By Conor
One year my cousin, my aunt, my brother and I went to New Zealand for holidays for 1 month, we were in Christchurch, that day we were going to get a campervan, we were renting a campervan from a company called britz, we were renting it for one week. The campervan we had was quite big, it had one double bed at the back of the van, and one double bed above the driver’s cab, there was a ladder in the cupboard to get up to the bed above the driver’s cab. On the outside of the camper van it said BRITZ, in big ugly orange writing. We then left the dealership with the van, when we got to our first destination, which was an old school camping place, we had to pay to get in, and they only took cash, and it costed $10 for 1 adult and it was free for children, and my cousin, Niamh was 26 years old, but the person who owned the camping site charged us for my aunt, Anna and then told us where we could go to park our van, and didn’t charge us for my cousin Niamh, because they thought that she was a child, the camping site was so old that there was no electric charger to get electricity in the campervan, so we were not able to watch television that night. In the morning we set off for our next destination, which was a place called Lake Tekapo, we got there at one o’clock in the afternoon. We went for a walk when we got there, because we had just been in a really cramped campervan for over three hours. After we got back from the walk we realised that this campsite had a place where we could plug in our campervan. The next day we got back in the campervan and we headed to our next destination, which was a place called Kaikoura, which is a whale place, we went on a whale cruise.
“This story perfectly captures the highs and lows of life on the road – no electricity in the evening, whale cruising in the morning – complete with a camper van that “said BRITZ” on the side “in big ugly orange writing.” A fantastic detail.”
— Dr Matthew Fogarty, University College Dublin, Ireland