and every second night in a camp ground so as Mrs hh could have a hot shower etc (mr hh wasn't allowed to go for a week without a shower as it wasn't a boys trip this time) the most we paid would of been $35-40 for the both of us for a night. We also used the laundry a couple of times at the camp grounds. There aren't as many freedom camping spots as there used to be unless your self contained. The best one we came across was lumbsden.

Another thing to watch out for is gas stations there was 1 particular one you had to be careful of as unless you were in a major city it didn't appear to accept common eftpos cards. You had to have one of their cards to get fuel.

All in all a really good trip. Places to recommend would be the catlins and oamaru..