Adventure Logbook
Destination: the world
TIMEFRAME: foreseeable future
Start date: Mid 2025
plan: the road less travelled
TIMEFRAME: foreseeable future
Start date: Mid 2025
plan: the road less travelled
 This free DOC camp at Gabriel's Gully, just out of Lawrence, was a beautiful spot to park up for a couple of nights. It's dog-friendly, has three awesome walks close-by which are also dog-friendly and filled with the rich gold mining history of this area. We camped down by Gray's Dam along with a few other caravan setups - a quiet spot we thought, considering this was during the school holidays. There is a lovely open area with plenty of space for a few campers and is free & available to those self-contained, as there are no facilities out at Gabriel's Gully - it is a pack in, pack out. We were treated to a couple of warm sunny days before the weather turned to rain on our last day. Unfortunately we didn't get a sunset worth photographing however the misty clouds that came down in to the gully on our last morning was giving Twilight Forks vibes! This spot would be magical in Autumn with all the larch trees turning in colour I reckon! We really enjoyed spending some time roaming the character streets of Lawrence too. Also worth a drive by if you're out this way is what's left of the historic Blue Spur township up on the hill.   We will no doubt be back to this area (hopefully for the Autumn colours!) but also there's one walk we missed out on doing as the weather turned and you guys know we love finding dog-friendly walks we can do with Teddy! You can check out more from our adventures in this area in this YouTube episode...  Alongside creating videos of our adventures, this new travel life has also re-invigorated my joy for picking up my camera just for myself. Recently we ventured in to Lake Opuha in the Mackenzie District with the van. This small lake is dammed for irrigation and incredibly low at present, just far enough off the beaten track to be a fairly quiet spot to park up and camp for the night. There are 3 freedom camping spots around this lake and we chose the farthest area around the lake which proved to be much nicer and quieter than the first one we visited - we ended up getting the whole place to ourselves for the night (if you don't count the hundreds of Canadian Geese across the other side of the lake from us)! I loved photographing the landscape around us as the sun set over a snowcapped Mount Dobson. This mountain range is probably more commonly photographed from the Lake Tekapo side, as Lake Opuha sits east of Tekapo and north of Fairlie. It has it's own ski field too. The next day on our way back out east we stopped in at Opuha Dam and did the walking track which follows the lake around to the boat ramp and first freedom camping spot (the one we by-passed as it was mainly all sloping and had a lot of muddy donuts & skids from 4wd'ers marking up the grassy areas). You'll have to watch our YouTube episode to see the walk and the dam though, but here's a few of my favourite photos from our night at Lake Opuha. The lake itself and the dam lookout is well worth checking out if you're travelling in the Mackenzie District and want to get off the highway!     Have you been to Lake Opuha? I imagine it's a great lake for boating in Summer, although perhaps it gets too low??
In this vlog I'm taking a solo road trip of over 900kms through the frosty Winter landscape of the South Island of NZ. We hit up a wild camp, spend time with family, pick up some new van gear while back South & get brave with driving this 7 metre long 4x4 van all by myself. Oh did I mention it's my first time alone in the van?! We’ve been in our van over a month now. Long enough for the romantic notions of #vanlife to have been replaced by all the realities of this unconventional way of living. Sharing 15 square metres of space with another adult and a dog is a constant juggle. Nothing can be left sitting out otherwise the space gets cluttered super fast. Storage space is very, very finite. The grey water tank or the toilet always needs emptied, or both! The floor needs cleaned multiple times a day. And our whole home is constantly under attack of an earthquake every time we drive. This lifestyle is not for everyone. I'll be honest - the first couple of weeks I wasn't entirely convinced it was actually going to be for me either! But for all the realities and teething problems that inevitably arise when you try something new for the very first time, there are simplicities that I already love and new appreciations for what this lifestyle provides - which is less about the van or any material possession, and rather about life itself - getting outdoors everyday, seeing new places, having lunch with a view, spending time with people, and a new kind of freedom. Is it stressful living in a confined space without so many conveniences? Yes, absolutely yes. It’s also been stressful just getting moved in and attempting to get it set up for living in. I miss everything about our old home. It's only really in the last couple of weeks that I've stopped thinking about our old home with sadness on a daily basis. It didn't help that we spent almost two months in limbo with not much routine, in a shared space and during the colder months of the year too. I missed my cozy small home. I missed our fireplace. I missed my garden. I missed the call of the chickens when I stepped outside. I missed our bath. I missed how spacious 65 square metres of home felt. And I really missed our shower and all the hot water that just flowed when you turned the tap on. Long, hot showers is a topic no van lifer online really seems to talk about. In fact many van dwellers don’t even have showers in their vans! While the shower is nice in our van, it runs beautifully hot with great pressure - there is nothing long about a van shower when you have such limited water! And a long, hot shower has become my new most luxurious treat. Recently we visited a hot pools complex - while of course the steamy relaxing hot pools were an absolute treat in themselves, I was so excited to take a long, hot 'everything' shower afterwards without worrying about running out of water while I shaved my legs and shampooed my hair. I can see why many van lifers have gym memberships that they can use around the country, for the gains but also for the use of shower facilities. I’ve taken long, hot showers for granted my whole life and I didn’t realise it. When I was a child our family home was on rain water so we were always conscious of water consumption and then as an adult paying the bills I haven’t made a habit of taking extra long showers either. So it’s not like I’m suddenly luxuriating in half hour long showers whenever we stop anywhere with a shower. When I say long, hot showers I simply mean being able to take my time and wash myself without turning the water off in between. Don't take that luxury for granted friend!
While I appreciate the new awareness of limited resources in a van, there is a partnered gratitude for what have now become luxuries. I took for granted the blissful enjoyment of being able to stand under a stream of hot water, let the warmth soak into my bones and the pressure of the spray massage out the day’s activities. I never gave it a thought as to how much water one human truly wastes in a day. Nor the convenience of flicking a switch & having endless power regardless of the weather. Isn’t there that saying about not truly appreciating something until it’s gone?! Well that is me. The first few weeks of van life has shown me just how used to home comforts I was and it’s already taught me new gratitude for the simple resources. As this lifestyle becomes our new normal I'd like to hold on to that gratitude. We have taken delivery of our van from Jayco Auckland and completed our first road trip doing over 1,500 kilometres back to Southland in it. Join us for the journey of getting to know our new home on wheels in our 2 part series on YouTube. And on the second leg of our road trip we answered all the questions we have received about our plans for van life. Next stop; moving in & living full time van life! We did one last camping trip in the Surf to our favourite local place at Easter weekend, before we become #vanlife nomads and I probably won't want to 'camp out' in the rooftop tent anymore after the luxury of 'glamping' in a van haha! I also share some info on how I find & plan out the NZ trips we’ve done to date. And we’ve got some exciting news on the van progress! Check out the episode on YT and give us a like and subscribe to see more on the regular.  There is a heaviness I have experienced about closing one chapter in life in order to start another when I am very much aware that the chapter I’m leaving behind includes some of the best days of my life. Last week we shifted out of Devon Cottage. After weeks of sorting, preparing and organising - it was finally time to shift the last boxes into storage, pack up the few things coming with us in the van and clean all the surfaces as we closed the door behind us one last time and said goodbye to Devon Cottage. We thanked the property for all it had taught us and given us over the last five years. Grateful for our time being it's custodians. Change in life is inevitable and constant. We made the decision to build a new lifestyle here at Devon Cottage and now we’ve made the decision to create a new lifestyle on the road. They aren’t polar opposites; both give us simplicity and freedom of our time. But we also knew it wouldn’t work for us to keep a foot in each life, we had to make the decision to leave one behind for the other. Our lives are a series of the choices we make, taking us down different roads and even indecision takes away other alternatives from us. Leaving Devon Cottage means closing the door on some of the best times of my life, on a lifestyle I still adore. I guess the heavy emotion that I've never felt before about closing this chapter is because I’m leaving one good thing for another very unknown thing. In the past change has often looked like leaving behind something that no longer served me for some new possibility. This doesn’t feel like that. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a new kind of change for me.  And in serendipitous timing, the day we handed over our keys to the real estate agent we also received news that our van was embarking on a ship headed to the port of Auckland and hopefully we will be seeing it in just a few weeks time!!!
We've spent the last month preparing for van life as we pack up our house, put things in to storage, purge A LOT and consider what we need to take with us to live on the road. In this YouTube episode I bring you along for the journey of downsizing from a 65 square metre tiny home to a mere 15 square metres of van! Sharing the finer details of our big news in this fresh YouTube episode...  In no particular order... Long showers under the rain fall shower head. Mainly just the ability to stand under the hot, luxurious streaming water without worrying about water consumption because I know this will soon be changing. In the van we will have very limited water which we’re hoping we can live off for up to a week at a time - as we want to be able to get off grid as much as possible! So we’ll be implementing military style showers. And hair washing day will become one of life's absolute luxuries!  The abundance and beauty of my cottage garden. It’s a gorgeous time of year right now where the gardens are filling out, brimming with produce ripening and flowers blooming as the food forest turns into its annual lush jungle. I’m going to miss this backyard so much. The hens chatting away to me whenever I step outside, the bird song and all the colours as they change with the seasons. I’m trying not to think about just how much work, sweat and love I have put into this garden as when I do I get a bit emotional to be leaving my young trees behind knowing I won’t see them grow tall and that I won’t witness the garden mature and evolve. I’m so dang proud of what we’ve created in our backyard which was all just lawn when we first purchased the property. I thought we’d be here forever and I have loved seeing the progress each year as we developed more and more of the backyard. To think we won’t be here to enjoy the fruits of our labour has been one of the biggest hurdles for me to commit to full time travel and it’s something I am still processing. A piece of my heart and soul is attached to this place. My well stocked pantry and storeroom, because I know I’m going to struggle to fit my ingredients and whole foods into the van storage, let alone the limitations I will have with hardly any bench space and no oven! It's not that I'm dreading this part of van life, it’s more that I just want to go into it with realistic expectations rather than some romanticised version of #vanlife and I am so grateful for this chapter of life we created here at Devon Cottage. I will always have the memories of this perfect little homestead. Being able to walk a few steps outside and harvest seasonal fruit and vegetables for a meal. This is probably the biggest part of our current life that I’m going to miss - the control and the self sufficiency we have with our garden produce.  Never running out of power, water or other utilities. Gosh we take it for granted that we have power for anything and everything we turn on with a flick of a switch! That when we turn on a tap, clean drinkable water will flow out endlessly. Consumption of these basic resources is about to become front of mind for us and I’m kind of thrilled by that; to be even more mindful about our footprint on this earth and it’s resources. Just how well we designed and built this house. The small details. The intention behind our design choices. This space feels so home-y, comforting and cozy to me and I really hope this home will become a sanctuary to someone new like it is for me right now. Space to spread out. While Matt and I love each other's company sometimes it's nice to just be in your own space. Matt sometimes watches TV late, while I curl up in bed with a book. On a rainy day we can sit out under the porch and often still have the bi-fold doors open. Matt has the freedom to go work on projects out in the shed no matter the weather and everything is set up out there for him. I am appreciating all these small things about our life here knowing they will soon change and we'll have to adapt. However we're not choosing to live in a van to live in the van - we are doing it to be out in the world & explore nature. Sure there will be rainy days where we're confined to 15sqm together, but we also have the ability to move on and follow the weather!  I also need to make the most of the outdoor bath! I don’t use it often but it’s always such a luxurious treat when I do and baths are about to become few and far between, probably just when we’re travelling overseas and staying in nice enough hotels that have bath tubs. I am looking forward to the odd cold plunge in some beautiful remote spots when we’re travelling in the van though! Matt commented tonight about appreciating the dishwasher. Oh yes van life dishes are going to be a whole other story! We will have less dishes that are able to accumulate however even a small amount from one meal will likely takeover all the space in the kitchen so will need immediate attention. The convenience of being able to stack dirty dishes away into the dishwasher until it’s full and ready to turn on will be a luxury we will soon not have. I'm also appreciating how much freedom Teddy has to potter about our big backyard, to go visit his chickens in the mornings, to run through the wee pathways he's made in the food forest. Knowing he's safe within the walls of our fence. Teddy loves adventure and a good bush walk so his life is about to get just as exciting as ours, however it will mean a lot more time on lead and not being as free to roam all the time. Lastly I am appreciating community. I know we have loved ones all over this country to visit and we will always come home to family. I have no doubt we'll make friends and connections on the road too. But it will be a different kind of community to what we have here as we'll always be saying goodbye. I'll miss the rural, close knit community of Riversdale that I've been a part of since a child. I'll miss our beautiful neighbours and the ability to just walk over to a friends house for coffee.  What have I missed? Let me know in the comments what you would add to the list if you were giving up your comfy home lifestyle for van life??
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