Since the second we touched down in New Zealand we‘ve been on the move. We started with running through the Auckland airport after our red-eye flight from Tahiti, racing through parking lots and past construction sites because our tent was detained and searched at biosecurity (they gave it back!) and we were at risk of missing our connection to Christchurch. Sweaty and breathless we made it. And we never stopped moving.
A day after touching down in Christchurch we were in Tekapo stargazing in front of our youth hostel, a day after that we were at the top of Mt. Cook resting our sore bodies with hot chocolate and whiskey after hiking into Mueller Hut.
We did our first night of tent camping in the Milford Sound area, waking up early to make it to our rainy cruise, guzzling free coffee and cookies before heading to Te Anu to get ready for our Great Walk. We copied my parents here, but while they chose the Milford Sound we chose the 3 night Kepler Track. A newer walk in comparison, one that came into creation after my parents were in New Zealand in 1983, it was set up to take some pressure off of Routebourn and Milford but is now just as popular.
A fun note about hut camping. The bunk rooms are set up either sardine style, bunk style, OR both. There isn’t privacy. The bunk rooms we stayed in could hold 16-40+ beds. H and I got all of our beds nearish to each other and came across only one terrible snorer and we were able to avoid him on subsequent nights.
(My mom and dad didn’t always get their bunks near each other, so my mom would start her night sleeping well. But then people would start waking her, knowing she was with my dad and begging her to stop his earth shaking snores.)
After crisscrossing our way around the South Island we headed North. Meeting Craig on the ferry.
Craig is an American ex-pat of 40+ years who basically planned our North Island adventures. He reccomended how to get transit before doing the Tongariro Crossing, the best hot spring campgrounds (Waikite Valley), the art deco town of Napier, what beaches in Coromandel to stop at and more. He told us if we were near where he lived to text and that we could set up our tent on his lawn. We got near, we did text, and he gave us the guest room! We even went to his partner’s art show.
We’ve been learning something about ourselves: we will go to lengths to find Sri Lankan food. When we were on the Picton ferry this jolly German kid and H got talking about Sri Lanka. It turns out the guy used to work at a Sri Lankan restaurant on Waiheke Island (a 40 minute ferry from Auckland). So we went! We parked our car, took the ferry, ate the most delicious crab curry, met the owner Indy (Restuarant is Indy’s Curry Pot and let me tell you, we would make the commute again), hitch hiked to a beautiful campground and set up for the night.
That night we also met this great guy Reuben who was camping with his 3 year-old son. He shared his beers and we shared our very spicy Sri Lankan food and whiskey, before hitching a ride with him the next day and taking the ferry back out. (We met up with Reuben a few days later and he showed us where he worked, Snow Planet, an indoor skiing and snowboarding park.)
Folks, blogging is challenging and I can’t fit everything into this post and now I’m starving and wah wah. HA! I’ll post our New Zealand favorites soon.
