Our original plan was to pick up our camper van from the airport then head back into the city to visit the Auckland museum. However, it took a long time for Maui to go through their procedures before letting us have the van. We decided that it would be better to set off to our eventual destination. All of us were still a bit jet-lagged and feeling sleepy in the afternoon so we didn’t want to be driving into the evening.
We travelled south down State Highway 1. This road is a motorway through Auckland but soon becomes just one lane each way. The roads in New Zealand aren’t busy and we found driving on them fairly easy. Other than the rule about giving way when turning left, driving in New Zealand is very similar to England. At Hamilton we turned onto SH39 and drove down to Otorohanga.
SH1 passing through the village of Gordonton north of Hamilton.
Our accommodation plan was for us to find a camp site each night. My friends would sleep in the campervan whilst I would stay in an on-site cabin. This gave us all a bit of privacy. In Otorohanga we soon found a basic campsite but their one cabin was already occupied. We decided to find a motel for me to stay in but at the southern end of the town we found the Otorohanga holiday park. This was a good find as it wasn’t busy and their cabins were great quality.
The en-suite cabin that I stayed in. It cost $55 for the night, roughly £20.
