Edmund the Camper (and the time we stole a shower)

So I’ve decided I quite like camper-vanning. And I quite like driving an automatic. It’s like driving a go kart, which definitely adds a certain thrill to your journey. Mum wants to know how we’re getting on living on the road, so I thought I’d share with you some things we’ve discovered while camper-vanning so far.

Firstly meet Edmund. He’s our trusty camper who is a bit like the third member of our little party. He’s rather old (we think 1999) and has done a whopping 336,000km so he deserves respect. He is dwarfed by most other campers on the road (hello budget) but he’s got a damn-site more character than most. And we love him for it.

OK, so some things we’ve learnt so far on our journey…

1)      We are both deaf

2)      We are both inarticulate

3)      That the previous 2 points make for some rather comedy/annoying /entertaining conversations.

4)      I am a bad driver (no revelation). This is particularly apparent when Brodie grabs the door handle in terror every time I drive round a corner (rather reminiscent of my early driving avec Papa Salter-remember Dad?!). When you consider how far we’ve driven so far, that’s a lot of white knuckles! He assures me it’s just the roads and not my driving, but I’m no fool.

5)      I can lose any single item within 5 seconds of finding it.

6)      Brodie can find any single item within 5 seconds of me losing it.

7)      There is only so much fresh pasta you can eat in any consecutive meal without going crazy (Ad-you thought that meal we made in Hepburn Springs reminded you of your student days, well we have taken it to another level. Today I bought Nutmeat. Yes it’s as bad as it sounds).

8)      Brodie is quite simply talented at finding unique hiding places for our valuables. Genuinely he’s like a squirrel on a mission (and is like a puppy-dog with 5 tails when he finds a new one). Leaving the van for just a 10 minute outing becomes a covert mission of great importance.

9)      Pants have more than a day’s usage on the road. In my case this is rather out of necessity than choice as I appear to have left half of mine in Melbourne (sorry Leas). In Brodie’s case I think it’s less necessity and more novelty.

10)   Showers are hard to come by when you only want to pay $6 (£3) per night to stay somewhere.

This last point is rather significant as it means we at one point went 4 days without a shower (apart from a dip in a lake and a hair-wash in a stream). I am aware this is distinctly gross. However each day we say ‘we must find a campsite with a shower tonight’, then get lured in by the wonderful beauty of the Department of Conservation (DOC) campsites which are all in simply stunning locations and get lured in by the super-cheap fee, and low and behold it’s another stinky night without a shower.

On the 4 day streak (our record so far), we finally broke the trend by stealing a shower. This was a highly planned, and very cloak-and-dagger/drive-by type setup, whereby we targeted the largest holiday camp we could find in Te Anau. One of us then drives to the most inconspicuous spot and waits in the driver’s seat while the other one runs in and has The World’s Fastest Shower, and then we switch (incidentally it’s also where I managed to do an entire underwear wash in 3 minutes flat). Then we get the hell out of there as quick as we can, adrenaline racing. We decided that we’d make pretty pants bank robbers if that’s how scared we get stealing a shower.

Brodie's idea of packing

My idea of packing!

All in all though, we bloody love our little trio. We’re so lucky we have the flexibility to explore this fascinating country and just follow our noses down any nook and cranny we come across. 

Thanks Edmund you little gem!