Camping; spending time getting closer to creatures and farther from creature comforts…

After living the life of luxury in our top floor flat in Auckland over looking the viaduct it is time for some back to basics living. Having planned that we will spend March camping around the South Island it was time to start to put a plan into action. It was tent buying time….

The new home

After a quick online research, a couple of trusty camper blogs later and a price comparison we headed to a few of New Zealand’s outlet stores.

119 NZ $: double sleeping bag (Torpedo 7)

99 NZ $: 4-man navigator south tent (The Warehouse)

39 NZ $: double air bed mattress (The Warehouse)

30 NZ $: car pump (Super cheap auto)

The comfort debate

There were a few differences in opinion over what we needed for the ultimate couples camping trip. One may have thought a 4-man tent was too big for 2 people and then that one person may have swallowed their words after seeing 1 guy with the exact same 4man tent… one may have thought that an air bed was too expensive and would take up too much room, one may be wrong after the first nights sleep. Safe to say, if you are planning to camp for more than one night, don’t scrimp on the comforts!

The first night

After we successfully pitched up and we’re ready for our first night in our new temporary home (that didn’t float or tip to one side for once – yay!) our first night was purely to test out the sleeping, yet to buy cooking gear we hit the local pizza place and bought a takeaway pizza and enjoyed it with a bottle of red wine that we had leftover from our underthebed European wine stock. We were pitched in a grassy campsite looking over a little river on the east coast just outside of Mangawhai Heads in the north island.

The future of no floor

With a successful experience we are excited to camp more, watch this space for more tenting blogs featuring the South Island!