Our first Christmas abroad, far away from our home country. Christmas in New Zealand for a European Family. Storytelling with the language of Photography.
In Hungary, Christmas is at Winter.
Winter is freezing. Mornings, when you step out the door, the cold stings your face. The sparkling snow that crunches under your feet. Even the slush. These are: Christmas. The smell of the pine tree! Orange, cinnamon, gingerbread. Lighting candles. Hot cocoa while watching a Christmas movie and warming up by the stove where the wet gloves dry. What else but this is Christmas?
In New Zealand, Christmas is at Summer.
How weird! For us, definitely. Santa at the beach in flip flops? We, who were not born in New Zealand, have to find our Christmas Spirit here. It is a serious challenge.
It did not take a long time to realise, the best decision is not to try relive something from our latest Christmases.
Here in New Zealand, they usually spend Christmas time at the beach. And with hiking and camping. Summertime Christmas in the Nature, under the warm Sun! Does not sound soo bad, does it?
So, we decided to make something, that we have never done before: a serious, unforgettable, adventurous Christmas Family Road Trip!
They didn’t predict good weather, but if it’s a Christmas adventure, we don’t have the opportunity to wait for friendlier times. We must go! So I started diving into weather sites and researching where to stay. Where it won’t be rainy?
Do you believe in Weather Forecast? I used to as well… till our wet Christmas Road Trip in New Zealand…
But is was unforgettable, and adventurous for sure!
We live in Christchurch, so our trip started from there, and our goal was Queenstown. We planned to spend our first night at Lake Tekapo, but the weather forecast promised nothing good. So we drove further, and further, and further, until dark surprised us…
Have you ever tried to built a tent at night? You should absolutely try it, a perfect challenge for family stress management!
But it worth a lot, because of the surprise of the morning view!
We guessed, we were next to a lake, but it was extremely beautiful to catch a glimpse of it in the early morning light.
Unfortunately, our sleep was not dry. We drove far from the promised overnight rain and unexpectedly it rained almost all night here as well… Ahh, those little noises in the dark, the sound of raindrops slowly, gradually dripping into the tent…
Fortunately the Sun helped us next day, and not long after, all the sleeping bags were also dry.
We planned our next camping spot – and the way to there – more carefully. It was also near to a lake, but we didn’t want to built our tent in the dark again, maybe too close to the water…
During our trip, we saw a lot of breathtaking places, but our most favourite was Lake Pukaki. We visited it twice, in different weather. We had amazing lights and it showed her fantastic beauty in different ways each time.
The water felt refreshingly cold!
Amazing, mystery fog, and a day later, snowy mountain ranges appeared from there! The same picture, in different weather conditions:
We finally arrived to Queenstown, and visited the city. We spent most of our time at the lakeside, and enjoyed the Christmas Sunbathing, and the view of the mountains.
To my sons, cars are always an interesting thing. They are looking at unusual cars, they are talking about them, they knows the names of every types. And they are adoring old ones. So, it wasn’t a questions to stop during our journey in then Mackenzie Region, when we suddenly saw this:
This magical place called Three Creeks. Everything was closed, when we passed by and decided to stop, but no one minded. The boys were amazed.
Our Christmas Family Road Trip was a really unusual one for our family. We also had funny, annoying and wonderful moments. Overall, I hope the Camping Trip is becoming a New Zealand Christmas Tradition for us.
