What I learned on a solo campervan tour of New Zealand's South Island

But no, this is reality. I’ve stumbled upon the surreal scene at the Otira Stagecoach Hotel, a place crammed to the rafters with extraordinary curios and abuzz with other equally agog travellers. The spur-of-the-moment stop, made just off State Highway 73 before entering the stupendously scenic Arthur’s Pass – one of the many headline tourist attractions on New Zealand’s South Island – is a perfect example of the spontaneity and freedom a road trip facilitates.

My eight-day journey had begun in Christchurch, where I met my four-wheeled ‘companion’ for the trip, a smart, brand-new two-berth EPIC+ campervan. A tad worryingly, her name was Break a Leg, but my apprehension faded as the patient Flynn took me through an in-depth orientation.

Alongside the basics, such as getting to grips with automatic transmission and leaving enough room when taking corners to accommodate the van’s 4.7m length, Flynn showed me the essential steps to transform the vehicle into a super-comfortable home on the road. EPIC Campers was co-founded by Andy and Cindy Ford in 2018, following their experience of traversing New Zealand by campervan, and they’ve distilled that knowledge into their small fleet of vans.

Everything you need has been cleverly incorporated, squeezing out the optimum use for the space, and highlights include a pull-out ‘kitchen’ complete with a gas hob, pans, utensils and crockery, a pop-up table and plentiful storage space for the provided bedding and towels, and your luggage. The dimmable mood-setting light and magnetic curtains, which attach easily to the windows tinted for privacy, are lovely extra touches.

Free camping is still very much a thing in New Zealand, but only tourists in ‘self-contained’ motorhomes can legally park up anywhere they fancy for the night. To meet this regulation, EPIC has kitted out its vans, which include the EPIC+ model and the EPIC model, with portable toilets for ‘emergencies’ on the road. All EPIC customers have a WhatsApp hotline to the small, helpful team for any other issues they may encounter, too.

With the practicalities done, I tentatively headed out, guided by Google Maps on my iPhone, towards Queenstown and the country’s third-largest lake, Lake Wakatipu, the first leg of the meticulous plan I had prepared in the run-up to the big adventure in April this year. Despite being a fairly confident traveller, I’d reserved overnight stays in official motorhome sites – New Zealand is geared predominantly towards this type of travel, and you can pitch up in incredibly located and well-equipped parks for as little as £15 a night.

But what I hadn’t factored in for the nearly six-hour, 500km drive – already a bit of a push – was the sheer natural wonder unfolding through the windscreen. State Highway 8 weaves through a magical scenic collage of velvet-cut mountains, flat riverbeds and vast grazing pastures populated with fat, contented livestock – cows of every colour, shaggy sheep reared for merino wool, deer and horses. And the road was a character itself, clinging to hairpin bends and crossing some of the country’s many thousands of one-way bridges over creeks with smile-inducing names such as ‘Wind Bag’ and ‘Glitter Bug’.

Driving Break a Leg was a dream, thanks to the automatic gearbox and the roadside signs anticipating every corner and gradient. EPIC is hands down one of the more stylish campervan operators in the country, which elevates the whole experience.

The summer crowds had also long gone, making the well-maintained roads almost ghostly quiet. It was stopping at practically every single lookout that stole time and forced me to abandon my plan to reach Queenstown and wearily check into a motorhome park in nearby Cromwell. Thankfully, turning the van into a cosy cocoon for the night was straightforward and I drifted into a deep sleep on the supremely comfy double-sized mattress.

The following morning, I reluctantly scratched my plan to visit Milford Sound in the south because it would have meant another super-long drive. With the help of the receptionist, a local full of insider tips, I sketched out a revised itinerary, one with a maximum of five hours of motoring a day. Solo travel means you come up against yourself and your limits, and you can either fight against them or relax and let the journey unfold organically. I chose the latter and didn’t regret it.

The drive from Cromwell to Frans Josef was a case in point. This is glacier and cloud-grazing mountain territory, but the heavens opened, obscuring much of the view. My idea to take a helicopter tour 6,000ft above the Fox Glacier was a bust, but the compensation was the wondrous waterfalls that thundered into life, including Fantail Falls on the famous Haast Pass, its 15-metre mountain-side descent throwing up fizzy evaporation above. The rain also lent an other-worldly atmosphere to the coastal section of the drive, where Jurassic-sized ferns and plants fought for space.

It was in Hokitika, a small characterful town I motored into towards the end of the day, that I had an eye-opening education in New Zealand’s relationship with possums. Mistaking a store called ‘Possum People’ for a charity shop supporting the animals, I was greeted with a nightmarish vision of hats, coats and errr, nipple warmers, made from their pelts. The salesperson, registering my shock, explained that while possums might look cute, the marsupials are a pest known for their voracious appetite for the native Kiwi bird.

As with all the best adventures, time quickly sped up as I explored as much of the island as possible. The drive through Arthur’s Pass towards Goose Bay, where the high drama of the snow-capped mountains gave way to rural pastures and crisscrossed vineyards as far as the eye could see – was as incredible as promised and gave me precious thinking time to process recent challenging life events, another positive facet of travelling this way.

My final night was spent at Kaikoura, a cool seaside town popular with surfers who make it their base to ride the waves of the surrounding beaches. I had a high adrenaline experience myself after plucking up the courage to ‘free camp’ on the outskirts, only to be awoken in the dead of night by scratching sounds on the side of the van before something scuttled off into the undergrowth.

In the calming daylight the next morning, I realised it was probably those pesky possums paying a visit. And yes, I did have to use the onboard toilet, but it felt like I’d gone through an important rite of campervan-driving passage. Buoyed by this ‘breakthrough’, it was with a sad heart that I put Break a Leg into ‘Park’ mode for the last time on my return to Christchurch after clocking up a total of 2000km. But it was a fleeting emotion, replaced by the memories and confidence I have gained for a lifetime.

Hire rates for an EPIC+ campervan are between NZ$80-$350 per day, depending on season and length of hire. Epiccampers.co.nz