The final few days of my New Zealand holiday – before it was cut short due to the pandemic – were spent on a superb trip around with Bay of Islands with Travelling K, as well as exploring the Coromandel Peninsula.
After a few days in a hotel in Auckland I picked up my tiny one-person campervan and headed north. I had watched lots of YouTube videos about places to visit and drawn up a long list. This was going to involve lots of driving. In this episode I see a big tree, slide down some sand dunes, and take a ferry trip.
Before I picked up my rental campervan and headed off around New Zealand’s North Island, I took the chance to visit the Covi Motorhome, Caravan and Outdoor show in Auckland.
In which I begin the long-awaited holiday of a lifetime to New Zealand, spending a few days in Auckland first of all and then travelling in a tiny campervan.
I mentioned in a recent video that I was going to test whether the new “acoustic ducting” from Propex would really reduce noise levels of the HS2000 propane (LPG) heater in the van, plus I wanted to point my infra-red temperature sensor at the exhaust pipework to see how hot it really gets as it wends its way from the heater to the outside of the van, so in this video I do both those things.
On December 29th, some wonderful friends I used to work in Kent with decided to have a catch-up and meal at a local pub, and I was invited along too. I went down in the campervan and stayed overnight on the road overlooking the sea. Before I left in the morning, I went for a quick tour of the seafront. This is the video of that trip (obviously)
Just a quick message to my lovely viewers to say thanks for tuning in and all the comments and here’s to van adventures and DIY projects in 2020!
After many months with the campervan in secure storage while I went cruising around the canals on my narrowboat (for which, see www.cruisingthecut.co.uk), I am now moored for winter and that means I can go and get the van again and begin my plans for what to do with it and where to go over winter.
Continuing the campervan journey, we went across a very narrow and ancient bridge, up to Llangattock Escarpment, over to Sugarloaf Mountain and finally to the Llangattock wharf where the canal barges of old would have been laden with lime after it was brought down from the quarry by tram.
Back in February I went to lovely Wales once more and visited the Begwyn Hills, then popped over the border to Hay on Wye and ended up going up Llangattock escarpment. This video covers the first two of those.