Touring New Zealand in a Luxury Motorhome
I’ve been indulging myself recently in a bit of motorhome travel in the Queenstown/Wanaka area of New Zealand. Since it was a winter trip, it included some skiing time. My wife and I opted for the largest rental motorhome we could find, a Sunlight I69L from McRent in Christchurch.
Despite the slightly Scottish sounding name, it’s actually German owned. Just in case you’ve never heard of Sunlight motorhomes, they too are made in Germany and are part of the Hymer group. One of the reasons we opted for this motorhome is that it’s an A class or ‘integrated’ in Hymer speak. It’s just about the only A class motorhome that’s available for commercial hire in New Zealand or Australia.
Stylish Travel
The Sunlight motorhome is built on a Fiat Ducato chassis without the normal cab. Although an A class motorhome looks big, the I69L was not particularly so, having an external length of 7.43m (24ft 5in) and a height of 2.94m (9ft 8in). Since A class motorhomes are somewhat rare in Australia, particularly the European style, I was keen for an extended drive.
Skiing and motorhomes aren’t necessarily connected items in many people’s thinking, but I’ve done it previously on a number of occasions and found it to be a very flexible way of combining winter sports and travel.
The Sunlight I169L had a couple of features that were quite attractive for our purpose. One was the very large ‘garage’, aka rear storage area. While it was large enough to take a couple of bicycles, it was more than adequate for our travel bags, skis, stocks and boots. The other item was the Truma 6E ducted heating which worked extremely efficiently on either 240V mains power or LP gas, as did a related feature – anti-condensation panels. Not common in locally built motorhomes and caravans but often fitted to European-built RVs, when fitted behind beds and seating, they do seem to prevent dampness building up. Although mostly designed for a couple with an island bed in the rear, the I69L was a four berth, the second bed being quite a clever drop-down arrangement above the driver’s cab.
Weighing Up
Excessive weight is something of a common topic in the Australian RV industry, which made the Ducato powered Sunlight I69L interesting. For a start, I didn’t have to hunt around to find either the Tare Mass (3200kg) or the GVM (3650kg). When compared to Australia, they are relatively light weights for a 7.4m motorhome. Both were to be found on the NZ Transport Agency stickers on the side window, along with other interesting facts, like the maximum front and rear axle loadings. This is not information that most renters need to know, except for the 3650kg GVM - anything over 3500kg has a speed limit of 90km/h – but certainly handy for retail buyers.
Travelling Along
One curious difference between the Fiat Ducato motorhomes used in Australia and New Zealand is that the local variants are almost exclusively the 180 Multijet variant. That is a 130kW/400Nm turbo diesel engine - currently the most powerful available in the Ducato range. In New Zealand, the 130 Multijets (96kw/320Nm) are more normal and while the Sunlight motorhome was okay along the flat, steep hills (common in NZ) were another matter and the going was a bit slow. Fortunately, Fiat’s nine-speed torque converter gearbox is a much smoother performer than the old six-speed Automated Manual Transmission (AMT).
A feature of most German built motorhomes (Hymer/Burstner/Carado/Dethleffs/Sunliner et al) built for right hand drive, is that the habitation door is on the offside – no mirrored layouts. Additionally, in the case of the I69L, there’s no driver’s door but the passenger gets one. I did think that might be a little annoying but once used to it did not find it so. One of the benefits of the easily rotating cab seats is that moving between the front and rear areas is quite easy. Something obligatory when travelling in the NZ southern alps area is snow chains – some major roads do get closed because of snow. Things have obviously improved since the last time I had to use chains because what was supplied were snow socks. I didn’t get to try them, but they looked a whole heap easier to fit than the old-style chains.
Catering
Anyone familiar with European built RVs is that the kitchen area is often quite small. There was no exception with our motorhome, the kitchen bench being just large enough for a three-burner hob and a round stainless-steel sink. Under the hob was fitted a grill/oven but there wasn’t that standard item of just about any Australian built RV, a microwave oven. Something basic like washing up was a bit fiddly and messy but we utilised a feature found in just about all New Zealand caravan parks, a camp kitchen. Most are relatively well equipped and, for winter use, usually well heated. Digressing slightly, at Wanaka I discovered a feature not found in most caravan parks, a ski waxing room complete with waxing iron and brackets for holding my skis.
Aussie Exports
For caravanning enthusiasts, fly-drive holidays are less easy to come by than for motorhomers, particularly on overseas travel. That said, the Australian retail caravan export industry is clearly doing quite well in New Zealand with brands like Jayco, New Age, Avida, NextGen and Millard seen on the road as we moved around. I saw a couple of other brands no longer sold in NZ, like Trakka and Paradise. Winter RV travel in NZ is obviously quite popular.
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