What are you doing, Dave?

We picked up our "Spaceship" in Christchurch.  It's one brand of the many, many types of campervan you can rent to tour New Zealand.  Touring in a campervan is definitely the way to go - holiday parks abound (complete with kitchens and showers, etc.), as do the very well-kept Department of Conservation campgrounds with fewer facilities.  It seems like 1/3 of the vehicles on the road are some kind of rented campervan.  And they're a much better deal here than in Australia (plus there's more to see in a smaller area in NZ).

The Spaceships are on the lower end of the cost spectrum, and are essentially minivans with beds in the back, plus a couple of extra features.  (We selected Spaceship because the vans appeared to be newer, more reliable and better on gas than other companies' vehicles.)  We also got a mini fridge that ran off a separate battery, a campstove and kitchen utensils, water reservoir, and even a DVD player for rainy nights. No room to stand up and no sink, but we were used to less during our VW Golf-based camping sojourns last year.

Fortunately, HAL does not have access to the vacuum of space here in NZ

Each Spaceship has a name, and we got the coolest of all.  (For those not in the know, HAL 9000 is the evil computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey.)  I would insert the music "Also Sprach Zarathustra" here given more time/ability...

We drove a couple of hours north to Hanmer Springs, a small village surrounding an extensive set of hot spring pools that we took advantage of.  A nice kick-off to our trip.

We found a very nicely equipped holiday park near town, and set up HAL there.  Including his secret weapon - the tent extension!

Yep, you can extend the mattress out the back of the van, and still keep the rain and bugs out.  Awesome.

View through the sunroof while lying in bed

The first 3 km of road leaving Christchurch was divided freeway - this quickly transformed into an undivided, single-lane-each-way highway, which is what ALL of the rest of the roads on the South Island are.  It's not exactly densely populated, so the roads aren't surperhighways.  Scenic, but not made for getting anywhere in a hurry - nice touring roads.  Some other tips:

• When there is a "watch for falling rock" sign, PAY ATTENTION.  There is guaranteed to be rock on the road, especially during a rain.  New Zealand seems to be the land of the continual rockslide and/or crumbling slope, and maintenance efforts are put into sweeping up rocks after they fall rather than shoring up slopes and preventing falls in the first place, at least on the South Island.  (It's sparsely populated, so it kind of makes sense.)
• Don't assume a dashed center line means a safe passing area; it doesn't really mean anything.  If it's catastrophically dangerous to pass - say at a major intersection - you might get a solid yellow line for a bit.
• The asphalt seems to be gravel embedded on top of a thin layer of tar - so newly "paved" roads are essentially loose gravel, and which can get sprayed all over your car if you follow too close.
• Gas is even more expensive than Australia - over $2/litre.  Diesel is a lot cheaper, but it's difficult to find a diesel rental vehicle.  Also, residents have to pay a per-kilometre tax on diesel vehicles, making them almost the same cost to operate as a gas vehicle.  
• In certain areas, road-killed possums are a more common sight than road signs.  But try not to worry about it too much - except for two species of bat, New Zealand has NO native land mammals.  The rest are introduced "pest" species.  So in a sense, you're doing the native ecology a favour by trimming the population of possums, rabbits, hedgehogs... in theory even deer, though I wouldn't recommend aiming for them.  :-)

Onward ho!