Three Weeks in New Zealand - South Island (Part 2)

South Island
From Auckland, I flew into Christchurch late in the evening and stayed at a hostel that was formerly a jail. Exhausted, I sat on the floor of my room eating cheese, ham, hummus and crackers whilst chatting with my roomie, a British girl traveling around Australia and NZ. Side note, in pretty much every hostel I stayed at there was a hot water tap (a box connected to the pipes that had boiling water readily available) so you didn't need to put the kettle on. I've never seen that before and it was so blessed. Oatmeal, done. Tea, done. Rinse the dishes before using them, done! I saved so much time not needing to wait for the kettle to boil.

With that being said, dish rinsing is so key. I forgot to mention in my previous post that a couple days into my trip, I got a cold. Highly suspect it was from not washing hostel utensils before using them (I've stayed at many a hostel and never had this problem until now). Thankfully it wasn't a bad cold but I wasn't at 100% for 85% of my trip. So tip for everyone...wash those hostel dishes/utensils or at least rinse them under hot water before using them.

Speaking of dishes, there is not much of a food scene in NZ, unless you are in one of the larger cities. For those of you familiar with Chef's Table, Ben Shewry of Attica is from New Zealand, and his menu is heavily influenced by NZ but his restaurant is in Australia...so that's saying something. Check out his episode - he does hāngi, which is a traditional Māori way of cooking food underground. Despite the lack of a culinary scene, there is plenty of amazing produce so I ended up cooking the majority of my meals. I had some really great salmon, white fish, steak, lamb, and mussels. They were all cheaper than they are here in Canada. Fruits and veggies aren't that cheap, though, except for kiwi fruit. Let me just say right now that the kiwi fruit we have in Canada do not hold a candle to the Kiwi kiwis. They're so sweet.

One of my favourite things to do in foreign countries is to try random fruits that are uncommon at home. Here, I tried a tamarillo (below). It was kind of sour, reminiscent of passion fruit and very high in nutrients. Despite being grown in NZ, tamarillos weren't super cheap, probably because the majority of them get exported.

The next morning, I walked to the train station and boarded the TranzAlpine, which would take me from Christchurch to Greymouth, through the mountains, as the name of the train had so obviously hinted. It's truly a small world when you're traveling, I had another run-in with someone I met previously - my British friend I met in Taupo was on the same train! It's funny because we were messaging back and forth and mentioned taking the TranzAlpine train, but had thought we were on different trains the entire time until we saw each other. What a coincidence, to be in the same coach, no less!

I didn't rent a car in the south because TripAdvisor told me there would be snow. I opted for a hop-on hop-off bus (with Stray, which I kind of hated), but if you ever plan on choosing a bus to travel through NZ, I would recommend the Intercity. Akin to Greyhound, it is the most affordable bus option and they go pretty much everywhere. You can purchase hours, and that will allow you to take as many buses as you want within the allotted hours purchased.

Much to my disappointment, there was no snow on the roads, and I paid a boat load more than I would have if I took the Intercity bus. That was the main turn-off for me, besides lack of organization, bus drivers trying to sell us accommodations/activities and also lack of flexibility (most places you could stay one night or three, not two because the bus didn't run daily). I guess that's what happens when I plan so last minute. One day we did encounter black ice on the road but that was it - I do wish I had driven, but at the same time this hop-on hop-off bus did take me to pretty much everywhere I wanted to go. The caveat being I didn't have as much time as I wanted, and there were places I wasn't particularly dying to visit. More on that later.
The first stop on the bus was Franz Josef Glacier, where there was heli-hiking available as an activity. For $500, one can take a helicopter ride and hike on top of the glacier. Being the frugal traveler, I opted to hike for free, for six hours through the sub-temperate rain forest (above) to Robert's Point, with views of the glacier (which didn't show up too well on camera so just imagine a huge chunk of ice in the middle of the mountains). The trail had large, open, rock faces and it had rained earlier so it was quite muddy and slippery. I hiked with two German girls who finished high school last year and just finished up a year of working in Australia as au pairs. We all fell at least once. Good times. There were also long suspension bridges (below) that could only hold the weight of one person at a time, it was really cool walking over and looking down into the valleys. The highlight for me was drinking glacier water. I wanted to bottle it and take it back with me. Unfortunately I only had one bottle.

That evening, I went to the heli pad to watch the sun set. It was raining, but I paid no mind. I was really excited to finally be somewhere that took my breath away. Sitting on a picnic bench in the rain, I happily snapped photos and stared up at the sky. Just look at that light hitting the snow on the peak of the mountain. The photos don't do it justice, everyone needs to see this in real life!!!

Lake Matheson (below) is so wonderfully picturesque, the water reflected a mirror image of the mountains. It was definitely another "I can't believe this is real, Mother Nature you rock, we need to save our planet" kind of moment. In the morning there was still dew and fog on the ground, and the sun hit everything in the right places. I was so in awe even before we got to the lake. We were only there for a couple hours, then it was back on the bus. There were a lot of long travel days where I'd be on the bus for 3 or 4 hours on end, with only short bathroom breaks. Times like those, I was glad I wasn't driving.

Next up, we went to Wanaka, a chill ski town with a beautiful lake, mountain views, and a super insta-famous tree with its own hashtag, #thatwanakatree (pictured below, captured with all of its adoring fans in the frame). Unfortunately I only had an evening and morning there, I fell hard and fast for Wanaka. Love at first sight is a real thing. The most popular hike to do here is an 8 hour hike up Roy's Peak. Some intense people I met at the hostel told me about how they hiked up starting at 4am for the sunrise. Well...maybe next time when there isn't snow up to your knees on the mountain. I did a quick hike up Mt. Iron which is really more of a hill that overlooks the city. Different view, but still beautiful. On the top of the hill, I realized that I forgot my food at the hostel when I was running to catch the bus. I convinced the bus driver to turn around so I could get my steak. Ran into the hostel, grabbed my food, ran out, forgetting my coat that I dropped on the floor in the morning. Shows where my priorities lie...

After Wanaka, we stopped in Queenstown for a couple of days. Also known as the adventure capital of the world, Queenstown is the gateway to so many adventure activities - skydiving, bungy jumps, swings, catapults, skiing/snowboarding. There are also nice lake and mountain views, but it had completely different vibes from Wanaka. There were way more people, many tourists and is overall an incredibly lively place. There are over 42 bars in Queenstown, and a really famous burger place called Ferg Burger (also had a bakery, where I had the most delicious Boston cream donut of my life). When I came across belligerent youth, I kind of missed the deadness of Taupo.

I did a bungy jump off the Kawarau Bridge, 43m, the world's first commercial bungy site and decided to do it three hours before it happened. Kind of didn't want to pay $200, but at the same time I was at the home of the bungy (although the founder took the idea from an African tribe). How I rationalized: I've been eating ham and cheese on crackers for lunch everyday. If there's one thing to splurge on, it was this. The jump felt like DropZone at Wonderland, except only my legs were bound and the top part of my body was completely free. A couple seconds of free fall, then my head and shoulders were in the water. A lot of bouncing up and down ensued. This did not help my cold in any way.

At the hostel, I met an Aussie who had just begun her trip to NZ and we hiked the Ben Lomond Track. It was around 7 hours return, super fun, so much snow! Unfortunately it was a bit of a cloudy day. She introduced me to Shapes, which are excellent and kind of reminiscent of the flavour explosion Goldfish. This is us in the snow, and a couple shots of the mountains around us. The next day I hiked up Queenstown Hill, which was a short two hour hike, round trip, and provided amazing 360 views of the lake and mountains. Probably the lowest effort to best view ratio you can find in Queenstown, but quite steep getting to the trail head, that was a hike in itself.


Fiordland was what I was most looking forward to visiting, but unfortunately we only had a day there. If there's one place I'd like to return to, it would be Fiordland National Park to hike the Kepler and Milford Tracks. Side note, all the National Parks in NZ are free (by donation), and there's a ton of signage on the hiking trails making them really easy to navigate. The bus took us to Te Anau, then to Milford Sound where we took a boat cruise around the fiord. It was seriously beautiful (title photo and below). I met an Irish guy who is an accountant and just moved to NZ from Calgary. He loves the mountains, and told me to keep at it with the CPA designation because it can take me places all over the world.

The next day the bus took us through Invercargill, the southernmost city in NZ, very much an industrial place, through Bluff to hop on a ferry (which was really rough, I wanted to throw up) to go to a little island below the south island called Rakiura/Stewart Island (below). The ferry cost $60 each way, I was tempted to pass on that but apparently there's absolutely nothing to see or do in Invercargill so I said ok, going to the island. Rakiura is famous for its sunsets and sunrises, unfortunately it was really rainy and overcast during my time there. The island itself reminded me a bit of Bermuda and Tobermory combined. A lot of kiwi birds live here, and it's the most common place one can see them in the wild. If you are keen to see a kiwi, go here. If you aren't, then skip it. I hiked a bunch in the morning, then had to get back on the ferry. Chatted with a fisherman who travels back and forth a lot, and said that it took him four years to get over being seasick on a little fishing boat. I asked him why he did it, and he said, "I was young, stupid and had nothing better to do"...now he has two houses. I could have skipped Rakiura - it wasn't super value for money and I had a terrible time on the ferry, but I still enjoyed my time on this sparsely inhabited island.

Headed back through to Queenstown for a night, then continued to Aoraki/Mount Cook, where I stayed for three nights and hiked every day. There is not much in the vicinity, the closest town is maybe an hour and a half away by car. The bus dropped me off and I was pretty much stranded - no grocery store in the area, just what I had with me, and a couple of restaurants with super overpriced food. At first, I thought three nights would be too much, but it gave me ample time to explore the area. I met an American on exchange at the top of a 2000-step hiking route and convinced him to rent bikes to go to Tasman Glacier, about 10km away. It was a great feeling being on a bike, the cold wind whipping my face, I felt soooo alive! Below is Mueller Glacier, an easy walk that is about 3 hours return. Lots of tourists had their children in tow on this walk. Some of the children were not having it.


Back to Christchurch (photos below) - there's not much there, not many people out and about, either. The aftereffects of the 2011 earthquake were still visible - a lot of empty lots, shipping containers, a church in the main square, half-repaired. What there was in ample supply, however, was really cool street art all over the city. There was no free wifi at my hostel but luckily there was a university building across from it so I stood outside and used the Eduroam network. Bless Eduroam, with me in every country. I walked around the city and everything shut down at 6pm. The art gallery had a neon sign above it that read "everything is going to be alright" which would seem cliche in pretty much every other situation, but considering the history of Christchurch, it seemed fitting, relaying hope.



The next morning I flew back to Auckland with a whole day before my flight to LA. I didn't want to pay $18 each way to go into the city and back, so I walked around the airport and the surrounding area. There seriously is not much there. I asked some airport employees if there was anything for me to do in the area, and they said...there really isn't much. I walked into an Icebreaker Merino Wool outlet store and asked the employees if there was anything to do around here, they also said no. I went to the grocery store and hung out there for a bit. There was a little outdoor art gallery, hung out there for a bit, too. Tried to walk to the Otuataua Stonefields but got caught in the mud. I had all my stuff with me so I kind of just took my time, journaled and waited until I should go back to the airport. This is me sitting in a gazebo at the outdoor gallery with five more hours to kill.


Three weeks and three islands, countless hikes and new friends made, it was time to go home. I left feeling as though I've only scratched the surface. And it's true - there is so much left to explore, but I also kind of like the feeling of being left wanting more. There's something really calming and magical about being out in the wild without nobody around, feeling so connected to nature. Taking the time to just walk, breathe and listen was everything. I'm so grateful and privileged to have been able to fly across the world and experience all the natural beauty that is New Zealand.