New Zealand (Part Three)

Our delayed ferry from Picton to Wellington meant that we wouldn't reach the other side until after 8:30pm. To tide us over we got some snacks onboard. They had a full service café and we grabbed some fries and a salmon melt (they call them "toasties" here). The ferry also had a full cinema room, tons of lounge space, and a full bar. Not too shabby of a place to spend the 3-4 hour journey. We arrived in Wellington after dark and searched for water. As we had been staying at free or extremely cheap campsites they often did not have access to clean drinking water. So, instead, we would find outdoor public fountains to fill up at using our helpful NZ camping apps as a guide. The first couple of places we went, however, didn't have water. Feeling frustrated, tired, and ready for a late dinner, we decided to splurge a little bit and stay at one of the holiday parks. However, when we got there they had already closed down for the night and locked the gate. We were still able to use their bathroom and kitchen though and we cooked up the mussels...to mixed results. The first batch had too much wine (is that even a real thing) in it to steam properly and none of the mussels opened. The next batch went much better. We had an extremely late but pleasant dinner, then slept in the parking lot and left a note for the campsite with our information so that they could charge us as they saw fit later on.

From Wellington we headed into Tongariro National Park. Our first thoughts on transitioning to North Island were that it was much busier than South Island, and a little less scenic. Or maybe it was just a different type of scenery. The jagged, snow-capped mountain peaks of south island were replaced with rolling farmland with the occasional massive volcano, which was still pretty cool. Coming into the national park the landscape becomes even more bare, with little farmland and more open, rocky space. But after a bit of driving you come to the massive peaks Mt. Tongariro, Mt. Ruapehu, and Mt. Ngauruhoe. They seem to come out of nowhere and completely dominate the landscape. Since we were here in winter we were able to see them completely covered in snow as well. Mt. Ngauruhoe is famous for being the movie version of Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We had decided to stop here early as we wanted to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing as our last big hike of New Zealand...and of the trip as a whole. The Crossing has been called by some "the greatest day hike in the world" and we were excited to test that theory out. The biggest difficulty, though, was in attempting to do it in the winter. The hike itself is a 19.4 km (12+ mile) point-to-point hike which meant that we would have to leave our van at one trailhead and find a way back to it from the other side. The shuttles that typically accommodate this shut down for the winter, which means you likely need to book an expensive private option. Also, it was difficult to judge what the conditions at the top would be. We decided to look into some reviews and forums and the people who left comments were....let's just say dramatic. Nicole even reached out on a Facebook group with many people saying just to straight up NOT attempt it, or to do it as a guided excursion ($250 NZD per person!) only. At the very least, it seemed like we would need some winter equipment, so we looked at a couple of ski shops to rent some crampons (the one we rented from had a very friendly staff member who gave us an unsolicited history of the region and it's volcanic activity).

As we contemplated whether or not we were going to be able to achieve the hike, we decided to check out a couple of other things in the area. We went on a short hike to the Tawhai Falls, which was famous for being "Gollum's Pool" in the Lord of the Rings. Note here that this post is going to have a lot of Lord of the Rings mentions. The films were exclusively shot in New Zealand, with a lot of prominent and accessible shooting landmarks on North Island. After a quick lunch in the carpark area for the falls we drove to Lake Taupo (the biggest lake in New Zealand) to check out the nearby Huka Falls, and to see if some nearby natural hot pools were warm enough to swim in (they were not at this time). We swung back into the National Park as it was getting dark and made a meal of fettucine pasta with blackened salmon, which was surprisingly easy with our simple camp stove equipment. We had a nice, secluded campsite about 15 minutes from the trailhead of the hike in the morning, and we were up just before sunrise to eat breakfast and get ready for the big day.

We started the hike just as the sun was creeping into the valley at 8am (remember, it's still winter down here and there aren't many daylight hours). We had vigoruously prepared, with multiple clothing layers, extra gloves and stocking caps, hand warmers, crampons, hiking poles, extra snacks and waters and whatever else you could think of. The forums had sufficiently spooked us into thinking this would be a brutal hike in winter, and because of that we decided we were just going to attempt making it to the peak (the peak of the hike is actually in the saddle of Mt. Tongaririo and Mt. Nguaruhoe at a spot called Red Crater), before coming back to our car. On our way up in the first stretch we passed a guided group of 10ish people, but did not see anyone else at the beginning. The first part of the hike was an easy incline through lava fields and a wet, warm boggy area with a boardwalk over it. After that we hit "The Devil's Staircase", a 2-mile stretch of steep staircases. This was a good challenge, but at this point we were in really good hiking shape so we didn't have too much difficulty. The entire way up the views of "Mt. Doom" just got better and better. Towards the top of the staircase we started to see our first snow, and pretty soon we were in the central crater area (the flat portion before the final ascent) and there was a 2-3 inch layer of snow the whole way. After crossing this we had one more steep segment up to the top at Red Crater. This was the only area where we would maybe need crampons, but we didn't hassle with them and made it to the top just fine. We were treated with amazing views stretching almost as far as both coasts on the crystal clear day. Down below us were some famous way points, the Blue Lake and the Emerald Lakes. We talked to one other person who was hiking alone that day, and he gave us the final encouragement to continue onward. We decided that rather than turning around we would continue on to the end, and wing it to get back to our car. From the top we had a steep decent, another snowy walk near the lakes, and then a beautiful and easy descent into the other side (although it was much longer that way).

We arrived in the carpark at the opposite trailhead expecting to see a bunch of other cars, but there were only two there, and one was clearly a bus for the guided group we saw. Our choices now were to hike back up the mountain or to get to the highway and try to hitchhike. We decided on the latter option. Australia and New Zealand are some of the safest, easiest places in the world to do this, so we decided to check it off the bucket list. It was just a couple of miles of walking down the highway with our thumbs out before a lady and her granddaughter stopped and picked us up. She was friendly enough to take us all the way to our car! Overall we would say that the hike did, indeed, live up to it's hype as a great day hike, but definitely didn't live up to everyone's online fears (although we admit that we were in ideal shape and had perfect weather conditions). We really enjoyed the challenge and even more so the views and terrain. Plus hitchhiking at the end was a solid bonus for the overall experience. We had planned on driving onward that night to our next destination, but figuring we were in debt on the karma scale, we reached out to someone in the hiking Facebook group that needed a ride between carparks the following morning for that same hike. So we ended up staying at the same campsite, making some mulled wine and grilled cheeses, and enjoying our accomplishment. We also made a pit stop at the local thermal pool to relax our muscles after the hike! The following morning we were up well before dawn to pick up the other group (they left their car at the finish point and we drove them to the start).

After dropping our friends off we had to cruise about 2 hours to hit our first booking of the day, the Waitomo Caves. We were now onto what we like to call the "Touristy Sh*t" portion of New Zealand. These are the extremely cool, but extremely well-trodden, cost-controlled things on North Island. The first were the caves, which were famous for their glow-worms. The tour itself ended up being really good and included a Maori history lesson, our guide singing to us in the pitch black cavern, and a boat ride through the glow-worm portion, which was stunning (you won't see photos here as they were not allowed on the tour). We really enjoyed our experience, but our guide let us know that if you stay in the area you can see glow worms everywhere during night walks around the river. We continued on to our afternoon booking at one of Kyle's most sought-after attractions: the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour. This incredibly detailed movie set (again, from the LOTR and The Hobbit movies) is nestled into absolutely picturesque green farmlands and sheep-grazing areas. Our tour was terrific, and included a wonderfully geeky guide who's dream was to do something related to the LOTR movies ever since they were shot there. He had all kinds of random facts and was giddy about everything, despite giving this same tour several times a day. The tour ends with a stop at The Green Dragon Inn, a full-sized pub famous from the books/movies and meticulously recreated. We drank our complimentary beers and, true hobbit style, grabbed another as we enjoyed the bright afternoon sun.

We drove from Hobbiton to our campsite near Rotorua. Rotorua is a geothermal hotspot, with tons of thermal pools and thermal attractions nearby. It is also a cultural capital, with many Maori villages in or around the town. We ended up staying in a free parking lot spot near the park. The benefits were that the road was handy, there was a running trail nearby, and we had bathrooms. The negatives were that we heard traffic all night and even had a sketchy person knocking on our window late at night. We were up early the next day to get a run in on the trail, and then started checking out the area. Our first stop was at Kerosene Creek, an amazing "hot" creek with a trail next to it. The creek was the perfect temperature for relaxing in, and on the crisp morning you could see steam rising all around you. From there we headed to a nearby lake for a leg-stretching 4-mile hike around. We finished the night with a much fancier thermal pool experience at the Polynesian Spa (it was $36 NZD per person, but we thought of it as a reward for our hike from the other day). The Spa had 7 different pools of varying temperatures, with great views out over the lake. We were so relaxed afterwards that we decided to just sleep in the same lot as the night before rather than continuing to the next town.

Our final exploration area of New Zealand was the Coromandel Peninsula. It ended up being about a 4 hour drive from Rotorua, weaving through small villages and homestead farms. Our first stop was around lunchtime at Hot Water Beach. We found a park bench to make lunch at and then wandered down the beach with no real purpose in mind. The beach is famous for a couple of underground springs running under the sand. People bring shovels, dig out holes for themselves, and relax in the hot water that bubbles up from below. We thought that there was no way that it would be warm enough to swim in, but after feeling the water in some of the holes that others had made we went running back for our swimsuits. We didn't have a shovel but a family was leaving just as we returned, and they offered their swimming hole to us, with a warning that it was a little toasty. It ended up being boiling hot! We had to move some sand around to try to bring in some cooler water, but we eventually found it manageable and spent a couple of hours just chilling out. They were definitely some of the more bizarre and unique of the thermal springs we had experienced on this trip (and that's saying something because we went to A LOT). After the beach we made it up the coast to Cathedral Cove, just in time for low tide. The cove features a 3-mile roundtrip walk through several bays that terminates at a "tunnel" that's only able to be walked through within a couple of hours of low tide. It was a cool area with some unique features, and was definitely a good way to wake up our sore legs after a long day of driving. We drove that evening deep into the Coromandel Forest Park to camp, and found a couple of short hikes for the morning.

The next day, after our hikes, it was finally time to return the rental car in Auckland. The way into the city (New Zealand's capital and biggest city at 1.6 million people) was not super eventful...except for the speeding ticket we got just 50 miles away, AFTER 19 DAYS with no incidents (We will let you guess who was driving). We stopped at Mt. Eden, a dormant volcano inside the city limits, for our final lunch in the van and then returned it. To Spaceships rental company: thank you for the awesome deal on the van....sorry for the 19 days worth of sweat, cooking, and whatever other smells you come across in there! We made it back our hostel (Haka Lodge) and then did what anyone would do on their final few days of their dreams-come-true trip: sign up for a free trial at the nearby YMCA! Yes, we knew that we were wrapping up this epic adventure, but we also knew that we were feeling really healthy. To offset the soon-to-come drinking and eating celebration, we decided to get some extra workouts in. We went that evening for some cardio and a lift, and then cooked some of our leftover camp food in the hostel kitchen, before making popcorn and watching a movie.

Our final full day in New Zealand meant one thing for us: a Kiwi Burger. We had noticed these on menus since when we first touched down in the country. They're burgers with New Zealand grass-fed beef, a fried egg, and pickled beets. We were still trying to be cheap, so we made sure to stick to our camping meals with "the burger" as our final reward at the end. Knowing that we were going to gorge ourselves, we decided to sign up for two classes at the YMCA that day. The only morning class that worked for us was a Zumba class, and it ended up being us with about two dozen retirees, most of them women who thought the male instructor "was just gorgeous." After that first class we wandered through the streets of Auckland and made it back just in time for the evening class, a very intense 30-minute session. We then raced home, cleaned up, and made it to our burger spot. The meal was almost completely silent, with both of us lost in the joy of our giant burgers, cold beers, and kumara (sweet potato) fries. It's hard to know if it was that good of a burger, or if 3 weeks of bagged rice, boxed pasta, and cold sandwiches made it that way. Either way though we were satisfied. That night we had a couple of beers at the hostel then headed out to some cool cocktail bars on K-road (the best bar street in Auckland). The first one was a speak-easy with a vestibule open to the street, but a hidden door to actually get inside. After 5-minutes of looking around and touching all of the walls, someone finally opened the hidden door for us. Right inside there is a big TV with a camera on the vestibule so that all of the patrons can laugh at people trying to figure out how to get in. Sure enough, we got some giggles and clapping when we finally made it. The drinks there and at the next place were perfect, and we went to bed extremely satisfied and still full from our burgers.

We were then at the end. We had an evening flight out of Auckland, so we got one last YMCA workout in, packed up (and donated a bunch of clothes), and hit a cool café and grabbed some fish and chips for a late lunch. We made it to the airport in plenty of time to board our 12 hour flight from Auckland to LAX, where we had actually allowed for a long layover (14+ hours), so that we could enjoy the end of the trip with our once-per-year United Club passes. So here we sit, with a drink in hand, reminiscing about all of the experiences we had, good, bad, beautiful, ugly, and ours alone to remember for years to come. New Zealand's outdoor adventure life was the perfect way to capstone our experience, and we'll certainly be back in the near future!

Additional New Zealand notes:

• Birds are the main wildlife to see in New Zealand. They have filled the role of large grazers, predators, vermin, and pretty much every other ecological niche that other species fill elsewhere in the world.

• Bats are the only native land mammal in New Zealand. Any other mammals (possums, deer, rabbits, etc) were introduced by humans at some point.

• Deer are livestock here and can be seen in fenced-in farmyards. We saw many farmed deer, and no wild deer.

• Many people said that we were the first tourists that they had seen since 2020. New Zealand had some of the strictest borders during Covid and just started opening them up again.

• Roads are mostly two lane, and sometimes it narrows enough that you have to give right of way to oncoming traffic. There are signs to help out with this.

• There is roadkill of brush tailed possums EVERYWHERE.

• There are free stand-alone public restrooms and water stations all over to use, which helped us because the cheap campsites do not have them. A lot of restaurants and stores will ask you to use these as well rather than providing you with access to their facilities.

• Gas was about $2.75 NZD per liter ($6.50 USD per gallon) when we were there. Fuel economy 22 mph on average in our van.

• Craft breweries are big here, but mostly feature very hoppy beers. We noticed this trend in Australia too.

• There was limited wifi and even cell service everywhere, but there are kiosks that you can park next to with an hour of free wifi service.

• Our camping meals included sandwiches, pasta, rice, and soup, with carrots and apples mixed in. We spent about $150 USD on groceries our entire 3 weeks in New Zealand, which helped keep our budget down.

• Hiking trails are EXTREMELY well maintained, and the famous ones are more like paved bike-type trails.

• All standard electrical outlets have a little switch next to them that you need to make sure is flipped correctly to use.

More Oceana dictionary items:

• Tramping: hiking

• Heaps: A lot, many

• Trundler: grocery cart