Exploring the South Island for the First Time as a Kiwi on a 7 Day Road Trip with Hamish McColl

Van life and road trips are two of my favourite topics, so this one was always going to be fun.

Hamish grew up in the North Island, and before this trip he'd only dipped his toes in the South Island. Then he flew into Queenstown, picked up a rental campervan and drove to Christchurch. And the trip worked on him so so well that he and his family now live in a caravan full time.

So we go through his route stop by stop: waking up beside Lake Wakatipu, Arrowtown in autumn, Cromwell's old town, the Wānaka tree, a 4WD tour up towards the glacier at Mount Cook, and the waste-dump mishap in Twizel that they still laugh about. Then we get into caravan life, the second caravan he's just bought to renovate, and the North Island road trip he's planning next. Short trip, lots of stops, one very lost cap.

In this episode

• From Whangamatā road trips to caravan life
• Planning a first South Island road trip
• Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu on a budget
• Arrowtown, Cromwell and Wānaka
• Mount Cook and a 4WD tour to the glacier
• Twizel, Tekapo and the lost waste cap
• Christchurch by e-scooter
• Caravan living and the next road trip

From Whangamatā road trips to caravan life

Hamish has been going to Whangamatā since he was little. From Hamilton it's a two-hour drive, so his childhood was full of road trips there. He moved out of home and left school at 17 to study radio in Tauranga, because he couldn't learn it at his school.

Alternative living is new for him. In the year we recorded, he and his wife moved out of their rental house and into a caravan with their two little ones, and they'd been living in it full time for a few months. The space is a little challenging at times with two kids running around, but for the most part, it's getting there. In his words, it's quaint.

What got them into it was a road trip from Queenstown to Christchurch, three years before we recorded.

Planning a first South Island road trip

They got married in 2021, when COVID still made going overseas feel risky. Hamish had only been to the South Island once, to Nelson for a friend's wedding, and he'd stayed two days. So they chose the South Island for their honeymoon.

The flight down to that wedding was his first time on a plane.

For this trip, Hamish did some research and came up with some fairly big costs. Then he took the question to a local tourism agency, and they found him a rental campervan, including all the insurances, for far less than he'd expected. He was glad he went in.

Choosing the size was the other puzzle. People in a couple of groups told him to get a six-berth for all the space, and when he looked into them, they were too big. They went with a four-berth, because he liked the layout with the bed at the back, where they could open up the curtains.

Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu on a budget

They flew into Queenstown in April, when it was cold enough to be cold without snowing. They landed around lunchtime and hit the ground running: picked up the campervan, went to PAK'nSAVE and filled the cupboards and the fridge with a week's worth of groceries.

Waking up beside the lake

Their first night was on the side of Lake Wakatipu, parked up backwards in a little caravan parking area out of Queenstown. That's where the bed at the back came into its own. They woke to the sunrise, and because of the Remarkables, the sun takes a while to rise above them, so there was this orange hue in the background.

For someone who'd grown up only in the North Island, mostly in Hamilton, it was magical.

South Island sunrises and sunsets hit different. A couple of summers before we recorded, every single night we were down there was an absolute banger, and you'd never get that consistency in Auckland or Hamilton.

The luge, the cruise and the ice bar

Straight after the wedding, they were on a low-key budget. They went to the luge, saw how much it cost, and sat outside watching other people ride it, which was still fun.

Hamish's tip for Queenstown on a budget is the Million Dollar Cruise along the edges of Lake Wakatipu. It didn't cost much, and it was a wicked trip. If that wasn't cold enough, they went to the ice bar afterwards for a couple of drinks.

Arrowtown, Cromwell and Wānaka

Arrowtown in autumn

After Queenstown, they visited a friend who works around Queenstown, and he took them through Arrowtown. It's a stone's throw away, and a totally different environment. In autumn, many of the trees hadn't dropped their leaves yet, and they were golden. Hamish still pictures it:

"you take a photo, but you almost don't need to, because it's kind of like you can take a mental photo with your eyes."

Cromwell's old town

Next was Cromwell. Hamish thought the most exciting thing about it was taking a photo next to the big fruit. Then they passed a sign saying "museum this way", followed it, and found the old village: lots of old buildings, a museum and a little wharf.

No matter how much research you do, you'll pass those big brown signs pointing to random places, and if you've got a spare hour or two, I say follow one and see where it goes.

As Hamish says, if you get lost, that's what Google Maps is for.

Wānaka and the tree

In Wānaka, Hamish did the one thing he reckons every first-timer has to do: the iconic photo of the Wānaka tree. Have you even been to Wānaka if you haven't? They spent the third night outside town, in a nice, peaceful paddock with the birds chirping.

Mount Cook and a 4WD tour to the glacier

Mount Cook was one of the places that stood out most for Hamish. On the fourth night they stayed at Glentanner. They didn't quite have the view of the mountain when they woke up, but as you leave, near the office, you get a gorgeous view of Mount Cook.

The thing they'd wanted to do even before they flew down was the four-wheel-drive track up to the glacier. They'd pictured old-school Land Rovers or Jeeps, and they went up in a Unimog: a glorified school bus where every seat has its own suspension and bounces around over the rocks. A bit of a disco, really. Commentary over the intercom explains things like the one-lane bridge and what it was used for back in the day.

While they were up there, a piece of ice broke off the glacier. The closest sound Hamish can describe is a whip crack, then a chipping sound, then it crashes into the water. It was super exciting, and also a bit sad, because it's the glacier receding.

I always find it confronting, with the West Coast glaciers too, when you compare photos from only a few years earlier and see how much they've receded.

Twizel, Tekapo and the lost waste cap

A photo on an empty road

The road between Mount Cook and Twizel was like a ghost town, with hardly any traffic. So Hamish stood in the centre of the road and had his wife take a photo of him from down low, with the mountains in the background. It looked really cool. His safety note: keep an ear out, so you know if someone's coming.

That's probably one of my favourite drives in the whole country. I've taken photos on roads too, and please be careful. We all want to stay safe.

The waste dump in Twizel

They wanted to reach Tekapo with the sun still up, to catch the sunset and do some stargazing. Then they stopped at the waste dump in Twizel, his wife decided to give it a go, and she lost the cap of the waste container down the disposal hole.

It was a rental, so they grabbed sticks and spent ages trying to fish it out, with no luck. In the end they went to the Caltex next door and put a smoothie cup over the top. When they returned the van, they found out the cap was covered by insurance.

It was the low point of the trip, going from that big high to fishing in not the greatest conditions, and they still joke about it to this day.

Tekapo after dark

They missed the sunset, and they still got their night sky. Hamish had a new phone and wanted to prove you don't need to carry a big DSLR around, so he used its night mode and got some really cool photos. His wife, who is very DSLR all the way, got better ones (he won't tell her). They caught the sunrise not too far away the next morning.

Christchurch by e-scooter

After Tekapo, the wedding and all the travel caught up with them, so they had a chill morning. On the way to Christchurch, they pulled in at an old-school petrol station with the old pumps and a couple of old cars outside, and took some photos.

In Christchurch, they took their luggage to their accommodation, cleared out the campervan and returned it at the airport. Then they shared one Lime scooter with 15% battery, Hamish driving and his wife on the back, before switching to e-bikes. They enjoyed it so much that they went back out on e-scooters that evening, zipping around Christchurch and looking at the old cathedral. A little bit costly, and a lovely evening.

Scooters are such a good way to get around a city. When I was working in Wellington for a few days, I got a week-long pass with unlimited use and scooted everywhere, and even for a short trip it worked out cheaper than paying by the minute.

Caravan living and the next road trip

How the trip sparked caravan life

The honeymoon was the first time Hamish had travelled in a campervan or motorhome. He and his wife started talking about how they could do it: wake up one morning, decide you don't want to live there anymore, pack up and go somewhere else. Or, as Hamish puts it:

"if you don't like your neighbors, just pack up and go somewhere else."

The other push was rent. They were in a three-bedroom house, and once you added utilities, rent was taking most of what he earned, so buying a caravan and paying it off made more sense.

Their first is a 2007 Sprite, quite tidy with a few quirks. Hamish used to tidy up cheap cars and sell them on, so when a caravan came up for sale on the site right next to his, he bought it to renovate inside and out. He'll share the conversion with time lapses and before and after photos.

Living in a caravan has its moments. While we were recording, someone started mowing the lawns right outside his window, and as Hamish says, one of the perks is absolutely no soundproofing whatsoever. He sees that as part of it:

"not every part has to be enjoyable because if every part is super great, then it kind of … It's almost too good to be true. … You've got to have the ups with the downs, I think."

That's why I tell everyone to try van life. You'll either hate emptying the waste tanks and all the nasty bits, or you'll love the freedom of waking up somewhere new.

Up north next

Their plan for spring and summer is a road trip up north. Hamish lived in Dargaville for six months and never went to the Kai Iwi Lakes, and people can't believe it. So he wants to drive straight up the gut to Cape Reinga, do a U-turn and come down the coast, then on to Auckland and across to the Coromandel. As someone born and bred in the North Island who hasn't explored it all, he wants to tick it off.

Hamish found the same thing in Tauranga, where people who'd lived there most of their lives didn't know about two gorgeous waterfalls nearby.

His dream South Island trip is to take the caravan across on the Interislander, give it four or five weeks, and go from Picton to Nelson, down the West Coast, across to Queenstown and on to Milford Sound. He wants to see the winding road to Milford he's watched in so many videos, and to fly his drone over the van on it.

Next time, he'd also take longer. One of his biggest regrets is how short the honeymoon trip was. He'd love to repeat it from mid-June into July, with maybe a bit of snow on the roads, over a few weeks, and spend a couple of days at Mount Cook staying at Glentanner.

Places from this episode

• Queenstown
• Lake Wakatipu
• The Remarkables
• Arrowtown
• Cromwell
• Wānaka
• Mount Cook
• Glentanner
• Twizel
• Tekapo
• Christchurch
• Whangamatā
• Tauranga
• Dargaville
• Kai Iwi Lakes
• Cape Reinga
• Coromandel
• Picton
• West Coast
• Milford Sound

Follow Hamish

• Instagram: @unofficial_gram

More like this

• The Ultimate New Zealand South Island Road Trip in Winter with Barb and Reg
• A Bucketlist Birthday Group Trip to New Zealand with Travel Podcaster Jackie Nourse
• Avoiding Vanlife Mistakes and Life on the Road in NZ with Tiff and Nathan
• The Ultimate New Zealand Road Trip with Dane and Stacey

Until then, keep adventuring :)