2020 was a unique year for everyone not for many good reasons but closing the borders in New Zealand, gave us the chance to visit New Zealand south island in summer time with almost no tourists at all. Almost 4 million tourists visited NZ in 2019, most of them mainly visiting the south island in the peak season which is November till March, New Zealand summer time! It makes it super expensive to visit New Zealand at the right time and almost impossible to book huts for great walks or even book campervans assuming you can afford the high end prices. Main huts on Milford sounds great walks are normally booked for a year in advance. Tourism is playing a major role in the New Zealand economy. Just in 2019, 8.4% of the population were directly employed in the tourism industry. Covid 19 and serious borders restrictions hit NZ hard and shook the tourism industry, sadly lots of people lost their jobs but on the other hand some services that were normally out of reach for New Zealanders due to their high cost, became more available including flights to the south island from NZ north island and also car rentals especially campervans which are the common way of transportation/accommodation for tourists. So to support locals and enjoy the country while it’s empty and affordable and also while we can not practically leave country to go anywhere else, we decided to travel to the south island of NZ for our first road trip after 7 years of living in this country.
We’ll get back to why campervan is the best means of transportation in New Zealand in a separate post but let ‘s start the New Zealand south island trip together.
After a short flight to Christchurch, the biggest city of the south island, we picked up our campervan, a Mercedes sprinter. after a short introduction on how to use it, first stop was the grocery shopping for the essentials.
With no fixed itinerary for this trip and two weeks to get back to where we started in Christchurch, our plan was pretty flexible. Arriving in Christchurch, the weather wasn’t promising for November. It was a heavy rain in north and it was snowing in south so we finally decided to head north to Kaikoura and travel counter clockwise. It was almost 4:00 pm when we finished our grocery shopping in Christchurch and headed north toward Kaikoura. It was raining heavily and the rental company suggested us to stay in a powered campsite to charge the car battery fully before free camping. There are few apps that can be used for finding campsites in NZ which we get back to in a separate campervans post. From one of them that we use mostly in north island as well we found an interesting campsite by the beach just 5 km before Kaikoura. By the time we got there and found a beach front campsite, it was already dark. We had a quick dinner and went to bed. It was raining all night long.
After waking up late and getting disappointed with the weather, we decided to carry on driving north, passing Kaikoura and carrying on to Seddon. Before leaving on this trip, one of my colleagues told us about 180km gravel road from Seddon south. The plan was checking to see if the road is open and then decide to go to Nelson lakes and from there toward west cost or taking the gravel road and drive down south to Hammer springs.
It was almost lunch time that we got to Seddon and checked the road conditions. After getting confident that the road is open with some time restrictions from DOC, we planned for the road trip for the next day.
Well here is where the plan flexibility becomes handy. We decided to fill up the car and camp somewhere at the beginning of the road and hit the road the next morning.
Seddon is a small town in Marlborough, New Zealand. It is located 25 kilometers (16 mi) south of Blenheim, close to the mouths of the Awatere river. The gravel road to Hanmer spring starts in Awatere Valley where both sides of the river in the valley is covered by vineyards.
A combination of a cool yet high sunshine climate, low rainfall and free-draining, moderately fertile soil produces uniquely vivid wines. Marlborough put New Zealand on the international wine stage with its exquisite Sauvignon Blanc in the 1980s. Over 20,000ha of vines (around 2/3 of the national total) are under the care of local wine producers, making it the country’s largest wine region.
We found a free DOC camp side close to Awatere river and camped there for the night.
Seddon to Hanmer Springs:
The weather started to clear up the next morning and by 9:00 we were on the road. 180 km road to Hanmer springs, starts in Awatere valley with stunning views of vineyards with the snow covered mountains background. A perfect start for an epic road trip. almost 10 km into the valley road condition changes to gravel and vineyards give their place to the hills covered with lush green grass where sheep and cows scattered around are enjoying the fresh spring grass.
Road condition is generally good along the way. We weren’t sure at the beginning if our campervan will be fine on the road but we had no problem at all. The weather was changing all the time though and we were driving through sunny spots for a moment and then through the snow and rain in the next minute.
Half way between Seddon and Hanmer springs is Molesworth station. It has a heritage cottage that can be used for overnight stay for the people who are trekking on lots of trekking tracks around the area. Apart from that and a resident ranger house and a gate which is open 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, there’s nothing else there. It’s clearly mentioned at the beginning of the road though.
All the way to Molesworth we’ve only seen one other car and carry on from Molesworth toward Hanmer Springs we’ve seen no one till we got close to Hanmer springs township. There are lots of walking / trekking tracks along the way but just driving such an amazing road is a unique experience by its own. Let’s have a look at some of sceneries along the road.
The only piece of advice would be just allowing enough time to drive through. It took us 6 hours to get from Seddon to Hanmer springs. We didn’t have long stops along the way but we had quite a few short ones to take some photos, stretch our legs and fly the drone.
We pretty much had the road for ourselves for the entire trip. Road condition was pretty good even when it started to rain so we don’t see any problem driving this road but because of the lack of traffic, it’s wise to take extra care and allow enough time to go through it in the day time. There are quite a few cattle gates along the way which needs to be opened and closed which obviously adds to the fun of this road trip but the best part of it is the end. After driving for 6 hours and get dusty and tired, we ended up around 3:00 pm in Hanmer springs. As you can guess from its name, Hanmer springs is famous for its hot springs so we got directly to the town city center where hot pools are located. The Hot pool complex closes daily at 5:00 pm so we had enough time to soak up in hot water pools before calling off for the day in a cozy free camp site outside of Hanmer springs. Not to forget that we invited ourselves for an Irish beer and an Indian dinner to finish up a perfect day.
In the next post, we travel from east side of the south island to the west side and see more of New Zealand. till then, take care.
Michael Chernishov
December 9, 2020 at 12:24amNice blog post! I’ve lived in NZ my whole life and never been on the road through Molesworth station! Thank you for the photos. 🙂
One day…
akhodaparast
December 9, 2020 at 7:03amHi Michael, lovely to hear from you. You should definitely try it then. Definitely worth it. Azadeh