My flight from Australia landed at midnight in Auckland. My cousin Karen graciously picked me up from the airport, of which I was very thankful for.

It had been quite a few years since we last met and even longer since I was last in New Zealand, and I spent the next couple of days with her and her family.

The first activity we did was visiting the Arataki Visitor Centre, which afforded a spectacular view.

We later went to a sculpture park together, but we unfortunately got rained out, although luckily right as we were almost done anyway.

We then went down to Palmerston North, where my Aunt Julie, Karen’s mother, lives. My cousin had a full car with her: her, her husband, Reuben, and their 2 kids, so I took the bus. And from the sound of it, with all the screaming from the youngest, it sounds like I had a much quieter ride.

In Palmy, we all hung out for a couple of days, visiting the park, riding on the kids’ train, and visiting Santa’s workshop with the kids.

My other cousin Lachlan then arrived with his partner, and our party was complete, and we were all ready to celebrate Christmas together. I have celebrated Christmas in Phoenix, AZ, before, but this was a whole new level of a warm Christmas. The warm weather was certainly different from the typical white Christmases I was used to.

During my entire world trip, I had been planning on getting to New Zealand in time to celebrate Christmas with my family there, and I was really glad that it had worked out. We exchanged gifts, had plenty of food, and had a merry time.

Once Christmas was over, Karen, Rueben, and their kids took off to celebrate New Year’s elsewhere. There was a lull in activity, and my aunt took me to the Manawatu Gorge, which I hiked through. There used to be a road through the area, but repeated landslides had permanently closed it down, but the hiking track was still open.

A few days later, Lachlan and I left for New Plymouth. We walked along the coast, saw the Festival of Lights, and, the next morning, we hiked up Mount Taranaki. Fun fact: the mountain was used as Mt. Fuji in The Last Samurai due to its likeness but also lack of development around it.

In the morning, we were off!

The hike itself was exhausting. Going up was as hard as one would expect, but we were actually fairly sheltered from the wind on the route we went up, and I got pretty warm. As a result, I kept sweating and wiping the sweat from my forehead, which resulted in me wiping away all my sunblock there and getting a nice band of sunburn above my eyes. At the top, in the crater, we fully experienced the ice-cold winds, and we had to quickly put all our layers back on. Coming down was really tricky during one part where a lot of loose volcanic rock was. The scree created a pearls-on-sidewalk situation where your feet could easily slip out from underneath you, and we both had to go very slow with calculated foot placement at every step. Alas, we made it and celebrated with a few beers.

The next day, we drove down to Wellington, where he lives. He and Nicholas took me up Mount Victoria and I got a good view of the city.

Afterward, we went to the Te Papa museum to check out the Maori art. No photos were allowed in the museum, unfortunately.

The next day was New Year’s Eve! We went downtown for a while and had a few drinks and some food.

As the evening wore on, my cousin and I got cut off at one bar! We weren’t entirely sober, but certainly not to the point where it warranted getting cut off. Regardless, that kind of killed our downtown party mood, and we ended up going home and singing karaoke into the new year, which was still very fun.

To start 2020, we took a ferry across the harbor to Days Bay, and we even went swimming for a few minutes. Even though it’s summer in the southern hemisphere in January, the water and air still weren’t that warm, so I couldn’t stay in too long.

In the evening, we went to Zealandia, a bird sanctuary really close to Wellington. And you wouldn’t have guessed you were so close to the city—it was so lush and quiet.

After a short introductory video, we were shown around the park and saw many iconic birds, trees, lizards, glow worms, eels, and other wildlife. The Takahe was really cool; thought to be extinct up until 1948, the numbers are slowly going back up, but there’s still only a few hundred in existence.

Our guide also put some feed in the river where eels typically ate. One eel did come and started to feed. Then another. Then one of them sunk its teeth into the other’s neck, and the writhed around in a bitter fight for a few seconds. It was rather sudden, and we were all taken aback. We ended up leaving before seeing the result.

We also saw kiwis! That’s right, multiple! One was spotted in the woods a few meters in, and it was hard to make out, but we did see it walking through the underbrush, sniffing around for insects to eat. And right as we were almost done at the exit of the sanctuary, we saw another right by the path.

And not to mention the glow worms, fauna, lizards, and plenty of other birds we saw. All-in-all, it was a great experience.

It was then time to explore the South Island for a bit.

I took the Interislander ferry, and I got $30 worth of food vouchers for use in the restaurant and café on board, which was a boat load of vouchers. I stuffed myself and still had half the vouchers, so I bought a couple of sandwiches and brought them with me when I departed. The boat itself was huge and had multiple places to eat, plenty of sitting areas, and there was even a movie theater on board.

The ferry arrived in Picton, and I ended up making a snap decision to hike part of the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds. The route typically starts at one arm of a peninsula and proceeds back toward the mainland. You have to pay for a ferry ride as well as for the campsites in addition to paying for permission to walk through stretches of the track that go through private land. In the end, it ended up costing about 100 bucks for 3 days of hiking.

I started where people usually finish and went against the tide of hikers. The views were great if a bit tainted by the bushfires in Australia.

I arrived late to my first camping place and could barely manage to find a spot to set up my tent. There were too many people.

The next day continued, and I was dead by the end. My heels were rubbed raw, and I had a blister on my left foot. I really don’t understand why as I had worn these boots for more than a year without issues.

Camping at the second site was easier, partially because I arrived earlier, and partially because there weren’t so many car campers there.

The next day, I took the boat back to Picton, had dinner with my cousins’s father, and then went to bed for an early bus ride the next morning to Christchurch.

I was originally contemplating stopping in Kaikoura to possibly do some whale watching. It is not cheap, but I was thinking that I might have been able to haggle them into some discount. If it didn’t work out, then I would have just moved on. Going back to the hike on the Queen Charlotte track—one of the benefits of camping is that it is usually very cheap or free. My 3-day trek along that ended up costing more than a hostel would have. I don’t regret it, but it certainly wasn’t a money-saving measure. Since I had spent that money, I decided to entirely drop the notion of going whale watching and just bused all the way to Christchurch.

I stayed at a couchsurfer’s house in Christchurch, and I walked around during the day. I felt like the city was nice, but nothing to get too excited about. The street art was neat, but I felt the one full day there was enough to walk around and check it out. There was an Antarctic Center that seemed interesting, but entry was $75, so I passed on that.

One of the locations I wanted to see the most on the South Island was Mount Sunday. The city of Edoras, capital of Rohan, was filmed there in Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, public transport there is non-existent outside of some day tour that was around $250, and I didn’t want to pay that much.

I ended up taking a bus from the city to Rolleston, which was just a little bit of the way, but it was in the direction I needed to go. Once there, I went to the main road and stuck out my thumb. It wasn’t too long until I got a ride, but he wasn’t going very far. So I stuck out my thumb again once I had got out, and I got another ride to Rakaia. From there, one drives west to Mount Somers. I had to wait a while until I got a ride for that stretch since there were much fewer people going that way. I ended up getting a ride from some Australians who were going to Mount Somers to go climbing.

I had anticipated on potentially hiking all the way to Mount Sunday from Mount Somers if necessary, and I started hiking up the road. It would take up to 10 hours if I hiked the whole thing. That being said, I still held out hope for the occasional car that did pass, so I kept sticking out my thumb.

I eventually got a ride from a Swiss girl that had bought a campervan and was touring around the country. She also wanted to go there, so we went together.

Although the city had been dismantled after filming was done, you could still clearly see where it had once been. And then there were just a bunch of cows pooping all over this awesome landmark!

After getting our fill of the Rohan landscape, we went back out. She wanted to go up to Christchurch, and I was going down to Aoraki Mount Cook, so we parted ways at Mount Somers, and I continued hitching. It didn’t take too long, and I got a couple of rides in the direction I wanted to go.

I went with the last ride a little past the road to Aoraki Mount Cook to a campsite that I was allowed to camp at next to Lake Poaka. You are only allowed to camp in quite a number of sites if you have a self-contained vehicle, and since I just had my tent, I didn’t make the cut. She was kind enough to drop me off there, and I just had to hitchhike back up to the park the following morning.

According to the DOC’s site, there were some short hiking routes near the highway, and I was originally only planning on going there. I was going to tell my ride to drop me off on the side of the road, but I never noticed the trailheads and I ended up going with them all the way to Mount Cook Village.

In the village, I went to the visitor center and inquired about potential hiking routes, and also where I could camp. He explained that there was one campsite, but it was your typical site, primarily aimed at car campers. But then, like some secret, he told me that as long as you were 200 meters from any established trails, you could camp in DOC land. That was news to me! He recommended that I hike up the Red Tarns and then keep going off the beaten path up to the Upper Tarns, where I could set up camp. So, I did just that.

I set my alarm for midnight because I wanted to view the night sky. The moon was out in full force, so I couldn’t see quite so many stars, but seeing the entire valley and mountain basked in the moon’s silvery glow was well worth it.

The next day, I hiked back down and stuck out my thumb again, and after a couple of rides, I got to Lake Tekapo and set up my tent on a piece of land my cousin owns.

First thing I dad was going up Mount John and visiting the observatory and checking out the surrounding landscape. I would have loved to have checked out the observatories at night, but to do that costs $185, so it again ended up being another activity that I passed due to the high cost.

I was thinking about going swimming the next morning, but the lake was frigid. Dipping my feet in was enough. So, I just hung out for a bit until my bus back to Christchurch. My time in New Zealand was slowly coming to an end, and I had to start making my way back up to Auckland for my flight out of the country.

I wasn’t aware the first time I was in Christchurch, but I actually know somebody who lives there. We never worked together, but we used to work at the same company in Germany and had met each other through mutual friends. We connected after I had passed through, so this time I stayed at his place and we went out for drinks.

Continuing my reversal of my journey down, I took the bus the next day back up to Picton, and then I was on the ferry the next day to Wellington.

On the return journey on the ferry, I wasn’t given vouchers, but I was given access to the Plus Lounge, which included free food and drinks, including alcohol.

I don’t usually care for promoting particular sites, but it seems to be because I booked through www.directferries.com, I got the free bonuses. I’m not sure what other site one can even book the ferry tickets on, but if you do need to, might be worth checking it out…

Back in Wellington, I visited Weta Workshop, the special effects studio that made all the physical props for the Lord of the Rings films, as well as quite a few other movies.

It was pretty neat seeing their creative process and also how simple it could be. As one example, they had some intricate process of creating molds and injecting them with plastic and painting them to achieve the desired effect, but they also created a dragon skull from a cardboard frame and lots of bunched-up aluminum foil.

There were a lot of neat souvenirs one could buy, but they were a bit pricey, and I just didn’t feel like carrying anything long term since I still had a bit of traveling ahead of me.

Afterward, I got a satisfying flight of beers.

I came to learn that there is a beer trail in Wellington. I would have loved to have done it, but one needs to visit about 30 bars, and I just didn’t have that much time to hit up all the bars for the shirt. Maybe when I visit again.

After a couple of day in Wellington, I went back up to Palmerston North to visit my aunt again. The house was certainly much quieter outside of the Christmas days with all the other guests gone. We investigated some art murals that were just in the process of getting started downtown.

We later went to a musical show by a band from Quebec called Rosier. They were a pretty good indie folk band, although they sang a lot of their music in French, so I couldn’t understand it all that well.

I then took the bus up to the town of National Park, which I found to be an odd name for a town name.

From there, I hitchhiked to Whakapapa village, and then I hiked to the Tama Lakes. I was considering doing the Tongariro crossing, which is a world-famous day hike to do, but with the fame comes hordes of people doing it. I neither had enough time to logistically do it nor did I have the desire to be an ant moseying along with hundreds of other people, so I opted for this alternative hike. And it was really nice.

There were very few other hikers, and it was much more serene. A sudden gale came through and dumped some rain on me, but I just put on my rain gear and trudged on. I had purchased this extra-large poncho with the hope that it would fit over me and my backpack. It didn’t. And it was super frustrating trying to get it on. Waste of money.

The lakes were a nice sight, and I then hiked back out and saw Taranaki Falls.

I camped not far from there, a few hundred meters from the trail.

After waking up, I finished hiking out and almost immediately managed to get a ride back to National Park where I caught the next bus up to Auckland.

In Auckland, I hung out with Karen and her kids again. We went to Kitekite falls and Piha beach during one excursion.

And then it was time for some well-deserved ice cream.

I had actually managed to get to Auckland quite a few days before my flight, so I made the most of the time I still had and went up into Northland to Whangarei. There were a lot of places to go up north, but random selection as well as hostel and bus prices dictated that I went there.

I walked up to the Whangarei Falls and then discovered the river walkway that led back to the city, so I took that coming back.

Mount Parihaka was on the way, so I hiked up that and got a good view of the town.

Back in the hostel, I ended up talking with a couple of other guests, and one of them had a car. The next morning, the three of us went to Ocean Beach and splashed around in the water while the one with the car surfed.

After that, we went to Mount Manaia and hiked up it. It was about 1 hour to hike up, so it wasn’t very long, but it did afford a very nice view.

It was an exhausting couple of days, so I took it easy the following day and just visited the clock museum.

It was then time to head back to Auckland.

Hobbiton sounded cool but it was awfully pricey, and I met a few other travelers while in NZ that went to it, and they didn’t have the best of reports to give. They all said there were just too many people, and you had to go in a tour group and get shuffled around the entire time, and barely anyone really enjoyed it.

I stayed for one last night with my cousin before flying out the next day to Santiago de Chile. Due to the international date line, I left on the 26^th and arrived on the 26^th even earlier than when I had departed. Time travel!

I really like New Zealand. I have been before, but that was 15 years ago, and it was nice to explore some new areas as well as previously visited ones. That being said, it wasn’t quite the rugged camping experience I had been hoping for. It seems that the thing to do is to get a campervan, and all the services and information were catered for that, actually making it difficult to find information about camping without a campervan. A lot of people recommended the CamperMate app to me, and I did give it a shot, but it was again focused on people in campervans and didn’t provide much use to me. Even most official sites talk about “freedom camping,” which is in a campervan, but never about actual camping.

And when one can hike and camp, there is usually a very defined route with designated camping spots. The Queen Charlotte track was not cheap and very linear, and it felt somehow more like some amusement park that a truly wild experience. I understand that they used to have a serious issue with campers leaving their crap everywhere, both figuratively and literally. In order to tame the storm of tourists, they had to make a lot of regulations. I really can’t fault the New Zealand government, and I even encourage it as protecting the nature is important, but it certainly does make it a more streamlined and less adventurous experience.

But Mt. Cook National Park opened my eyes after the ranger let me in on “the secret.” You can use https://www.doc.govt.nz/map/index.html to find restricted areas where you can’t camp by checking the “Freedom camping restrictions” box. Otherwise, unless otherwise posted, you should be able to camp in most DOC land that is at least 200 meters from an established path, as far as I understood.

Armed with that knowledge, I plan to make my next trip to NZ a bit more epic as far as hiking and camping go, and I also hope it will not be another 15 years before I get down there again.