Japan!: New Zealand Day 1

New Zealand is absolutely adjective-defying. I read that somewhere in a travel book, and it's completely true. Chris, Katelyn and I left for New Zealand the day after Thanksgiving, and spent two amazing weeks there traveling around the South Island. We probably took over a thousand pictures, but we narrowed them down a lot. It'll still be tough to choose which ones go on the blog, but I'll do my best to keep it to a minimum. You're welcome.

We arrived in Christchurch after twenty-some hours of traveling exhausted, but anxious to get to the mountains. We picked up our campervan, unpacked the suitcases, bought some groceries for the trip, and began driving towards Lake Tekapo.

We loved our campervan. It was a great way to see the country. No reservations required, no checking in every evening and checking out each morning... and we could stay in the mountains, instead of navigating to a city to try to find a hotel.

It was a great van... Wilderness Motorhomes, in case you're interested.

Night one - We were so excited to arrive at Lake Tekapo!

To be quite honest, night one was pretty miserable. We didn't get to Lake Tekapo until after 9pm. The campsite we had planned on staying in was closed, and we didn't know where else to go. We hadn't yet had dinner. Oh, and we were pretty tired since we had each had about an hour of sleep on the 10 hour flight from Japan. We finally found an open business where we asked for directions to another campsite. We stayed at Lake McGregor, just a few minutes from Lake Tekapo. It was a great little campsite. Quiet, good views, not very many people...