Home, Sweet, Campervan

And so, it was back to being backpackers once more, in a town that is bursting at the seems with backpackers. People come to bungy jump, water ski, sky dive, ski and snowboard (in winter, sure), hike, mountain bike and more. Queenstown has an adrenalin-fueled atmosphere and you feel the buzz just walking around it's busy streets.

After hiking up steep tracks for lake and mountain views, breathing in the clean, fresh oxygen from the thick foliage all around and greedily devouring more Fergburgers, we picked up our Wicked campervan and bid beautiful Queenstown goodbye.

Having a set of wheels again - be they a tad clunky and exceptionally "well-loved" - reminded us of what real freedom felt like. In a campervan, every hour or every day is your own. There are no lost minutes zoning out in front of a television, no time waiting for a someone to finish in the shower (there are none) and no internet access offering hours of soon-forgotten entertainment.

As we cruised along in our old Toyota Estima, windows down, listening to colourful local radio, we were reminded that, like Australia, real beauty lies firmly outside of towns and cities. Queenstown is set in the most spectacular location, up in the Southern Alps, amidst imposing, snow-capped mountains, gushing rivers and a seemingly endless string of lakes.

We headed to Glenorchy, at the far west edge of Lake Wakatipu, where we camped out on the edge of the water, surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides. Our camper already felt like home: we had decked it out with a duvet, blankets, pillows, kitchen bits and, most importantly, a food cupboard. My thrifty gene had also come in handy: we had tea (English breakfast, Ceylon, Earl Grey, Chamomile and Green), coffee and hot chocolate courtesy of the hotels we had enjoyed with Med's parents.

We had heard the word "tramping" murmured in the past week or so. As much as I wanted to believe this was some kind of off-the-wall, very un-politically correct Kiwi past time (I wouldn't put it past them!) where people hoik penniless rogues off the streets and lock them up/burn them at the stake, this was thankfully not the case. Tramping is the Kiwi word for hiking, and "tramps" are as firmly a part of Kiwi-culture as the cauliflower ear.

The next day, we took part in a little tramping ourselves, in the foothills of the mountains, before heading south. A brief chat to a fellow camper and an act of fate brought us to a place called Orepuki in the late afternoon. I'm sure this town once had character, charm and perhaps even people. Today, most of the houses are boarded up and all commercial buildings, bar one, have been derelict for years.

We found the one, resilient place still open for business: the Orepuki Tavern. We were lured in with the promise of a free campsite in their back garden, with a few mangy looking sheep and one, stump-legged pony. Ah freedom, there's nothing quite like it.

I was volunteered by Med to go into the tavern to enquire about the camping. This would be one of many times when Med used his new, ever-fuzzing facial hair as a reason why I should do something to "give a better impression".

So off I trot, pushing the smeared glass door of the tavern open. Seven pairs of eyes turned to watch my entrance. "Hi," I smiled meekly, met by silence. If there's one thing we've learned about the Kiwis, that while they're the most open, generous, good-humoured people you'll ever meet, there's no time wasted on pleasantries and how do you dos. "We saw the sign out the back and was wondering if we could park up our campervan, it's small and..." I trailed off as all seven pair of eyes continued to watch me. "Wait there," said the thick-set woman as she walked to the back of the bar.

Here, a man stood over two, large deep fat fryers - this was also the town's only restaurant. I was sad to see that we'd missed the 'Speed sheep sheering' contest the night before and we wouldn't be around for 'Sarah's Tarts and Vicars divorce party' "John, can these people park their van in the field?". John, eying me while he held a fozen bag of battered-something-or-other up, replied: "Yes, just tell'em they need to buy a $100 worth of beer though!" - his large gut shuddered as he chortled at his joke. The woman walks back over to me, all the while I'm aware of a old, toothless man staring at me as he propped up the bar, pleased with John's joke and nodding his balding head in agreement.

After signing my name, country and D.O.B in a book for no apparent reason but to amuse the locals, I made a run for the door and heard tinkers of laughter as I stepped outside.

As appealing as the deep-fried fancies on offer inside were, I cooked dinner and we decided we had better go in for a pint in return for our free pitch. To my surprise, the crowd inside had more than doubled by now and, despite it being 6.45pm on a Sunday night, everyone was in various states of drunkenness. We ordered two pints of DB, a local spin-off of VB that tasted just as bad, and walked across the threadbare carpet to find two stools around an old-fashioned barrel. As soon as we had sat and taken our first gulp, a ruddy-faced man in his 60s failed to walk in a straight line as he made his way over to our table.

In the conversation that ensured, we understood around 30% of what his inebriated words, we made for an uncomfortable 25 minutes. One part we did understand was when he pointed out his wife, the woman in her bike leathers, even more incoherent than her husband. We watched as she mistook the window for the door and her husband explained, "Shus pissed as uh fart". We drank up, thanked the drunk man for the 30% of information we could decipher and headed to the only reason anyone visits Orepuki: Gem Stone beach.

Sadly, we didn't knowingly find any of the precious gem stones that wash up on this shore all year round, but Orepuki was a shining treasure in it's own, sheep sheering, beer drinking way.