New Zealand - motor home travel with kids?

[Freya]

We havent even left for our Japan adventure yet but Im already planning our next international escapade; I figure we may as well get use out of our passports

Im thinking we will do a trip in winter 2014 to New Zealand, probably with some skiing included. We've always wanted to do the motor home thing and with 4 kids age 7 and under I think this might be a more affordable option.

Has anyone done the motorhome thing with kids in NZ?

Any advice on travelling NZ with kids, skiing in NZ with kids or anything else NZ with kids would be greatly appreciated!

[*Ang*]

We just came back from 4 weeks travelling NZ in a campervan/motorhome. We flew into Auckland and flew out of Christchurch. We went in May. Absolutely loved it, kids had a ball. The caravan parks were clean and all had great playgrounds for the kids.

We loved it so much that we can't wait to do it again. We went through Apollo for our camper and got a 6 bedder. We found that we could fit all 3 kids to sleep in the bed above the cabin and then we would sleep in the rear and there was no need to open up the third bed which is handy as you need all the space you can get! Not a lot of room for storage - during the day our bags were in the top bed and we would have to take them down at night. Never used the shower in the camper, too crowded and the shower facilities at the parks were all really good. It did get cold at night and the heaters in the campervans cut out once the outside temp reached a certain degree (for safety reasons apparently which was a bit stupid as that's when you needed it!). So halfway along our journey we stopped at one of the depots and picked up an extra doona.

Hmm can't think of anything else atm but if you have any specific questions I might be able to answer them for you.

[Artechim]

We are about to do a NZ caravan trip over the summer so I hope it is achievable! Will let you know how it goes.

Would you be going to North Island or South Island? Or both? How long would you go for?
North Island has two ski fields on opposite sides of the mountain, open from mid June until around then end of October officially. Best bet for skiing would be August/September. If you go to the North Island one there is a friendly BBer who has kids snow pants and boots from size 6 down that you could borrow There are plenty of hire places but might save you a few dollars.

For skiing with kids, the most important thing is good gear. If they aren't waterproof enough then they have fun for about 10 minutes and then they are wet and cold and start to grizzle. There are toboggans for hire which is lots of fun.

Rotorua is a good place to go. There are the built up commercial thermal parks, but there are heaps of free access mud pool around the lake and parks too. Gondola and luge are fun, there is also one at Queenstown.

[veus]

We've done the campervan thing and skiing. But without kids. The campervan thing is really easy and there are plenty of places that are clean and safe. But I don't know abt taking them up the ski resorts though. The few we've been (south island), I've seen too many of those getting stuck or really struggling to manoeuvre around the tight corners. But awesome places to go.

[Artechim]

Good point about the campervan and the ski fields. The South Island ones are a bit hairy and I wouldn't want to be driving a camper up them. You could probably get away with it on the North Island one because it is normal road all the way to the car park but depending on weather you sometimes need 4wd or chains. But there are shuttles that go up to the mountain, so it isn't that much of an issue.