​It's mid-December and we've been back for a month already, so time to get something on paper, so to speak. I actually started writing this travel report in the days after the trip, but got a bit bogged down in the details. Better I get some of the basics down before I forget and I can always add more details later.

I haven't written a family holiday write-up for a while, so it's good to get back into it. In fact, it's actually been around 6 years since we took a proper family holiday - by that I mean a holiday in a new country and one where we spend a good couple of weeks travelling around and seeing new sights - or an 'itinerary holiday' as I like to call it. Since our last proper family vacation to Germany and Spain in 2019, we've mainly had trips back to the UK with a few side trips thrown in - Istanbul in 2023, the Lake District in 2024 and Yorkshire in 2025. So what happened in 2020, 2021 and 2022, you may ask? Those were the Covid years of course, and with the girls studying in the UK we had to make do with visiting the UK with extended time in Durham, London or Bristol.
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So, with Thalia living in Auckland since September 2024, we took the opportunity to do something that has been on my wish list for many years - a family campervan trip. We had done a short campervan excursion during our Australia trip in 2013, although this was only for 5 days or so, and just to one location. This time, we would do the South Island of New Zealand and see some amazing sights along the way. ​As well as being a bonus family holiday, this was also a belated 25th Wedding Anniversary Trip and as the girls are such a part of our family, we wanted to celebrate them them too.
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So on a Sunday night in early November, we took the overnight Cathay flight direct to Auckland and landed there around lunchtime on the Monday. A short Uber ride got us to Thalia's apartment in Newmarket and after catching up, we checked into our small but comfortable apartment on the other side of the town. In the evening, we headed back for a lovely meal, some board games and a nice walk into Auckland Domain - a lovely park just a short walk from the apartment. I ran there the next morning too, before we had our only day out in Auckland - going to the beach in Piha before lunch in Devonport and a slow drive home in the traffic. Another nice dinner and more board games followed before we had to head home to pack for our family road trip.
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We were up early on Wednesday morning before another Uber back to the airport and our flight to Queenstown where the trip would begin. Once there, we were met by the owners of the campervan before the handover in a nearby carpark. We used Camplify to reserve the campervan, on the recommendation of Thalia who had used them for her road trip with Dan, the previous year. I didn't really compare other sites too much, but was happy to book a 6-person van for the 4 of us as I hoped we would have a little more space. (In hindsight, it was just about fine, but anything smaller would have been too much of a squeeze). Our first visit was to the supermarket where we stocked up for the first 4-5 days. More of that later, but as our first stop after Queenstown was Mt. Cook, with no shops in the area, we had to make sure we had enough to get us through.
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Our first day in Queenstown was fairly relaxed, walking around the lovely town and paying the obligatory visit to Fergburger, which came highly recommended. It certainly lived up to it's reputation too, those burgers were huge and delicious. We had a fairly early night as we had a long day ahead of us - our 13-hour guided trip to Milford Sound. It was going to be an early start with the pick-up scheduled for 6:30am, so once the preparations were done, we hit the proverbial hay. The sleeping arrangements were just about okay - we gave the girls the top bed, above the drivers seat and we took the sofa area at the back. As I said, it was just about okay - although the bed was just about the same length as my height, I slept fairly well (by my standards) for the 9-nights we had in the campervan. 
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We were up at around 5am for our day trip to Milford Sound. We scoped out the pick-up point the day before, so were there and ready 10 minutes before. Our bus pulled up and although the trip was fully booked, we still managed to get ourselves some decent seats and sat back for the 4-hour ride there. Although I could have driven this myself and saved a little money, it would have been a tough day for me - firstly getting used to the campervan while also being on the road for around 8 hours on top of the starting and stopping along the way. Again in hindsight, it was money well-spent as I got to enjoy the whole experience without additional stress and strain. 
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After a couple of early stops, for the bathroom and for a coffee, our guide Felix, tried to break the ice with a Q&A for everyone on the bus - name, where you are from and your favourite book. Not always a fun experience, but in hindsight it did break the ice and at least we knew a little about our coach-fellows. I chose the complete works of Blackadder by the way, a book that's I've had for a while but never gotten around to reading. (Burmese Days might have been a choice for another day, but that's a bit personal and maybe not for this setting).
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As we got closer to Milford Sound, we stopped off at another few places - Mirror Lake being one of them. Not only was it a wonderful sight as the photo might show, but when I think back now, those idyllic moments at the start of the holiday are some of my fondest memories. The holiday had truly started, we still had about 10 days of amazing trips ahead of us and at this stage, I had put work behind me and I didn't have to think about what's going to be on my desk when I returned. As the holiday progressed, it was still an amazing time, but the end was getting closer and work would start to creep into my mind. Not only that of course, but we'd have to head home and say goodbye to Thalia for a few months. 
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Once at Milford Sound, we prepared for the boat trip which would be about two hours long. Once on board, we got ourselves some good seats at the lower deck, though I think we spent most of the time outside on the bow of the ship. It really was stunning - the photos may help to show what it was like, but it really has to be seen to be believed. One other highlight was a lone dolphin swimming just below the bow and once all eyes were on it, it shot ahead and leapt out of the water in front of the boat. We'd seen dolphins before in Oman, but this guy was much larger and amazing to see. Research tells me this was a bottlenose dolphin which is fairly common, and although photos show them to be generally grey, I remember this one to be more brown in colour. ​​All in all, the trip was amazing and we got back to Queenstown at around 6:45pm, so a long, but rewarding day on the road. No rest for the wicked though, the next day was the start of the road trip with a long drive up to Mt. Cook, so we all had work to do!
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We were all up early and after discharging the grey water and re-filling the clean water, we were on the road around 10:30am. This was going to be the longest day's drive of the trip - around 3 hours of driving but I soon got used to the Campervan and it's habits on the uphills and downhills. Mt. Cook was a Department of Conservation site, so although we had a booking, it was a free for all in terms of the sites. We took our time with some quick sightseeing stops along the way, but not too long as we didn't want to leave it too late to bag a great pitch. I can't remember where we had lunch, though I think we had bought take-away pies from Fergburger, which proved to be as delicious as their burgers. 
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Upon arrival, we got ourselves a great little pitch at the far corner of the whole site. This was not a powered site, so we had to manage the power (and water) consumption for the two days that we were here. It really was idyllic though - even though we had the luxury of a campervan, I felt like this was real back to basics stuff - no power, no showers and no hot water.​​​ That first afternoon was spent on a fairly easy walk to Hooker Lake. Thalia had done this the previous year with Dan, and although it was stunning, we couldn't reach the actual lake as two bridges were under renovation. Still a lovely walk though, truly stunning.

As Thalia had been to most of our stop-offs before, we let her do the planning for the hiking and her plan for the next day was a tough hike up to Sealy Tarns. It was a well-trodden route and pretty much steps all the way, but we paced ourselves and all managed to reach the the Tarn along the snowline at around 600m in elevation. We took a rest here but as we readied ourselves to head back down, I decided to head up a little higher for a little bit of a solo climb, towards Mueller Hut. This was almost double the elevation and although I had no intention of actually going that far, I made a good decision to turn back as the walking started to become actual climbing. I caught up with the girls on the way down and we worked our way back to the campervan. We were able relax for the rest of the evening and as the night drew in, the view of the stars was amazing. I can picture the sky now, and I kick myself for not staying longer as I headed off to bed with another day of driving ahead.

The drive to Lake Tekapo wasn't too long so we didn't need to be up too early. We had a leisurely morning and slowly prepared the van for the trip, eventually setting off around 10:30am. We didn't go too far though, we stopped for more sightseeing along Lake Pukaki and as we got towards the end of the lake, Thalia directed us to an amazing spot for lunch. We parked in an open area, but after lunch took a walk along the Kettlehole Track. It wasn't much to start with, but eventually opened up to another amazing view - we had the length of Lake Pukaki ahead of us, with Mt. Cook at the end. This was one of those secret places that most people would miss, but with very few people around, I'm glad they did.

Moving on, we got ourselves to Lake Tekapo soon after lunch and parked in our reserved spot - slighty raised with a lovely view over the lake. After a couple of days without running water, the first prioroty was to get ourselves clean and we all took advantage of the warm and powerful showers in what was a pretty well-equipped campsite. We then drove to the supermarket and stocked up for another few days. Later in the afternoon, we sat on the beach and I even managed the obligatory dip in the very cold lake. I didn't last long, but it was certainly refreshing.

The next day was another hike and I think I chose this one as I had seen the route on my strava feed. This was up Mt. John and although not as tough as Sealy Tarn, the first half was all uphill as we worked our way through the forest, before it opened up and the going got a little easier. The view from the top was another good one and although the weather seemed to be turning, we decided to take the longer route home - continue down the mountain and then walk along the lake. I rushed us a little at the start, but as we got a little lower and the wind settled, we enjoyed a lovely walk along the lake. The evening was similar to our previous ones in the van - a lovely home cooked meal followed by a few games of Monopoly Deal - fast becoming one of our favourite games. After a long day, with another day on the road ahead, we had an early night.

The morning preparations were becoming more routine now - when driving, you have to have everything packed up and secure, so we had to pack up the bed, all belongings and put all the cooking and eating stuff away. Today's drive was a little longer, this time to Wanaka. We made a few stops along the way, even stopping for a long lunch at a restaurant car park. We got to Wanaka in the late afternoon and settled into our campsite - not quite as nice as the previous one, but still a good spot and just a short walk into town. First though, as the sun was out, we drove down to the beach and spent a lovely couple of hours there, soaking up the rays as well as the obligatory cold water swim which lasted a little longer this time. Dinner followed - a nice feed at a lovely restaurant where we sat outside on a very comfy sofa. Back in the van, we had another few rounds of Monopoly Deal followed by another early night as we had a big day ahead of us - climbing Roy's Peak.

Thalia had been to Wanaka before, but because she was there in October, the trail up Roy's Peak was closed. The trail actually crosses private land, so the farmers close it off during lambing season. As we were there in November, it was open and we were actually just on day three of the new season. Roy's Peak is the climb when you're in Wanaka and as it is over 1,500m in height, Alma had already opted out of this one. This was a wise choice though, as the climb was constantly uphill and would have been too tough for her. But the campsite was well-equipped, so we knew that she's be fine without us.

We set out early and had a taxi arranged for just after 6am. The trailhead was around 6km form our campsite, so this was the only way to get there. We'd packed everything the night before, so we were well prepared with snacks and drinks for the long climb up. The trail itself was well laid out - perfectly wide and easy to navigate, the only issue being it was all up-hill, literally 99% of it, with only an occasional piece of flat ground. Many people head up there for sunrise, so we saw many people already on the way down. This would have been nice, but just too logistically challenging - likely setting out around 1am. We got going at a reasonable pace - we had all day and only set ourselves small targets, like not getting passed by people you have already passed, or passing people that we felt we really ought to be passing.

So it was a long a steady walk, pretty tough to be honest, but we reached the area after around 2 hours of walking. By 'the' area, I mean the famous lookout photo, which is supposedly very instagrammable. However, this is not actually at the top, so we continued up for another 30 minutes before sitting down for lunch perched on a rather precarious rock. After around 30 minutes there, we worked our way down to the photo spot and although we managed to get our photos, there was a bit of an incident that overshadowed our moment.

I won't go into all the details, but unfortunately the lady behind us in the queue (yes there is a queue for the photo spot), ended up dropping her baby while we were waiting. She had walked up with the baby strapped to her back and in the course of the general baby worship while waiting , the baby had slipped from it's holder and fell to the hard ground. We took our photos quickly and hurried away only to re-group and re-queue for another go. Then in the course of that queue, we had a bit of a ding dong with someone else in the queue who mocked us as we tried to explain the rules of the queue. All in all, a weird time and it was pretty much all we talked about for the two hour walk down the mountain. But a lovely day out, an amazing experience and just glad I got to do it. Overall walking time was just over 4 hours - not a bad pace, but total time with all the stops and starts was over 6 hours - still not bad.

The next day was another driving day, but this time just a shortish drive back to Queenstown where we would spend one more night. We stopped off in another car park for lunch, before we rolled into the same campsite where we started, ten days before. We had our usual night's entertainment, then the following morning was spent preparing the van for collection - the owners came around 10am and off they went. As our flight was not until the evening, we spent much of the day in Queenstown and the girls did the obligatory Ferburger - not sure what I ended up with but as we had all decided just to have a snack there, I think I got the short straw - an actual snack! We then spent a couple of ours in an Irish pub before heading to the airport. After ten days in NZ without a drop of rain, the heavens opened as queued for the bus. Once on, the traffic was terrible, but we crawled along towards the airport in the heavy rain. Once there, there was some doubt as to whether our flight would leave, but we eventually got on a couple of hours late.

Back in Auckland, we had one night at Thalia's place before Alma and I headed back to the aiport for our flight back to HK. Phoebe was staying an extra week for some sister-time so we said our goodbyes and headed back to reality.

Looking back now, it was a truly amazing trip, maybe the best of all. I wouldn't say any of the individual activities were bucket list themselves, but the trip as a whole makes my list. Probably the best country I have visited and I urge anyone to do it, especially those with older children. The reason I say older children might be obvious - they are beyond the miserable and sulky stage which could be exacerbated with the constant moving in fairly cramped conditions. They can also help in the van with preparations, cooking and cleaning, and finally, if you're active as we are, they can truly enjoy what NZ has to offer - amazing hiking, swimming in lakes and breathtaking views.