Instead, the lockdown order meant parking the bus and sheltering in place.
Melany King and Lorne Simmons, of Opotiki, were halfway through a four-month driving holiday around the South Island when Alert Level 4 was announced.
Ms King said they had been parked at a holiday park when the lockdown rules came into force, but the park had to close its toilets and other facilities.
Although their caravan was fully self-contained, it needed to refill its water tanks and use a dump station for waste every two to three days.
The pair first moved to the Ocean View recreation reserve, where they had a visit from a "really nice" Dunedin City Council employee doing a welfare check.
He suggested that if the lockdown was extended they could move to the Warrington Domain, which has both water and dumping facilities.
A few days later their water supply had dwindled and the drive from Ocean View to Warrington was on, but not without incident.
They were stopped by a policeman, who was "a bit aggressive at first" but changed his tune once the situation was explained, Ms King said.
"He was like ‘holy cow, you guys are literally in limbo’ and we said ‘yes’."
Once settled in Warrington they then experienced a series of early morning visits from police officers ensuring they were not locals flouting lockdown rules.
"We’ve actually met the whole of Dunedin’s police force and they’re all very nice, just confused," Ms King said.
The pair had moved again to the Thomas Burns St car park with police blessing now that the city had gone down to Alert Level 3.
Spending several weeks in Dunedin was never in their plans, "although it’s probably one of the better cities to be locked down in," she said.
Once regional travel was allowed again a trip to Tekapo was the next stop on the itinerary.
For permanent motorhome dweller Jennifer Graham-McNab lockdown had its perks.
"It’s rather fun to know that I can park somewhere ... and just know I’m not going to be moved along."
She spent last year’s lockdown parked in the car park of the Pirates Rugby Club, and this time she had parked in a car park near the Chisholm Links Golf Club.
Dunedin was to be her home base for the near future as she converted a truck to a new motorhome, but lockdown had put a halt to that work for the time being, she said.
She was very much looking forward to getting back on the road.
