New Zealand

Mt. Cook

As high school seniors we were asked a series of questions for our final school paper. One such question was something like, "where do you see yourself in 10 years." I wrote, living in New Zealand with my friend Mike. I came upon this when I was going through all my stuff as we lightened the load for this trip and I scratched my head in wonderment as to how I came to this conclusion. I don't remember giving New Zealand that much thought in high school. I tried, unsuccessfully, to read The Hobbit, several times and just couldn't get into it. I was a terrible snow boarder, had never been on an island, nor had I ventured too far from home. I did, however have a passport and a plan to travel through Europe with my friend Rochelle. I had applied to zero colleges, knowing that I required a gap year, or more, to find a subject I was passionate about. One that would excite me to go to class, study and make an effort to get good grades. Ten years later, I was in fact not living in New Zealand with Mike. Rather, I was in grad school, getting a non-useless degree in Social Work.

Twenty years later, I am in New Zealand and now know why I had this on my life goals as a place to visit. Although neither Jason nor I consider ourselves island people, we instantly felt at home here, among the mountains, lakes, rivers, ocean, farms and valleys. New Zealand's quickly changing landscapes kept our noses to the window and frequently stopping for photo ops. Throughout our travels we met people who had been, or were going to New Zealand and they fell into two categories: those who rented a van or camper and drove around the south island, some dipping up to the north and those who worked on farms in exchange for food and lodging. We are the van renting type. We were also reminded of how expensive it is.

New Zealand's Department of Conservation has worked diligently to make the island as camper friendly as possible. There is no shortage of affordable and/or free campgrounds all across the south island (we didn't go to the north island so we can't speak to how accessible they are up there). If you have a self contained camper you have access to many more campgrounds, free of charge. We always found a campsite and set up on the ocean, rivers, lakes, just outside small towns, and in the mountains. All campgrounds have at least a toilet, some have running water, few have garbage cans and if you're lucky you'll find one with hot showers. There are also private campgrounds with showers, community rooms, laundry facilities and kitchens for a premium price. We did pay for showers at one of these fancier campgrounds and it was glorious.

New Zealand offers a number of camper van, RV, car options to tour the country and can meet any budget. We did our best not to book through Wicked, as we heard that some of their vehicles are offensive, as in driving around in a huge penis. As we neared our trip our options became less and less, with the price increasing by the day and we were left with Wicked as our only affordable option. We requested an unmarked van and crossed our fingers to not be driving around in a huge tampon. We were informed that our request for an unmarked van could not be honored but they would give us the Mystery Machine, we were stoked, and relieved.

The Mystery Machine handled beautifully and was professionally converted into a livable space with a double size bed, multiple compartments under the bed, a table and for $15 extra we got two chairs and a folding table for outside, a sink, an ice chest and utensils, dishes and pots for two, with a one-burner camp stove. We hit up the free shelves and scored with tea, condiments, dry foods, dish detergent, laundry detergent, oil, salt, pepper, cooking fuel canisters, toilet paper, paper towels, a book, a super nice comforter with duvet and two pillows. After barely making it to the nearest gas station, we headed to K-mart and purchased a new sheet set, ceramic coffee mugs, towels and a large cooking pot. We did all of our grocery shopping at Pak 'n Save and were relieved to see prices much lower than those in Australia.

We spent one night in Christchurch and had an incredible meal at Mexico Christchurch, a restaurant serving up a New Zealand take on Mexican food that was delicious. Within a short walk from the hotel was the Transitional Cathedral, or The Cardboard Cathedral, a basic, yet ingenious response to rebuilding after the 2011 earthquake. Most of this area of Christchurch is under construction from extensive earthquake damage, it nearly looks like a war zone. Most exciting, for Sheryl anyway, was the Les Mills training center across the street from the hotel! I debated about taking a class, but decided to eat at Denny's instead.

Our goal was to drive north, along the east coast, going as far as Nelson before cutting across and heading down the west coast, cutting inland after Milford Sound. We made it just outside Kaikoura and were turned around due to a massive landslide from an earthquake (which we did not feel) the night before. We saw six helicopters filling water buckets from the ocean and dumping them on the mountain side, we didn't see or smell fire so we assume this was to wash out the mud, rocks and debris of the road, into the ocean.

Kaikoura

So we headed across the island to the west coast, where we were introduced to the ever present, relentless, biting sand flies. As soon as you arrive to the campsite, whether it's on a river, the beach or in the mountains, they are quick to swarm and invite themselves in. They are there in the rain and sun, night and day and are beyond annoying. We burned a lot of incense, which did seem to help ward them off. There are also plenty of stores selling repellant, which we also applied liberally. They're more annoying than anything, but the females do bite, especially feet, and the bites itch like crazy. We applied itch cream night and day. Regardless of these nasty buggers, the scenery on the west coast was more to our liking. We stopped for cool geologic formations,

Pancake Rocks blow hole

For sea side walks,

For glacier hikes,

Franz Josef glacier

Fox Glacier

For roadside walks to cool places,

Blue Pools (shrinkage included, free of charge, if you jump in)

Lake Matheson

And when it was raining, libraries, for free wifi.

All the towns in New Zealand, no matter their size, have free public toilets and numerous parks for picnics. They also have many roadside rest areas, with a picnic table and flat surface to park your vehicle, just in case you need a nap. The public libraries are friendly places to connect to free wi fi and purchase cheap used books.

Before heading to Milford Sound we passed through Wanaka and Queenstown, spending only a couple of hours in each. Wanaka is definitely a place we could return to whereas Queenstown is a bit too crowded and touristy for our taste. We did, however, have our third tastiest burger in the world here (1st place is Jim's Snack Bar in Hoi An, Vietnam and 2nd, Fat Tony's in Legian Beach, Bali). According to the 2011 LA Times, Fergburger, offers up the best burgers in the world. They are definitely the largest burgers we've ever eaten. The line is down the street, from the moment it opens until the minute they close and in our opinion, totally worth the wait.

The line at Fergburger

Queenstown is a big city, with few roads, so traffic is slow and frustrating. It's beautiful though, with a huge lake right in the center of town. We stayed at a cheap campground not too far from the city, in a cool little town called Luggate and enjoyed hot showers, dishwashing station, friendly neighbors, book exchange and no sand flies. Get here before 6:00pm as it fills up fast.

Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu

From Queenstown it's a couple hours drive to Milford Sound. Most people book tours from here and spend most of their time on a bus getting to and from the Sound. We set up camp at the closest DOC campground to Milford Sound, waking early and driving just under an hour to the park, hugging the mountain side and passing through an impressive tunnel. While waiting to enter the tunnel (it's one-lane) we observed the endangered Kea bird pick at the rubber seal around the van behind us.

Kea or alpine parrot

Kea's are harmless but have become accustomed to the presence of tourists. For the second time on our travels we had to lecture tourists about not feeding wildlife their human snacks. We had just gotten out of our van as this woman threw a handful of spiced peanuts on the ground as she and her male partner watched it eat. We got down on the ground, picked up all that she had thrown and informed them that these birds are endangered and they are harming them by feeding them human food. There are signs everywhere explaining this, it's so frustrating.

Driving through the 1.2 km long tunnel you sense that there is something magical on the other side. Coming out of the darkness you are hit with stunning, green, lush, tall mountains that lead you through a gorge of sorts to the water's edge. Here we bought tickets for the first ferry out, at 9:00a.m., which just happens to be the most economical ferry of the day and includes a free buffet breakfast with all you can drink tea and coffee. Needless to say, both our pockets were filled with tater tots.

Our captain informed us that it had been weeks since they had seen blue sky and sunshine, that we were truly lucky to be here today. He entertained us with humor and a ton of knowledge about the sound, which is actually a fjord as it was created by glaciers, not rivers.

We were extra lucky to have arrived on a day after substantial rainfall as the waterfalls were roaring. There are only two year-round water falls here, we saw too many to count.

I feel like I've said this often on many of our posts, but pictures simply do not do this place justice. It is one of the most beautiful places we have been.

From Milford Sound we headed to the east coast, arriving to Dunedin, a huge industrial city with a university, museums, historical sites and some other stuff that didn't interest us. Our friends told us to head out of the city to the Otago Peninsula, the wildlife capital of New Zealand and home to the worlds only mainland breeding colony of royal albatross. This is much more our pace and was beautiful and relaxing. We also purchased fresh eggs at a roadside stand, using the honor system, you leave your money in a jar and take eggs. These are all over the island and not just for eggs, you can get fruit, jam and the famous Manuka honey.

Otago Peninsula

Oamaru is super hip, creative and inventive. It's like one huge museum. Our favorite part of town was the steampunk playground, sturdy enough for adults, and so fun. We waited a couple of hours for the bakery (pictured below) to open, we saw people working and smelled the delicious scent of freshly baked bread, but the doors were never unlocked.

Oamaru

We continued north toward the center of the island to Tekapo and arrived to a frigid temperature. Talking with the caretaker at the Church of the Good Shepherd, we were informed that this is the coldest summer that he can remember. That he can count on one hand how many times he's been able to take off his sweater this summer. We decided to spend a relaxing day at the Tekapo Springs and called our friend Mel to join us. For less than $20USD you get access to all the hot pools all day long, coming and going as you please.

Tekapo Springs

After soaking for several hours we hiked (with two trail heads beginning and ending at the Springs parking lot) to the Mt John Observatory, a three hour effort and totally worth it. The colors of this water change according to sun light and are vibrant blues and turquoise. Mel informed us that there have been recent deaths in the lake due to the extremely cold water temperature, but we did see some swimmers (not too far off shore) and a motor boat with a skier, presumably in a dry suit.

Lake Tekapo

We spent the night just outside of town and headed up to Aoraki or Mt Cook national park for a day of hiking. Mt Cook is New Zealand's highest mountain, topping out at 12,218 feet and is a popular mountaineering challenge for hikers from all over the world. The hike is rather easy and is popular among tourists. There is a campground at one of the trail heads, but get here early as it fills up quickly. You can also hike to huts, but you must register at the national park visitor center.

Again, pictures just don't do this place justice. It's stunning. As we were hiking, we heard a distant boom and new that a large part of a glacier had just released. We saw it break apart into what looked like a massive waterfall careening down a rock face.

View of Mt. Cook from Gillespie beach, on the west coast

For our last night in New Zealand we drove north, along the east coast to a campground about 100k from Christchurch. Here we enjoyed hot showers, a washing machine and clothesline, a full kitchen, recycling center and book exchange. The wind was howling, making it difficult to do outdoor activities, but the ocean was not hospitable to swimmers anyway. The place was nice and clean and a great way to end our journey. We could have easily spent three months touring the south island and hope to return, possibly renting a self contained RV, thereby having access to many more free campsites.

Below are some photos of of our campsites, and of course the Mystery Machine:

Free camping outside Twizel

No one ever came to collect money, so it was free and included hot showers, playground and hunter's cabins

Gillespie Beach campground