Meet the Van

Wanda the Wonder-van / Van Gough / Vance Vaughan / Vannie Jones / Vania Twain / Vanna Karenina / Van Diesel (the name and gender may still be under contention) was brought into existence in 2001 as a 4X4 workhorse, probably carting round a tradie's tools from job to job. The classy beast never imagined that they would be spending their retirement as a tiny home that would explore all of New Zealand.

It's a quirky build with the engine sitting inside the cab, meaning they can be a little vocal at times. we don’t mind though as they're trying their best and we're planning to find a way to shut them up soon. Sadly the sprinting days are behind them but they're still game for a marathon, happily trundling along at 90 kms for brief periods of time before wanting a gentle jog at 80. Don't worry though, we always stop to let traffic by when it starts to build up! They're not greedy when it comes to fuel, you might be mistaken thinking they'd guzzle it down but a full tank lasts at least 400km before it's time to put another $120 in. They never miss a beat - except for those coming out the speakers… missing a lot of those, but we have a portable speaker so it doesn't matter too much.

In the back we’ve got everything we’d need to live happily as long as we don’t mind never standing up fully. A table and two sofas take up the majority of space, at least until we turn them (with a little contortionism) into a comfy double sized bed in the eve. Under the two benches is more space than we can currently fill - although free space is shrinking by the day. The tail gate opens up almost fully, giving us a beautifully framed picture of where ever we've parked our boot for the day.

The kitchen consists of a two burner stove top, a small sink and a 12v chilly bin, it's not a lot but so far it's worked for us as long as we don't try for any meals too complicated. A large 25L container means we don't run out of water for the washing up, especially when you add our 12L container for drinking water into the mix. Our first addition to the van was three small containers from a charity shop for $3 that we screwed to the top of the shelf over the sink - we were lacking space for herbs and spices, it was a vital fix.

When the weather is sunny (a relatively rare occurrence so far) a solar panel turns light into enough electricity to keep our devices powered (or something like that), and an inverter means we can even charge our laptop too! Although we haven't run out of power yet, we're also able to charge our leisure battery from the cars inverter while driving about, very handy!

She wasn't quite a perfect as we first believed, with one of her tyres getting a bit bald around one edge from the uneven weight distribution we'll have to replace it before long. She's also had a little rust developing in some places, but its nothing that a wire brush and a little rust killer couldn't handle! Another slight problem we came across was the dining room table, it was prettily varnished to match the kitchen but unfortunately that meant it picked up some condensation when used as the middle part of the bed overnight giving us some damp cushions, ew! This we solved by sanding it back and going for a matt paint instead, on the plus side as least this helps tie in the colour of our new cushions! (update: paint was in fact glossy so we have replicated the problem but in a delightful shade of teal)

So we've covered the kitchen and the living-dining-bedroom, what about the most private room of any home, the bathroom? The simple answer is that it doesn't have one. There is currently a portable toilet stashed away under one of the benches but as it only fits inside there on its side that could prove a messy situation if it was ever used and "put away". We do have plans to create a custom toilet box meaning the toilet would the be usable but still discretely hidden away when not in use. Would it be private at all? No. Well, kind of, if we pull all the curtains we could ensure that no one outside of the van could see, but it still won't be private from each other.

Another non-private activity is using the shower - and we haven't got around to using it yet either. Our only means of showering self-sufficiently is by using the solar shower, although it sounds sophisticated I can assure you it is not. In practical terms its a large 20l sturdy black bag that you leave out in the sun all day, the suns warmth is absorbed by the black material and passed to the water inside. Once the nozzle is turned a slow stream of hot water should come out. As we don't have any space inside this would mean having a wash out in the open, probably wearing swimming gear as to not offend anyones sensibilities it hasn't been warm enough to really push us to give this a go yet to see if improvements need to be made.

It's hard to tell what will happen when the weather turns, will we be warm enough or will all the windows that give us beautiful 360 degree views leak far too much heat? We do have vague plans for winter and one of the most vital is not staying where the weather is the worst. Although the snow covered mountains of the South Island sound like a winter paradise I don't think were cut out for them really. Apart from that maybe some sun visors will come in use to help block the windows and worst comes to worst we can try to better insulate the roof.

There are things I wish I knew before setting off on this van-life adventure in New Zealand, for one it's far cheaper than staying in hostels but it's still not as cheap as I expected; there's insurance and registration fees and breakdown cover and fuel costs and gas and campsite costs and food. Yes, some of that is our own choice such as the insurance and breakdown but I'm not going to drive without insurance at least. Yes, there is freedom camping sites that are free but in some places they're few and far between - on this note in particular is feels like there used to be a lot more freedom camping than there is now. I also didn't realise that campsites fees were per person not per vehicle - this can chafe slightly when the cost is $15 each and the only facility is a toilet.

So that last paragraph sounded a bit negative but it's not all bad. We're free! Every morning (budget allowing) we can wake up and go where ever we want. With our little home on wheels we can get to places off the tourist trail and when we find a particularly good viewpoint we can stop and make ourselves a cup of tea in the back. It's also surprisingly comfortable and more spacious than it seems. It's a home that joins us on our adventures and it's far from perfect but it's ours.

Trip Date : Nov 2022

Last blog: We arrived in NZ

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