This is a first-person travel vlog by Nate Buchanan documenting a day of RV travel from the Mount Cook area toward Queenstown. The group hikes to Tasman Lake to view glaciers and icebergs, comments on striking turquoise glacial rivers, stops at roadside/picnic spots (noting a rainbow and local picnic rules), and drives about 200 km toward Queenstown. They then find a scenic freedom campsite (no electricity or Wi‑Fi), react emotionally to the landscape, and end the day with tacos, games, and lighthearted banter (including naming an RV mascot, "Bobby the rock").
Chapters
Sam.
This was our view this morning, and we're going to Mount Cook, which is, like, right there behind that cloud.
Take us there, Jordan. We're on the way. You ready, girls? Okay, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to have your seatbelt on, Julianne. Pretty sure you're not supposed to be sitting on the couch.
I'm safer. Your seat belt's not on, Nate.
I'm sitting in a proper chair, though.
We're on the highway for digging Sunday afternoon.
Do you want to go? Want to go? Do you want to go.
Floating with?
We just drove an hour to Tasman Lake, and now we're going on a short hike to the top to the lake.
These are the only glacial lakes in New Zealand.
Pretty cool.
Love all this new information we're getting with Jordan and Julian.
Afternoon.
Whoa.
Was that hike more worth it than hiking up a ton of stairs to the top of a mountain with a temple where you had to pay for?
Sure.
I would hike this a hundred times before I hiked up to the temple again.
The largest glacier in New Zealand is right there, that shiny part underneath the mountain. And then all of this loose rock that you see underneath the mountain is.
Where the glacier used to be.
This entire place used to be filled up with ice.
Vote for Barney.
Waving to a prince. Waving to a Friends. Monday afternoon.
Do you want to go?
We're back on the road.
Where are we going?
I don't know.
To a gas station.
Going to a gas station. And there's a rainbow.
Excuse me.
We're going to the petrol station.
That it looks like. Like emerald milk. We're not gonna let Karen do any color correcting on that clip so that you can see that that is the natural crazy color of the water. It's all glacial runoff, and for some reason, it looks like that this is nuts.
Floating with.
Afternoon.
Hey, Jordan. Jordan, will you explain to me why we didn't need at the picnic tables in the sun over there, why we ended up at the one over here by itself in the shade?
Because apparently, trying to get them all riled up ordering coffee from poppies does.
Not give you the right to sit.
At their picnic tables and eat your lunch? Because they serve their own food.
All right, ladies, where are we going?
We're off to Queenstown in 200km. Cheers.
Cheers.
We got a long way to go.
Estimated Arrival time is 4:1.
Friends Monday afternoon.
Do you want to go, want to go? Do you want to go.
Floating with.
Waving to our friends? Waving to.
Oh, my gosh.
That was the greatest thing I've ever had in my life. Say it on camera, Jordan, so we can hold you to it.
I'm doing this tomorrow.
Jordan is going to jump from that platform.
Almost into the river.
It looks so nice.
I will only do it if we can do it attached to each other.
We're not gonna be able to do that.
It is one of the more beautiful spots I've ever seen.
The first freedom campsite that we showed up at was a parking lot.
So we're heading 10 minutes down the road to check out the next one.
Julian, are you in in tears about how beautiful our campsite is?
We can be near the toilets.
Jordan, bring us back down to reality, please. They are way too excited.
Really smelly toilets right here. So that's what I got for you.
We have no electric electricity tonight. We can't charge our electronics.
Charge my cell phone. Don't have any wi fi.
I don't care.
Let's live off the land.
This is our campsite for the night, Jordan. Good backing job. This is beautiful.
Moving from the parking lot was the greatest decision we've made on this whole trip.
Look at our backyard.
Sam.
Why do we all look so pale?
I just am pale. There's no looking pale.
I just am pale. We just arrived at our campsite for the night.
Julianne was crying.
It's so pretty.
Beautiful.
She cried. It was weird.
It was actually a very weird moment.
There are lots of things to make us really happy right now. This is a beautiful place. There's a tire swing. There's a lady. There's a sunset. It's not raining. It's fall. Guacamole in the fridge. All the leaves are changing. What else was there?
There's ice cream and flightless birds.
There's ice cream made of sheep milk. Flightless birds.
The list goes on and on.
Joy's galore.
We're gonna stand here and think of all of today's highlights, because I'm pretty sure that today is just gonna be, like, 10 minutes of B roll. While we were driving, I thought it.
Was pretty cool how what we're calling icebergs were as big as they were.
Yes.
I hope the camera shows you how big they are. There were little bitty boats that were specks next to these big blocks of ice.
They looked so tiny, but they were huge.
First time I've ever seen an iceberg in real life. What else did we see?
We got to go to another grocery store.
Okay. The. The color of the lake and the rivers that we've passed. The, like, neon Turquoise. Glacier melt.
So blue. It was just weird because you would think that you'd only see that color like in the Caribbean. But then it was like, right next to all these beautiful fall colors. So it was like a mix of colors that I've never seen before all in one place.
It wasn't quite as clear as the Caribbean. It was like a turquoise milk. Delicious. Plans for the rest of the night? Tacos. Tacos.
Some more tacos.
We're gonna eat. We bought some jumbo cards. We'll play some cards.
We're gonna enjoy this beautiful fall.
About to start crying again.
All right.
We need to go before we start crying.
All right.
And cut.
Pretty incredible.
I think I've been replaced on the vlog.
Hey, get out of here.
Technically.
She. So here's the problem. Here's the problem.
She. I.
She replaced me about 10 years ago.
There is still a possibility that I have lived with you longer than I've lived with Kim.
Definitely the case.
We're all gonna die.
Okay, first of all, we need to make sure the toilet's closed, please.
We're just all gonna spin to our left. We're not really going to just shuffle your feet like this. And we're going all the way in a circle.
All the way.
Yeah.
There's no way, literally, I'm going to die.
Ready? Go. Being told there's a rainbow here. Ish.
A double rainbow.
Just kidding. Only single one.
We were going to get a Frisbee, but. What in the world? New Zealand.
That's like a legit Frisbee.
Cute.
Julian, you found a table.
This is my favorite table in the whole wide world.
We decided that our RV needed a mascot. This is Bobby the rock. Named after our bananas. The Bobby Bananas. He looks like a Bobby Bobby.
