So there’s the culture shock of going from a normal, everyday life where you have a job, friends and a normal daily routine to spending 24/7 with your family during an adventurous, out of the ordinary, extended stint of travel. That’s pretty extreme, right? Well now top that off by adding the element of a campervan to the mix. Oh wait, you thought there was a transition when you starting spending every waking moment all together? Now do that in about 4 square feet of space, mmmkay? Let me know how that goes. And maybe now is a good time to mention I’ve never been camping before in my entire life. So this is bound to go well, right?
All joking aside, I seriously had no idea what to expect at the thought of spending 22 days in a campervan with my family. I just went into it hoping that everyone would still be alive and quasi-liking (I’d even settle for just not hating) each other by the end of it.
Day one on the road…we pick up the campervan and head off. Well technically we head straight to a mechanic because there’s an issue with our luggage storage that needs to be fixed. But it’s a minor blip on the radar as it’s a small issue and fixed fairly quickly so we’re officially on the road. We stop to stock up on some essentials for the trip and then hit the road to head north. The goal is to make it a little further north tonight and then on to Russell tomorrow. Here we are on our first pit stop for supplies…look how happy and hopeful they look. This is going to be fun, right? This is the 2016 version of the “Griswold family truckster”. It’s clearly all smooth sailing from here.
Hmm, okay, here we are about an hour after that after being rear ended. Ah yes, nothing says smooth sailing like a car accident less than 2 hours into the trip!
Not the way we intended for things to start off, but the important thing was no one was hurt. Someone in front of us stopped short, we stopped and the car behind us did as well, but not the one behind them, which set off a bit of a chain reaction. We had damage to the back of the camper and our muffler was dragging on the ground. A local man driving by saw what had happened and pulled over and fixed our van for us or at least got our muffler to where it wasn’t dragging! Remember how I said Kiwi people are awesome? His name was Raj and he was our golden boy that saved the day and kept us on the road so we didn’t have to go to a mechanic. Thank you, Raj! After sticking around to finish all of the police reports we were back on the road. Fingers crossed for better luck moving forward…
The Detour Diary 