First of all, what an amazing country. Second of all, what an insane experience it was boarding our flight here.

Apparently we weren’t aware of the fact that you can’t enter New Zealand without a return flight booked, which we did NOT have (since we are planning our flights/route as we go). We also found this out AS the airline staff did the final boarding call and said we couldn’t board unless we had a departure ticket out of New Zealand….

So there we were, at the airport in Hawaii, frantically using our phones to try and buy tickets out of New Zealand for a random future date we picked on a whim. We were panicked, we were sweaty, and we were going to be real bummed if we couldn’t make it happen. Thanks to the amazing staff at Hawaiian airlines for literally delaying the entire plane until we could buy our tickets. We successfully got on and made it to New Zealand!

Flash forward to us falling in love with our first actual camper van:

It might seem crazy to live in something this size, but coming from a normal sized SUV, to something like this that’s actually designed for living in… it was amazing. She may be a gas guzzler, and have trouble going up most large hills, but we are in love. Lodging and transportation in one? Yeah, no brainah!

We arrived in Auckland and spent our first day driving through the countryside past SO many sheep and cows. Like SOOOOO many sheep and cows. I swear we have seen more livestock than human beings.

Our first stop was to the Te Waihou walking path and blue spring. The drive was entirely through rolling hills of dry, rural farmland with random houses dotted every kilometer or so. Then you end up at a small dirt parking lot, which leads you down a dirt path. That’s when you come to this…

One of the most insanely beautiful bodies of water we have ever seen. It’s actually what supplies 70% of New Zealand’s bottled water (so you can’t swim in unfortunately). It’s crystal clear and the most lovely shade of blue. It felt more like being in the Amazon jungle than in the middle of New Zealand farmland.

After, we spent the night in a tiny surf town called Raglan. We started our second day with coffee at a local cafe and met an older gentleman who lived in town. We told him we wanted to hike a nearby mountain but weren’t sure how to get to the trailhead. Thanks to this random man and his directions, we ended up going on one of the most interesting (and strenuous) hikes we’ve done so far!

It was basically vertical climbing the entire time (so yeah our glutes and calves were on fire). Oh then Tristan got stung by a bee. Oh then Taylor smashed her knee on a tree stump. But as Tristan says “it’s not really an adventure unless you come out with an injury or two. The hike was so steep they literally had ladders, chains, and even actual rock climbing hand holds drilled into the rock. Don’t worry, it wasn’t open cliffs like Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, it was all within lush trees so it felt much safer as you can see below.

Plus the view from the top was insane!

After the hike, we planned on spending another night in Raglan but we still had plenty of daylight so we decided to head a little farther southeast to the town of Lake Taupo. We found our first free campground which was surprisingly much better than expected. It didn’t have running water but it was right along a river and had a bunch of other campervanners. Definitely a little envious of some of their camper set ups but we love ours in all it’s glory!

Today we are going to explore Lake Taupo then decide where we want to sleep. The best part of campervan life is that all your stuff is with you so you can go wherever the wind takes you, which often results in some wild sunset drives like we had last night…

Until we have WiFi again… love from New Zealand!

-T&T