Milka Teat

In the past few weeks we have entered into the world of “freedom camping” here in New Zealand. This is essentially just finding a park or rest stop without a “NO CAMPING” sign and setting up for the night. It’s great, because it’s free. We hadn’t done much since it was bloody cold at night in the past, and we (Andrea) wanted to pay for a camp site with power to run the heater.

We’ve been able to find some pretty amazing sites with better views than at most camp grounds. We’ve spent a few nights on those beautiful blue lakes we’ve been writing about. Craig even dared a swim in one on a warm day, but lasted under water only long enough for a picture since his limbs began to go numb with cold almost immediately.








For the last week or so we’ve been staying at the beautiful Invercargill Top 10 Holiday Park, run by Diane and Phillip. We’ve been doing a few hours of gardening or cleaning each day in exchange for a free place to stay and a few yummy home-cooked meals. They even put us up in one of their hotel-room-like units for the past two nights, so it’s almost seemed like a vacation away from our vacation... just with more weeding.

Today we begin our next adventure: we are going to live with a family on a dairy farm in the Catlins Forest area for a few weeks. We joined a group called Farm Help in New Zealand, which hooks you up with farmers and the like for whom you can work a few hours a day, in exchange for accommodation and meals. We have no idea what we will be doing, but we are confident it will be a great experience!