New Zealanders knows how to tent camp
As summer heads into full swing in New Zealand, the tourists and the kiwis are coming out to play. Our quiet and sleepy campgrounds are brimming to the edge filled with travels of all walks of life. Our Christmas was spent in Collingwood in Golden Bay. The weather was a bit dreary, but at least we saw some seals and some nice beaches. When we left this area we drove back to a free campground we had been staying at and now we are back at the Kiwi campground in Nelson (similar to a KOA) for the third time this month. What was a handful of campers has now turned into “tent city.”
Now I know that the US thinks of themselves as having the biggest and best of things, but these tents cannot be beat. These are multi-room palace tents that cost well over $2000 at the local outdoor stores. They come in all colors and shapes, octogons, squares, centipede shapes, blue, green, and even circus type colors. Lets take the person camping across from our one room 9×9 Kelty tent. His tent has 3 rooms, the furthest on the left has the modest queen size mattress on a cot, the middle room has a microwave stand with 3 shelves of food items, a tea kettle, bottle of champagne, with a mini-fridge, toaster over, and fan sitting to the side. The room on the right is for the kids to sleep in. This does not include the screened in area that shades the entire front patio and has one of the many tables adorning the site. Don’t forget the 5 room tent to our left. The families that do not have these tent palaces have the modest two room 70’s style tents or the only style of campervans we seem to see. America has a variety of campers like Kiwi’s do tents, but the Kiwi’s have one style of campervan only. This is an extremely wide pull behind camper that has a striped canopy to the side. These campers pivot on one axle with two tires and dos not have any sliders and must be at least 20 years old, I have decided this is the Kiwi rule. They take camping to a whole new level, bringing fenced in yards and clothes lines. Tony refers to this as “Woodstock”, I don’t think anything is newer than that either. Then there are the house campers.
House campers are in a whole new category. These bad boys are situated on a flatbed truck that is at least 30 years old. After that they build a house on it and tote these around with them. They are at least 15-20 feet high and as wide as the trailer. These can have multiple levels, colors, and various types living in them. I imagine there gas mileage is 1. We drove through one campground that held at least 200-300 campsites on a ½ mile stretch of beach. Whilst turning around from all of this redneck chaos, among all the house trucks, tents, clothes flapping in the wind, we saw the most amazing site yet. There he was teetering into the public outhouse, diapers sagging almost to his knees, was mullet baby extraordinaire. This two year old boy had the front half of his head shaved within ½ an inch with a flowing blond mullet all the way to his saggy bottom. His mullet beat Joe Dirt’s by a country mile. We were both too stunned to grab our cameras. Needless to say the campground scenery have been keeping us busy, but in all honesty it is truly great to see all the families enjoying the outdoors together and making the time to spend it with each other.
Our first month has passed and we are headed into the new year! Our job hut has just begun and the real work of trying to decide on a town to live in has started. Since we have only seen about 1/8 of the south island, it is difficult to decide if we look for jobs here or head further south. After living in a tent for a month, not having my own bathroom since Texas, showering once a week, and having all of my possessions stacked in a mini-van, I feel that I have been a good sport . But for Tony there has not been enough fish caught. Lucky for him, wherever we move there will be water, and there should be a fish or two looking out for him in there. The time has come for my own indoor plumbing, and at least our own room to inflate our air mattress in.
I will now start posting 3 items with each blog that include awkward moments and random observations.
Awkward moment #1: When you walk into the medical clinic to find the receptionist has on no shoes or socks. This is because at least 1/3 of the population never wears shoes…to the grocery store, down the side walk, and yes even to their medical receptionist jobs.
Odd observations #1: They don’t have pennies or nickels. NZ rounds there money to the nearest tenth, but really I think the nearest 20th because I have only seen 5 dimes.
Odd observations #2: Not only have we seen a variety of mullets, there is also a lot of rat tail hairstyles.
 |
| One of the many House Campers we have seen! |
