New Zealand Road Trip Day 1

So we arrive in Christchurch, New Zealand at about 1 or 130PM their time after a 3/3.5 hr flight from Sydney. We got through customs with another stamp in the book! and went forth to the Backpackers RV place to pick up our RV, the nomad, which would soon be called Nelson. We picked up and learned about Nelson, how to drive him, and how to put snow chains on his feet. After the boring stuff, we hit the road. Not long after, about 1km down the road, we had our first of many near death experiences of this trip at the roundabout. After surviving that one, we were off onto highway 6, to the west coast via Arthurs Pass. We drove through the remaining daylight left in New Zealand, it is winter here and only daylight for about maybe 8 hours or so. We stopped to pick up some food and moved along down the road stopping at a lake to take our first scenic pictures. It was already dark and we still had a couple hours to drive, not very many kilometers but through heavy mountains. We finally made it through the pass and onto the western coast and to our first night in Hokitika where we almost immediately passed out and slept into what would be day 2 of our road trip.