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Chris and Charly Down Under

a travel blog by chrischarly

Bye bye tuk tuks
Bye bye negotiating
Bye bye, 'Hello Mister'
Bye bye long bus rides
Bye bye heavy backpacks
Bye bye savings...
And G'DAY 'down under'!

After plenty of time spent in South East Asia, we have just left Australia after having an amazing time driving around for almost 3 months in a camper and are now in New Zealand doing the same :)

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Looking for wheels

Frankton, New Zealand

Had a look at quite a few vans and cars today, all of them over-priced for what they are and many things wrong with them which Chris could tell by having a look. Busy day but I suppose it is just our first day of looking for vehicles. Just hoped it would be as easy as it was in Oz.

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chrischarly on January 2, 2012 from Frankton, New Zealand

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Still no wheels...

Frankton, New Zealand

It is so hard to go and look at vehicles when we ourselves don’t have any wheels! But we still continued the search and saw a few more today, none we particularly fell in love with though.

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chrischarly on January 3, 2012 from Frankton, New Zealand

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Final 3

Queenstown, New Zealand

Third day of frantically searching for cars. Saw heaps more today and Aston gave us a lift into town to have a look at some parked up around there. We did find the most perfect people carrier though and it was in mint condition for a bargain price. We took it for a test drive and certain we wanted it, started negotiating with the owner. However, a lady was driving over 2 hours to look at it, so he said he would give her first refusal, which he did and she brought it. We were so gutted! Later in the evening though we had a look at another couple of possibilities so we had narrowed it down to the final 3. None of them perfect, but and all would need a bit of work. In the evening we went out with a few of Justine’s friends to a nice restaurant in town and ate some awesome food and went to a few bars afterwards. Great night, but will suffer for it tomorrow…

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chrischarly on January 4, 2012 from Queenstown, New Zealand

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Our new home!..

Queenstown, New Zealand

Our new car! Name=Lucy

Finally we have brought a new vehicle! It’s a Toyota Estima Lucida and we are so happy we now have wheels! There’s a couple of things wrong with it that need fixing, so a few pennies need to be spent to buy at least 2 new tyres, get the wheels aligned, check out the battery, fully convert it so we can sleep inside and a few other things. But at least we’re a bit closer! We decided on this one as it would have the most space and probably the cheapest to do up in the long run as it only cost $2500, which we thought was pretty good. Unfortunately the 4x4 we fell in love with failed it’s WOF (M.O.T) by a lot so the Estima it is.

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chrischarly on January 5, 2012 from Queenstown, New Zealand

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Almost ready to leave

Frankton, New Zealand

Spent the day clearing out and buying stuff for the van as it needs everything. Also got the tyres changed, the battery terminals fixed so it now re-charges and managed to come across an abandoned Toyota just like ours so ‘acquired’ the stays off the back, so the boot remains open. Another busy day and got a lot done, almost ready to leave in it!

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chrischarly on January 6, 2012 from Frankton, New Zealand

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First stop= Paradise

Paradise, New Zealand

We finally left Queenstown today in our van after buying yet more things. Only problem is that we haven’t managed to make a bed yet, so we will be sleeping on the floor for the next couple of nights until we come back to Queenstown and Justine’s neighbour said he would make one for us, so we can store everything underneath.

Road we're about to drive on

Chris admiring the views

Our first stop was to Paradise an aptly named little settlement 20km North of Glenorchy. It was a gorgeous place down a rough road and we found a place where we could ‘Freedom Camp’ for the night right by the lake with amazing views, yet too many sandflies.

Our first adventure in our new car

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chrischarly on January 7, 2012 from Paradise, New Zealand

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Gorgeous NZ

Glenorchy, New Zealand

Chris fishing in Diamond Lake

Admiring Paradise

A place called Paradise, honest!

Filling up our water bottle

We slept pretty well last night especially considering we still need to buy a proper mattress for it and Chris was already out fishing first thing in the Crystal clear ‘Diamond Lake’. He was pretty disappointed that he didn’t catch anything though as he could see all the trout swimming straight past his line, but not biting, but maybe that’s because they saw him as well. We then went for a drive to the end of the road about an hour away and went for a walk down to the Dart River which is freezing, before driving back and walking some of the way round the lake we are staying at.

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chrischarly on January 8, 2012 from Glenorchy, New Zealand

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Back to Queenstown

Glenorchy, New Zealand

Chris went for an early-morning fish whilst I still slept feeling optimistic about a fish breakfast. Unfortunately by the time I got up and walked down to him, he himself was walking back without anything but his rod. We then packed up and drove back to Glenorchy so we could get phone signal to call Ed, Justine’s neighbour who said he could fit a bed in the back of our Estima so we could store our boxes underneath. He just needs to have a look at it first, so we drove back to Queenstown. Once there, he said he could do it tomorrow, which is perfect so we went to buy some wood and then drove to Kingston to meet some of Justine’s friends who were paragliding and chilled there for a couple of hours before making our way back for the night.

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chrischarly on January 9, 2012 from Glenorchy, New Zealand

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Finally our carvans kitted out!!

Mossburn, New Zealand

The back packed

The back of a car

After spending our last night on the floor of our ‘carvan’ we woke up at 7:30am to get ready for Ed to start fitting out the back with bed and storage. As expected he did an amazing job and much quicker and better than we could have done ourselves, well worth the money!

After it was done, Chris and Aston headed to Warehouse to buy a foam mattress, which Chris then had to cut down to size. When complete, we headed out on our adventures to pastures south of Queenstown. We headed to Mavora Lake which was in fact two lakes connected by a River. It was down quite a long gravel road, but after taking it carefully we finally arrived and it was worth it. The lake and scenery were, as most of NZ, amazing. Chris was excited seeing trout in the lake, so after finding a nice spot on the quieter southern lake Chris broke out the rod and went for a fish. Unsuccessful, we ended up with a yummy veggie pasta washed down with some white wine. We retired to our uber comfortable bed and watched Lord of the Rings 2, as some of it was filmed in this area.

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chrischarly on January 10, 2012 from Mossburn, New Zealand

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Clever trout

Mossburn, New Zealand

A load of clouds :(

Chris got up about 8am and went straight down to the lake in search for the wild trout. He tried all of his methods, and fished most of the day, but other than one bite, we were fishless once again. We went for a short drive around the whole campsite ending up at a nice spot on the River, where Chris fished for a while, again unsuccessful – either the trout are clever or Chris is rubbish! We ended up returning to our previous night’s spot and had another yummy dinner before bed.

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chrischarly on January 11, 2012 from Mossburn, New Zealand

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chrischarly
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