Our Touring Past

A few weeks ago Linda had organised a quick business trip over to New Zealand, so I couldnt miss the opportunity to tag along. The plan was to fly to Christchurch, hire a car and drive down the East coast to Invercargil then up the West coast back to Christchurch. Linda would have to attend a couple of meetings along the way so that would give me the opportunity to have a look around and to peer over a few fences on the look out for some of New Zealands elusive Historic Caravans.
We had been to New Zealand a couple of years ago on our honey moon, but we didnt see much in the way of old caravans.

On our way South we stopped at the Ashburton Vintage Car Club Museum to have a look around. It is a fabulous little museum run by the members of the car club. With the main reason I wanted to stop there was that I had heard that they had an old motorised caravan.
It turned out to be a 1926 international truck with a body that had been built by the late John Britten in the late 70's and early 80's.
The museum also has this very original International station wagon. How would this look travelling along the road with an Airstream caravan in tow ?
I almost forgot to add this photo of a very original early car that the museum has.
I came across this old caravanning photo stuck to a shop window in Timaru, I couldnt work out why it was there as it was a homewares shop and there were no other photos with it.

Lots more to come.

Hi Richard, With my wife being an ex Kiwi we have had a few trips to NZ over the years. This year we fly to Christchurch and will travel across to the west coast at Greymouth and then travel down to Wanaka for Xmas Day then move on to Dunedin where Judy was born. We then come back up the East coast to Christchurch. Seems to me a lot of touring history in NZ with some good museums such as you found.

Koala

Hi Ken.
You are going to do the exact opposite trip to what Linda and I did.
For the size of the country, New Zealand has some fabulous museums.

Cheers.
Richard.

We then headed South down to Invercargil where I found these 3 older vans sitting in the back corner of a caravan park in storage. They probably dont classify as Historic Caravans but I would say that even these vans are getting harder to find in New Zealand.
Since Invercargil is about as far South as you can go, we then started to head North up the West coast to Queenstown, the action capital of New Zealand. If you want to go jet boating, bungy jumping or swinging like a pendulum then this is the place to do it, but since we were on a tight schedule I didnt have time to do any of that.

Still heading North we came across this combination in a carpark at Wanaka. We waited a while for the owner but they didnt turn up, the van was a bit unusual as it was clad in tin and had a rear side door.


A little further out of Wanaka we stopped at the Wanaka Transport and Toy Museum , and what a great museum this is. As the name suggests they have a huge collection of cars, trucks ,motorbikes and toys for all ages.

They have one lonely FJ in their collection.
This nice looking old van.


As well as this old bus that would make a very unusual motor home.
Still heading North on our way back to Christchurch we found this Liteweight Caravan in yet another caravan park.
More to come.

I have finally found the time to finish off our trip to NZ.

Still heading back to Christchurch we found this old ply van in a paddock in the middle of nowhere.
Then a little further down the road we found this great old caravan in a riverside caravan park.
We finally made our way back to Christchurch, and while Linda was busy I headed off to the
Yaldhurst Museum where they have a great collection of cars and memorabilia but sadly no caravans.

They do have this old bus that reminded me of a photo I have of Mum and Dad on their honeymoon in Katoomba lined up along side a very similar bus.