NEW ZEALAND: WHEN I GO CAMPING
- coupkovasvatava
- Apr 30, 2017
- 4 min read
I am definitely an outdoorsy girl and to staying dry, warm and clean at home I prefer getting wet, cold and dirty outside. Well, not really cold and wet, but absolutely outside and dirty. I just LOVE camping! There are two different styles of camping actually and which one we undertake depends solely on whether I am only with mummy or with both of my parents.
Going with dad implies taking his car – a truck which he himself recently equipped with a few super specialized gadgets, absolutely necessary (as he claims) for a professional 4 wheel driving. It means we can now go wherever we want. And that wherever is usually a pretty cool hut somewhere hard to get. The first one where we went was Macaulay Hut by the river of the same name past lake Tekapo. The old hut burnt down and on its place now stands this fancy construction from stone and wood. Inside there are 14 bunk beds, a gas stove and a fireplace that makes the hut nice and warm. From the end of the road it takes another 18 km of 4WD and river crossing to get there and I can tell you it is pretty bouncy. It was so bouncy that it made me fall asleep. That day it was only us who stayed at Macaulay overnight and it was just awesome. Dad started a fire and I was snug as a bug in a rug.
Also at Top Hut in Omarama Range about 10 km of 4WD from the end of Broken Hut Road we were lucky with flatmates, that is to say there were none. Not that we don´t like company, on the contrary. (Especially mum is so desperate for a chat that wherever we go we end up taking all hitchhikers in the world - I don´t get it: am I not good enough?) We love company during the day, but not at night when they want to sleep and we can never be sure how often and in what kind of mood I will want to wake up. Top Hut has only 8 beds and is much older, made of corrugated iron and populated by mice. Mum was scared that they might bite my nose off but I was all good with them.
The last hut where I got to stay so far (I don´t count super rustic Greta Lodge where we went only for lunch) was Monument Hut by lake Ohau. This time 9 km of 4 wheel driving we did on foot. Which actually brings me to a completely different discipline: camping with mum. Because her car is very... 2wheel-drivey, we can get nowhere. It can basically mean two things – either we have to walk or set a camp where we are able to get. We obviously tried both things and they have their advantages and disadvantages.
The old 6-bunk-bed Monument Hut was the walking case and we did it because mum wanted to know whether she can do it or not. “It” signifying carrying me and a heavy backpack full of our stuff at the same time. On the way there we met a group of five nice old guys heading to a further hut. We were offered a ride but mum refused. She really wanted to do it on her own. Then at the river crossing we passed them for a bit and when they were overtaking us again they proposed to deliver at least our bag which must have looked really heavy (and it was). Mum refused again. This time she was being silly and later on with sore shoulders and scratched hips regretted.
We spent the afternoon collecting wood for our fire and ended up nice and warm. No wonder that mice liked it so much as well!
Traffic from the previous day made mum think that someone willing to take us (or at least the backpack) back to our car was going to appear soon. We started walking at 10... and didn´t stop until 12, when we reached the car with no one actually driving by. Classic!
What happens more often if it is only mum and me is that we stay in our 35-dollar-Warehouse tent. For the first time we tried it at Pleasant Point campsite on our way from Timaru hospital and based on my exemplary behaviour mum decided we were going to do it as often as possible.
Since then we set off whenever dad left for a longer trip. We stayed by Lake Ohau and it was full of sandflies and cold at night. One night we spent at Nine Mile Reserve by the remnants of the historic Lindiss hotel – nice and warm in the evening and at night but then when I was having my morning nap it started raining and the tent got all wet, grrr. There is a nice TV room at the campsite in Kingston and because the weather forecast was far from ideal, mum decided to take me there. By the time she built the tent (which took her 2-3 minutes) I crawled off the blanket, got all wet and dirty and stuffed my mouth full with rocks. Well done!
The campground at Moke Lake by Queenstown was really busy but the walk around the lake was cool and I got to pat my first horse (mum didn´t let me poke his eyes though) which was pretty nice. At night it was raining so we had to leave the tent, went for a walk and came back for it a bit later.
From Queenstown we moved to Bannockburn, because mum wanted to check the Cairnmuir campground where she stayed in her car just before the winter season started two years ago. That time it was minus 9 at night and she was freezing, this time – a month earlier – it was “only” 4 a she was freezing again (I was all good in my pea sleeping bag, under all the blankets and dad´s duvet). The campsite was busy, there were car races nearby and then later on our neighbours played the guitar. When they finally gave up I woke up and started crying and didn´t stop until dawn. Then mum decided it was our last camping this year – boooring :-).
Your Annie
Some facts
When: 2-4/2017 Where: Macaulay hut (Lake Tekapo), Top Hut (Omarama Range), Monument Hut (Lake Ohau), Pleasant Point (Timaru), Lake Ohau, Nine Mile Reserve (Lindiss Pass), Moke Lake (Queenstown), Bannockburn (New Zealand) How: car
How long: looong hours How far: heaps of km
