A Kiwi guy has a hobby. He likes to make delicious artisan cheese. He sets up his own cheese factory. He invites travellers, backpackers… anyone to come and taste his cheese. He makes backpackers happy.

“Where is this guy, so we can go try some cheese?!” we hear you ask. Well, it’s just another reason to stop in the town of Twizel.

Despite Twizel being on the main tourist route of Christchurch to Queenstown, so many travellers drive right past it or don’t know a reason to hop off the bus. As well as Lord of the Rings scenery that we discovered thoroughly yesterday, there is a hidden gem just outside of the small town known as the Ben Ohau Road Cheese.

That moment when you realise you’re well off the beaten track

After a morning of travel writing nonsense and cowering out of the rain in the comfort of the High Country Lodge & Backpackers, the sun finally bursts through the clouds. We take the opportunity to hit the road and follow the “Cheese” signs. (The best kind of signs, stereotypically French Robin likes to think). It only takes us 10 minutes out of Twizel getting a little closer to those sensational mountain views and fields carpeted in straw-coloured tussock until we reach the steep graveled driveway of Ben Ohau Road Cheese. Although our 30-year-old 3.3 tonne piece-of-crap campervan makes it down the short steep gradient, we’re not too sure if we’ll make it back up…

We realise we have been in New Zealand too long when we shrug our shoulders and say: “She’ll be right.”