The next morning we were blessed by the beautiful view from the veranda of our Bed and Breakfast.

A long driving day to Te Anau was ahead of us so we started relatively early and drove a large part of the Southern Scenic Route, from Dunedin to Invercargill. We stopped for a nice lunch at the Niagara Falls Café close to Waikawa. Despite the long drive we had a very relaxing, beautiful day with many scenic and playground stops. One of the great things about traveling to New Zealand with kids is the multitude of playgrounds on the way. Our son had a great time and was constantly looking forward to the next stop which was either a beach, a playground or a beautiful nature area where he would easily find something to play with.

In Te Anau we booked a motel room at the Top 10 Holiday Park. This is mostly a camping and there are just a couple of motel rooms. Seeing the relaxed atmosphere at the camping, I was a bit jealous at all the campers parked there. We were often asked why we chose to rent a car rather than a camper. The camper would definitely have been more practical than having to pack and unpack every day. We also wouldn’t have to be bothered booking so many different hotel rooms and could have just enjoyed free camping every now and then. While that all sounds very romantic, the reality is that we are both light sleepers and with an active toddler we couldn’t have done the drive and enjoy it without enough sleep. To our surprise, it also turned out that booking a more equipped, larger camper would have been more expensive than booking a car and separate accommodation. We will definitely try out the camper on another holiday but for now we were very happy with our choice.