Road Trip

Our bags are packed, we’ve planned the route, watched the YouTube videos of how the camper works and we’re ready for 28 hours in the air. The adventure starts tomorrow!

Our latest family adventure is a road trip around New Zealand for 3 weeks. We’re hiring a camper and off to make some family memories. We’re all super excited, New Zealand looks stunning and we can’t wait to explore. We’ll be flying into Auckland via LA, spending 3 weeks touring and then flying out of Christchurch back to to the UK via Auckland and LA. Our intended route below sees us arriving in Auckland, touring the North Island and crossing to the South Island early on Christmas Day morning....

Breakfast in the hotel again of bagels and coffee. Mad French-Canadian woman is still there chatting away in ‘French’ to strangers. We checkout and drive along Haight Street to the park and try to drive through the park. It’s mostly closed because of the women’s marathon today and so we head down to the water front but that’s closed off too! We drive back up the park and cross over it on the main road and down the other side....

Breakfast in the hotel of bagels and coffee. Strange French-Canadian woman lurking about and talking to people in French. (Except Di tells me, that her French is terrible, so no idea what’s going on there…) Over breakfast we decide to walk into downtown as it;s only 10 blocks away. We end up walking and talking for 10 blocks in the wrong direction! Thankfully it’s a nice day so we turn around and had 20 blocks in the other direction....

wake up at 8.30am, pack and take photos outside the cabin, locking ourselves out of the cabin in the process. The girl at reception gives me another key to let us back in. (Guess they are used to it as the doors are very easy to accidentally lock) Walk down to the main lodge for breakfast. Di has smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel with fresh fruit and I have poached eggs on English muffin with fresh fruit....

Get up around 8am and head for the breakfast buffet with our luggage after completing the automated checkout. After breakfast we pick up the car from the self park garage and head for Death Valley, driving through the mountains constantly trying to find a radio station that lasts more than 5 minutes. We arrive at Death Valley and take photos of us with the car next to sand dunes and then stop a bit further in at Stovepipe Wells for soda, souvenirs (obligatory fridge magnet) and a rest stop....

An early start at 6am. Breakfast of bagels and coffee in the motel breakfast room. Lots of people about at this time in the morning. Drive up to Bright Angle Lodge and wait for the mules to arrive at 8am. Have a briefing from a cowboy and get into first group to be assigned mules. I get a mule called ‘Bonnie’ but the name tag says Norman, so not sure what to call it....

Wake up at 8 and have French toast and home made jam for breakfast. Jana has Monday’s off work and so she’s taking us to Sedona. We drop Jana’s two girls at a friends house to play while we are out for the day and head on down to towards Sedona. We take the freeway on the way down. The canyons are beautiful and the buildings blend in with the surroundings very well due to tight building regulations....

Have waffles for breakfast from waffle machine in reception. Buy map - too large a scale - and head to the Hollywood sign. Use GPS to get there, which takes us to the middle of an intersection, and the view of the sign is average. Park up in a near by store and take a wander down to take some pictures. Have to dodge traffic and stand in the road to get half decent shots of us with the sign....

Arrive at Heathrow to find that BMI doesn’t fly to the US. They use United, would have been nice of them to tell us in advance. Get two seats together in their own row next to the window to Chicago. Have a 6 hour layover in Chicago where we walk up and down the passenger drop off as there is no other place to walk and we don’t have time to go into the city....