Last year, I went on a holiday overseas for the first time as an actual adult. I had been travelling to visit my family overseas a few times (the last was 28 years ago), but not since. Until last year.
I would consider myself a very independent person, and I deliberately try to do a lot by myself. I’ve had my disability for my whole life, and since the last time I travelled overseas at the young age of 12, my body has changed a lot. I used to walk around with callipers and sticks and now I’m in a wheelchair.
My needs have progressively become more demanding, so planning a holiday like a two-week road trip from Auckland to Queenstown, New Zealand felt like it brought out a side of me that sent my organisational skills into overdrive.
Don’t let this article be anything more than lessons I learnt and observations from my holiday that may help you.
There’s no shame in being obnoxiously prepared
I don’t want to sound like I’m overstating this, but having a disability, no matter what it is, can become a big deal very quickly. Here are some of the things that I thought were a priority to me:
- Going to the bathroom takes a lot of planning, and a 14-day road trip with bathroom breaks requires a lot of pre-planning.
- I booked an Uber assist one month in advance.
- I looked at where the closest wheelchair repair places were located along the roads we’re taking, and hospitals, just in case.
- I use a shower stool a home, so if we can’t bring the shower stool with us, I know of two Bunnings within a 5-kilometre radius of our first stop and I know what stool to buy to throw in the back of the car.
There is no shame in being over-prepared.
Catheters took up most of my suitcase, my backpack and my partner’s luggage
How many is too many? Well, whatever you think is too many is probably the right amount, to be honest. My catheters are funded by the NDIS and therefore, I don’t have an infinite supply of them to bring with me, so I had to do some calculations beforehand. I wasn’t interested in risking a situation where I may run out and it became a literal life and death situation.
As someone who uses intermittent catheters between 5 – 7 times a day, I overcorrected and brought 200 and split it between four bags in case we lost a bag.
Accessible car rentals
The first thing I wanted to do was to take on half of the driving. I love driving, and it seemed fair since I was the one that insisted this holiday needed to be a road trip in the first place.
Past experiences of which my car had to go in for repairs, and the insurer didn’t have an accessible car option, meant I had already prepared myself for a situation where there weren’t any accessible rental cars available, but a small part of me hoped it would work out.
It didn’t. Don’t get me wrong – There are a lot of places in New Zealand that offer modified vehicles to rent, but for whatever reason – whether it was timing, cost or how long we needed it for, we couldn’t make it happen.
The Actual Trip
We brought my shower stool, pulled it apart and split it in different suitcases and it was one of the best decisions we made on the holiday. One thing I hadn’t mentioned is that we had the help of a travel agent to help book accommodation and the car, because we both work and we didn’t have a lot of time.
In doing this, we had mentioned that obviously we needed accommodation that was wheelchair accessible and a car that was large enough for my wheelchair and all the suitcases. When we arrived, the car we had booked was changed from a SUV to a hatch, because of an oversight, and my 6 ft 3 partner had to fit himself into this tiny car that was already filled to the brim. Imagine then having to go and buy a stool to bring with us.
As well as this, not every room was accessible. My advice to anyone taking on a travel agent is to then go and contact each location and double check the rooms. I would say maybe three out of the seven locations we stayed at had a decent bathroom and shower situation, and one specifically needed a form of olympic-level gymnastics because the agent wasn’t specific enough in the request.
Hobbiton Movie Set Tour
My partner and I spent a lot of time looking at the access of Hobbiton. We looked at videos, we read reviews. I saw someone say that it’s steep, and Bag End wasn’t accessible, so they missed out on portions of the tour. I’ve done three City to Surfs, how steep could it be? I’m not travelling that far, with a huge Lord of the Rings nerd, to be left behind.
We looked at numerous videos, and no lie it did look a little steep. Eventually my partner turned to me and said, “I’m going to drag you up those stairs. We’ve done it lots of times; we can do it again.”
On our third day, we drove through about four thunderstorms from Auckland to Matamata to get to Hobbiton and when we arrived the sun had just come out.
The coaches aren’t wheelchair accessible, so we followed in our car to the beginning of the tour. By chance, a guide came around the corner and said someone had just cancelled so they asked if we wanted to take a semi-private tour on one of their golf carts.
As soon as the golf cart hit the path, I knew my wheelchair wouldn’t have made it. The loose rocks of many sizes alone would have done some damage to my tyres and because of that, the steepness is next level. The best part is that the golf cart goes past Bag End. After 2.5 hours we arrived at our final destination, Dragon’s Inn, and as soon as we got inside it poured with rain. I could not believe our luck.
Skydive Mount Cook
Some people may not want to go on a holiday just to take pics and look at Instagram views. Some people want to see those views from 16,500 ft at high velocity. I had one main goal for this entire trip: Skydiving in Queenstown, because what better place to do it than the home of extreme sports in New Zealand?
It was not meant to be.
Do you know how many articles I found about travel experiences of someone skydiving? Not many. I found a few Instagram reels and TikToks that helped me just see what to expect and to an extent that was better than reading about it.
I landed on Skydive New Zealand, it’s the only skydive company in New Zealand that partners with Makingtrax, with trained tandem jumpers. Mount Cook is three hours away from Queenstown, we only had two nights in Twizel, specifically so I could go skydiving, and the day that I booked was too cloudy and windy to go.
I was so upset; it was the thing that I wanted to do the most. It was rescheduled for the next day, as we were leaving for Queenstown that day and the weather was incredible. I couldn’t believe it.
Don’t let disability travel articles and blogs define your holiday, or who you are as a traveller. If you think someone else’s advice isn’t right for you, you don’t have to accept it.
The holiday we had was amazing, and I am so glad we went on a road trip. I was able to do and see a lot of things that flying back and forth wouldn’t have been able to achieve.
I won’t lie here. I didn’t look up wheelchair accessible holidays, because I knew what I wanted to do. My extent of researching was trying to find videos of people in wheelchairs going around Hobbiton or skydiving just so I can see it in action. You can see a smash cut of my trip on my Instagram.
I feel like the catheter and shower stool comments I made may have the most suggestions. I could have rented, I could have used some other type of other catheter I’ve never used before on the plane or in the car, but frankly renting equipment in seven locations wasn’t in my budget, and neither is purchasing a whole new type of catheter just for travelling.
What’s next?
In my ever-growing need to just be as high in the sky as possible, at the end of March, we will be testing out Balloon Aloft’s accessible hot air balloon ride in the Hunter Valley, NSW.
I also fully intend to skydive somewhere else this year. However, if I go back to New Zealand, there’s an accessible human catapult that is calling my name.
Written by Susan Wood, Senior Content Manager at SCIA
Additional Useful Links
- What does accessibility mean in one of Australia’s biggest cities?
- Newcastle’s Journey to Better Tourist Accessibility
- Things to Consider When Renting a Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle
- Freedom Mobility – Accessible Car Rental
- Disability Vehicle Rentals – New Zealand
- Enable my Trip – Vehicle Rental Hire, New Zealand
