It’s a beautiful evening on the Otago Peninsula, a finger of coast which sticks out from the city of Dunedin. The clouds rolled back as we left the Catlins coast and I was surprised to find myself warm enough (just) in only a T-shirt as we unloaded the car into our motel room. Otago Harbour looks beautiful at sunset and we splashed out on a sit-down meal of burger and fish-and-chips.
Despite this, we’ve got a bit dissatisfied and have done some reassessing over dinner. We can stick to our £100 per day budget in New Zealand, even with a hire car. It will require self-catering at least half the time, take-aways a few times and the odd meal at cheaper restaurants. And of course we’ll have to pick the cheapest accommodation in town, usually a motel room.
But that doesn’t sound like much fun. Just like England, New Zealand has plenty of characterful places to stay and good places to eat. Missing out on those options is missing out on half of the enjoyment of touring this country (the other half being the scenery and wildlife). Our budget was meant to allow us to have a brilliant year of travelling around the world without breaking the bank. If we have to be austere to stay in budget, half that objective isn’t being met. The really important half, I reckon.
So in New Zealand (and Australia) we’re going to stay where we want to stay and eat where we want to eat. We’re going to track our every expenditure as we have done all along, but we won’t be trying to cling to that £100 daily budget. Two glasses of wine helped our resolve. Cheers!
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