NZ 2.0 was a road trip with Pops this past December. We rented a camper van and drove a one-camper-van sprint car race around NZ (3,706 kms in 16 days on one-lane, windy, and at times unpaved, NZ roads).
Our camper van at one of our camp sites. Yup, just pulled right off the road.
My Dad would wake up atbefore the crack of dawn and get on the road while I remained conked out in the back. I was able to sleep through the turns he took at mach 2, which propelled me across the back of the van from one window to the other. But I did wake up, at least twice, to heated conversation from the front. Both times, I popped my head up to discover that my Dad had picked up some hippie, multiply-pierced, rainbow-colored-mophead hitchhiker wearing those pants with the ankle-level crotches. The first guy had a freaking ice ax (presumably for climbing?!). [But hey, homeless hatchet-wielding hitchhikers have been saving the day lately.] And the second chick had a bull ring through her nose. My Dad was able to convince neither of the dangers inherent in socialism.
Other than picking up hitchhikers, we did bunches of low-key activities, like luging, swimming with the seals, alpine horse trekking, canyon jetboating, helicoptering over glaciers, and blackwater rafting (i.e., whitewater rafting in a cave). We also did some snoozer activities (gondola-riding, geothermal wonderland, whale watching, wine tasting, stargazing, street markets, and swing bridge-ing).
I rode a bumpy-butt boat for 3 1/2 hours to get this shot.
What is my Dad — the little white speck on the left — doing in this picture?
This was another of our camp sites.
NZ 3.0 will be taking place circa 2017. We are planning a camper van caravan with my family (the Van Damme clan) and John Spicer. All are welcome!
Those pictures are fantastic! It looks like so much fun.
Thanks, BD! In related news, we did NOT become acquainted, while there, with the New Zealand woman who drank herself to death with 10 liters of Coca Cola a day. I can confirm, however, that there are nutty people everywhere
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