Our Tiny Cabin in the New Zealand Mountains

Hi we're Stephen and Jess and little baby Hunter and over the summer break right here in Australia we worked hard to build a little cargo van into our new tiny house on wheels but just as we were ready to hit the road yeah of adventures one two three we found out we needed to wait for the correct licenses to come in so we decided to head to New Zealand to wait the three weeks and the last time you saw us we were living on farms hiking mountains and spending the weekend relaxing as a family we've now said goodbye to Mount Cook and made our way further down south on our little New Zealand adventure good morning everybody we're gonna take a quick moment to pause the incredible traveling that we are doing right now because today is a very special day yeah you know what day it is today is Jessica's very first Mother's Day and even though we are so thankful to be traveling right now I think it's important for us to pause take a moment and celebrate Mother's Day because Jess is such an incredible mum to this little monster and I think we need to make it special okay so if you guys have been around the channel for a while you just know pretty much me Jess and Hunter just hang out all the time and it can be nearly impossible to try and surprise each other so right now we're in Wanaka and I'm gonna see what I can throw together for Mother's Day bouquet of flowers decoy coffee now let's hit the grocery store all righty breakfast supplies done all right bubba are you ready to make mum breakfast are we gonna save some for mum was this your little helper snack is there gonna be any avocado left for mum it's pretty good stuff bubba what have you done what are we gonna have for mum's breakfast I promise you're explaining this all day happy Mother's Day there you go have you been busy baking because I've been hearing you going she's been oh thank you that's all right oh give me a hand oh gosh I shouldn't have worn white look at you you messy little bubba oh my goodness so someone's already had breakfast I'm guessing oh I didn't have enough hands to come and grab it down for you oh this is cute it looks like you've written in it baby oh thanks Steve oh my goodness look bubba these are flowers do you want to see okay there was a bit more for breakfast I'm guessing so oh my favorites thank you what happened to the rest of it all I cannot think of a more beautiful place to experience my first Mother's Day than here in Wanaka we've decided to come out for a little lunch um Stephen showed me the footage of what happened in that kitchen Hunter she basically licked all over my food so we've come down and we've set up right in front of what's it called hashtag that Wanaka tree it's like a famous tree here in Wanaka and at the moment it all looks like hashtag that Wanaka stick there's no leaves or anything but we've got a view of it and we've gone out for lunch at our favorite place when we rocked up yesterday everyone told us to go to a place with big fig for food it was so good we've come again it's like kind of like a buffet of all this delicious healthy comfort food it is so good if you were a boat my darling a boat my darling did she just say look at her go look at her go it's a hunter's dream come true right now how do you think of this? Happy Mother's Day! Thank you! Stephen all afternoon is trying to convince me to go and get picnic supplies and i'm like i'm so full we've been eating all day and i was like fine and then he's like oh no let's not have it at the lake let's have it up this road i'm like where are we going how did you find it oh we'll chat look at this oh it actually looks so good looks even better than i was picturing make yourself comfortable so they don't have matzos in new zealand i will forgive you guys for it but we found this thing called ginger bear which is pretty much the best name ever it's yeah which is our next stop good morning every guys good morning everyone yes our road trip has continued and we've arrived at our furthermost point here on our road trip so welcome to queenstown everybody this kind of feels extra special because 10 years ago this was our very first international trip just me and jess so it kind of feels extra special that this is hunter's little first international trip here in new zealand and last night we just checked in to the coolest a-frame airbnb so we just had the most coziest night in this airbnb and it's quite cool because the a-frame has actually been built really high up on these bricks which means we get the most epic views from our living room and especially our bedroom i am so glad whoever decided to build this a-frame to just chuck it as high as possible because as you slowly walk up the mountains just appear and these are quite popular in america and it's kind of funny we were looking back and we've never stayed in an a-frame before honestly i don't think i've ever really seen one in australia or new zealand so it's kind of cool that we get to stay in one look what i was talking about look at those views that is queenstown just below us so the a-frame is two stories and it's split between two areas the living area and the sleeping area so this here is the living room and the kitchen and something we didn't realize when booking this place is that we came in and we saw there was a lot of memorabilia who was one of the first climbers to reach the summit of mount everest and we were like oh that's interesting there must be fans found out the owner's dad is sir edmund hillary which i think is so cool he's like a new zealand icon even got his ice picks up here and it looks like it has signatures on them sir edmund hillary is so much of a new zealand icon he's even on the five dollar and i see they put some things up yeah could potentially be a rock from everest but upstairs is definitely our favorite spot also as you come up the stairs just casually up here is um he's climbing boots with the crampons still on so the place is two bedrooms but of course we had to stay on this side because look at the views from our window wow i'm sure you guys are on the yeah did you enjoy it hunty you need to show them so um little bunny over here has definitely been replaced with hunter where's your kiwi bird yeah there's your kiwi bird so queenstown is pretty much the adventure capital of new zealand yeah there are so many just out of your comfort zone there are so many activities here that can get your adrenaline pumping you can do canyoning which is one of the best activities we've ever done you can do a rope swing you can do bungee jumping paragliding skydiving so we thought the only way to initiate hunter you gotta know why you're clapping so the only way to initiate hunting to queenstown is to get her adrenaline pumping it's the first time we've ever put a hunter in her little snowsuit it's one degree right now this is the coldest i think she's ever felt and she's just you know smashing down her banana baby girl's first time in a gondola what do you think hunter gonna get some pretty good views her expression is just what have you guys popped me into hello my little adventure bunny i don't even think you know what's just about to happen oh my goodness look at these thank you buddy it's a brand new day how was that well she was smiling when she got off what did you think hunter i loved it so we're going back for round two i think we might have a little adrenaline junkie on our hands we went down expecting just to go down once with her loved it so much went down again and i think we're ready to go down a third i just appreciate you in a helmet yes yeah i know you want to go back all right let's go so heading up here on the gondola is by far our favorite thing to do here in queenstown and it's extra special that we got to take hunter luging because that was one of our funnest activities we did when we came here like 10 years ago but something we have been looking forward to the most is that 10 years ago we came up here i remember it being so cold because we're in the winter and we had the best hot chocolates ever like i'm pretty sure we have photos of us drinking those hot chocolates i got up here and guess what the hot chocolate machine isn't there anymore instead they have someone making them which i'm sure are good but i remember last time it was this big pot full of hot chocolate just stirring in a pot do you remember steve oh i do i remember that hot chocolate and unfortunately i asked they didn't know what i was talking about so they made us hot chocolates but something extra special seeing as hunter has been so brave today is that we got her a fluffy in australia they call them baby chinos it's basically just foamy milk with a sprinkle of chocolate on top and um why is it as big as our hot chocolate or bigger that's a hack just get a fluffy all right so i think we need to document hunter's first fluffy aka baby chino i'll get her a little spoonful all right hunter what do you think of this what do you think oh she's gone in for a second as you guys can see we have major fond memories of our first trip together here and so much we've talked about this infamous hot chocolate for for a decade now you guys will have to let us know if you've been on a trip you had some food or an experience and you just can't stop reminiscing on it i'd love to see all your comments below it's good but it's not like you know that good we just wanted to say a massive thank you to 70 my for partnering up with us on this video and for sending us their brand new a800 4k dash cam so we are about to fly back to australia to move into cooper the van full time which is going to involve tens of thousands of kilometers that we are going to be driving even here in new zealand we've done thousands of kilometers so far so we thought we should probably pick up a dash cam to capture any bumps that might happen on the road so the a800 4k dash cam gives us super high resolution in crisp 4k at 140 degree viewing angle that i can view on this three inch display by the way the footage i'm getting from there i might be popping it into the vlogs because it's recording all the time and i can just get some epic time lapses of our scenery so if you're interested in yourself and picking up one of the dash cams i'll leave all the details in the description below now let's head back to the video oh my goodness for a second i thought i wasn't there i'm still there you're still there i'm right at the top right at the top yeah i have to try and get a picture where's my burger where's my burger okay a visit to queenstown is not complete until you go and visit ferg burger i swear ferg burger is the best burgers we have ever had it's only our third time having one but cheers steve we seem to do it every time we come down to queenstown i think we might have a new ferg fan as well so good hey guys how you doing it's the next day and um something special is coming up tomorrow it's my birthday weekend and so we've decided to hit the road and come to one of the most beautiful places in all of new zealand welcome to milford sound what you got planned for mom's birthday bubba what you got plans for mom's birthday huh so the drive to milford sound is around three and a half hours and it is so stunning like right now in front of me there are just giant mountains snow-capped there's greenery everywhere it is definitely one of the most beautiful drives that we've done and i think it's the perfect place to go when it's your birthday so about 10 minutes outside of just the most epic part of milford sound and they've just cut straight into the mountain to get us through you are not ready for the views no look look at this it's so cool what are you doing here oh my goodness go right up to the window wow this place looks new and i don't know how old it is or anything look at this steve we have to come all right you can come too look at it from here steve oh my gosh this is so cool wow i know when i was planning to come here i was just thinking it's a three and a half hour drive do we really want to be driving for what seven hours in one day with hunter here and back so i had a look and there was one place one place you can book to stay here and it's this place i was like okay let's book a night didn't even look what the rooms look like because i was like well we need to book somewhere when i came into the room i was like oh my gosh this looks so nice i'm so excited hunter yay he's pretty tall so fun huh oh my gosh this place is so beautiful oh this is why you come to milford sound these almost sheer drop mountains and cliffs and you're kind of like just in this valley with the stream going through that leads to an epic well we'll let you guys know about that tomorrow but we're actually kind of lucky today getting a little bit of sun this place is notorious notorious for being wet all the time hence why it's so green here but we're just gonna soak this up as much as we can before milford sounds get soaked you can't just jump you're trying in places alrighty i need to make today feel as special as possible so kind of had to get jess out of the room so i sent her to go and get us some coffees which already looks suspicious because i'm 100 exclusive the person that goes and gets the coffee so are we gonna make some little fun stuff for mom's birthday yeah okay papa you are on stream of dream purple we got pink when you just realize probably should have done some party prep before don't know how long the coffees take here pull this up oh yeah okay so let's go to coffee oh this is so cute time to help with the spaghetti mess did you help with the spaghetti mess thanks steve um you need to go look outside yeah i know it looks so cool it's so beautiful it's not raining it's like there's all these like little waterfalls coming off the mountains it looks so beautiful hey it's my birthday oh should i open the present yeah have a look at the present yeah this is so cute oh peter alexander oh what's in here some chocolate cookbook yeah it's up for the battle oh thank you this is so cool get some little recipes going in the book oh wow and we've been in like very cold places i thought you needed some poochy oh these are so cute oh baby these are super cute thank you okay yay and i saw breakfast was coming in i know it was perfect timing yeah it's my birthday are you wanting a chocolate hunter chocolate for breakfast would love to totally take the credit for breakfast in bed but this place does it for every person that stays here this looks good i can't believe i'm having my birthday in such a beautiful place i know if you just take a look over there i think somebody's up right here what do you think morning birthday cruise at milford sound i think i think it's pretty good and look there's no rain pretty lucky guys it's another one of those super thankful days i just realized this time last year we were having a quarantine birthday for jess's 30th and wow now we're in new zealand and now we're in new zealand with this little monkey feeling so thankful right now wow oh yeah this little monkey wasn't even here it's hard to describe the beauty of milford sound as we slowly cruise down the fjord the towering mountains on either side make you feel as if you're inside a small handmade paper boat sailing down a stream i can only imagine how small baby hunter feels right now watching the waterfalls plummet down and either sheer side cliff and as the waves splash up against the boat alongside the hum of the engine makes the perfect soundtrack to match the views i think if you come to new zealand do not miss this spot milford sound they say it's one of the seven natural wonders of the world and you can totally agree it is so beautiful especially because it's quite thin where we drive through on the boat so you really get like up close and so after the long drive back from milford sound we arrived in queenstown and steven still had one surprise off his sleeve we just checked into the hilton hey monster you're a cheeky monster we just checked into the hilton here at queenstown and this is the hotel we stayed in all those years ago when we came here and i told steven we cannot give them a room tour because we've already filmed that 10 years ago so enjoy our little room tour but i remember when we were here and we loved it we would do walks along the lake we found that little swing it was really cool so it feels extra special i mean we came here like nine years ago so it had to be the final spot that was such a good idea i loved it it's such a good birthday but i think we'll end the video here if you guys are new around here make sure you hit subscribe and we will see you guys next time all right bye