Wellington

Driven by the hope of finding a campervan and the desire to leave Auckland, we traveled to Wellington. The bus ride to Wellington takes about 11 hours and is truly spectacular. The landscape feels like it changes every 10 minutes. First you drive through the suburbs of Auckland, then there are hills and green meadows (like you know from Lord of the Rings), then there is a barren volcanic desert and in between there are mountains, forests and larger or smaller towns.

When we arrived in Wellington in the evening it was pretty cold and we just checked into our hostel. The Wellington region is considered the windiest region in NZ, but aside from the wind we were really lucky with the weather (sunshine every day, actually). The next day, of course, a tour of the camper was on the agenda. The camper was mechanically in good condition, but externally it had definitely seen better days. Due to the high price and the seller's unwillingness to negotiate, we decided against buying it. But we still had two similar campers in sight for a better price on the South Island. But because we didn't want to blindly go over to the South Island for the campers, we first had a pre-purchase inspection (inspection before you buy a car) done on both of them for the equivalent of around €100 each. Unfortunately, both inspections didn't turn out as great as expected/hoped. That's why we decided to look at another camper near Wellington in Featherston.

We didn't just look at campers in Wellington, but also the city and a bit of the surrounding area. One day we were on Mount Victoria (mountain in the middle of Wellington), which also serves as a filming location for some Lord of the Rings scenes. Of course we also looked at these filming locations. Another day we took a small cable car to the botanical garden and looked at it. Coincidentally, there is also a shuttle to the Zealandia nature reserve near the cable car. Zealandia is the world's first fully fenced urban ecosystem. Here you could hike beautifully and see many different birds and plants. Otherwise we looked at the city with its beautiful harbor and went to some cafes and bars. Wellington is considered a very alternative city, which is why there are a lot of bars and pubs.

Since we still don't have a camper and are no longer in the mood for hostels and cities, we took the train to Featherston on Friday because there is a very promising camper there. Featherston is a small but beautiful town located directly on the mountains and is part of the Wairarapa wine region. Of course, a camper was also looked at there. The seller is a German who has lived in NZ for 5 years. The camper looks really good and when it gets its MOT on Monday, we'll take it and travel on to the South Island. In our camper search so far we have learned that New Zealanders have a different understanding of a car's "good condition" than we do. A car in “good condition” often has rust and mold in the interior.