New Zealand had been on our short list of vacation spots for a long time, but we didn’t want to travel that far unless we could stay a while. PTO & 2018 midweek holidays added up to 16 days away from work, which we decided was just long enough. Holiday season is also summertime in the southern hemisphere, which is a welcome retreat from Seattle’s soggy winters.
We started planning logistics in early 2018, which was fortunate for us because it turns out that New Zealand’s Great Walks need to be booked months ahead of time. I made reservations for the Routeburn Track as soon as the system came online at 8:00 AM, and the peak season was sold out by 8:04. We scheduled the rest of our trip around those dates. A little research revealed an overwhelming number of other tourist destinations. We decided to narrow our trip to just the west coast of the south island - and even within that slice we had to make compromises because of time.
We wound up with a dense itinerary; 40 hours of flying, 1100 miles of driving, 7 places to stay, and lots of activities in between. It was also the first time that Felicia and I would spend the holidays away from family. Our friends Kyle and Morgan were included in the original plans, but they canceled because Kyle got hit by a car and has to wear a poop bag, so it was just the two of us.
Just getting to the south island was it’s own adventure. We booked separate round trips between Seattle/Honolulu and Honolulu/Auckland on different airlines. We saved $1600 this way by using the Alaska companion fare on a super expensive trip. We pack light, so we didn’t have to worry about checking any bags and potentially losing them.
We landed in Auckland around 10:00 PM and our flight to the south island was in the morning, so we spent our first night at the airport hotel. Thankfully the 21 hour time difference only feels like 3 hours to the body clock, so jet lag wasn’t bad and we were able to get a solid night of sleep and a great
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Our first destination was Kaiteriteri - the gateway into Abel Tasman National Park. We stayed in a little airbnb with a great view of the bay, and a short walk to the tiny town’s sandy beach. We spent a few days there hiking and kayaking around the park, and celebrated Christmas with a home cooked ravioli dinner. Some warm sunny weather there was exactly what we needed to kick off our vacation.
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From there we started our journey south. New Zealand highways make for different trips than their US counterparts. The scenery is so diverse and dramatic. For anyone who’s driven i-10 between Arizona and California, imagine the exact opposite of that. The roads are all also narrow and winding, with lots of one-lane bridges. Beautiful drive time was a nice bonus throughout the trip.
Our next destination was Franz Josef Glacier, about seven hours drive from Kaiteriteri. We broke up the drive by stopping at Punakaiki to check out the pancake rocks and blowholes. Franz Josef is a pretty rad little town. In a couple days there we heli-hiked on the glacier, lounged in some hot pools, walked around Lake Matheson AKA “mirror lake,” learned about kiwi birds and tuataras at the wildlife center, and bought ice cream from a funny eight year old kid.
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My favorite meal of the trip was at a Chinese-Indian restaurant in Franz Josef called King Tiger. I ordered an Indian dish, Felicia had noodles, and we split a decadent order of naan. None of the restaurants we ate at in NZ blew me away, but I was impressed by the quality and abundance of fresh local produce everywhere we went.
From Franz Josef we headed to Wanaka, another few hours south. We hoped to see some penguins along the way by Lake Moeraki, but the birds all went fishing for the season. Instead, we were awed driving through the Gates of Haast and had a fun afternoon at the Blue Pools. Younger me would have jumped off the bridge for sure, but as I round the corner on 30 a new sense of self-preservation is guiding me otherwise.
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Wanaka is a bustling little lake town that shows up in a lot of nature photos because of #thatwanakatree. We had a good time there riding bikes between the two lakes and navigating the maze at Puzzling World. Felicia also discovered Patagonia Chocolates, which we went to about a dozen times before we left the country. It’s a pretty good time eating ice cream and watching skaters at the skate park or people doing water sports on the lake.
After Wanaka we drove a few hours further south through sheep country to Te Anau. Te Anau is another lake town, and it’s the gateway to Fiordland National Park. We slept a couple nights on an old bus parked on a little farm outside of town there, which was my favorite place we stayed in New Zealand. It was charming, cozy, and quiet, and we got to visit with the animals and eat our neighbor chickens’ eggs for brekkie.
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We spent new year’s eve we ate a fancy dinner and explored the local glow worm caves. Glow worms are crazy! They cling to cave ceilings above underground rivers and emulate the night sky, so that waterborne insects are tricked into flying upwards. The unsuspecting insects get trapped by the worms fishing lines (like spider webs) and the worm gets a meal. The worms save up energy like this over a nine month period so that they can metamorphose into a form with wings and spend three days flying around and mating before they die. Photography wasn't allowed in the caves so I found this photo online.
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On new year’s day we took a cruise around Milford Sound. It’s a couple hours drive between Te Anau and the sound, but we made it longer because there were so many side excursions that we couldn’t pass up. At one stop we saw a pair of tricksy kea birds use their classic distract-and-steal routine to work over a family of tourists.
The next day we started on the Routeburn Track from The Divide heading toward Glenorchy. The Great Walks of New Zealand are great because you get to sleep in huts provided by the Department of Conservation. In peak season, these huts are equipped with potable tap water, flushing toilets, and gas stoves. There are four huts along the Routeburn, each with 20-50 bunks. We stayed the first night at Lake Mackenzie and the second night at the Routeburn Flats, so we spent about 5, 7, and 2 hours walking over our three days, respectively.
The Routeburn is a really magnificent display of nature. There’s a great mix of dense forests and alpine terrain with views for days. The walk from Harris Saddle to the exit at Routeburn Shelter was probably my favorite part of our entire trip. Glamping at the huts was pretty fun too. I packed an iPad and kept busy with creative apps - I even made a crossword puzzle for Felicia to solve when she ran out of her own stash. We ate some freeze-dried Himalayan Rice and Lentils for dinner one night and it was low-key one of the best meals we had in NZ. I did get a little cold sleeping because we only packed sleeping bag liners instead of actual sleeping bags, and we underestimated the altitude, but a few more layers the next night remedied that.
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Most folks complete the track in three days, some do two, and the most ambitious do it all in one go (the summer days are really long that far south). If you were looking to skim off the top of the Routeburn, I would recommend booking just one night at the Routeburn Falls hut and starting from the Routeburn Shelter. After your night at the falls, leave your pack at the hut and hike up to the Saddle for lunch, then hike back down to the falls, retrieve your gear, and head back out to your car. IMO you could experience the best-of-the-best this way, in two pretty easy days, with no logistical overhead.
When we got off the track we headed to Wayne and Mary’s house in Queenstown, which was a lovely place to wash off the grime and catch up on rest. In a couple days there we did some shopping, ate the legendary Fergburger, played disc golf, and spent an afternoon at the Kiwi Birdlife Park. We didn’t have the guts to bungee jump or swing across the canyon (self preservation) but we did get some thrills whitewater rafting on the Shotover River. Our inexperienced crew members got dumped a couple of times by the class IV rapids, but Felicia and I managed to stay in the boat. GoPro wasn't allowed on the river so I made an artistic recreation of the trip. I was starting to feel invincible after two weeks of adventures with a perfect bill of health, but on the last morning I bumped my head in the shower and a souvenir black eye brought me down to earth.
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We weren’t ready to go, but it was finally time to head home. We left Queenstown at 7:00 PM on Sunday, spent 22 hours in planes/airports, and arrived in Seattle at 8:00 PM the same day. I slept most of the way between Auckland and Honolulu, which was the first time in my life I had ever been able to sleep on a plane, and it was one of the best things that's ever happened to me. During the waking hours on our flights I played Firewatch in one sitting and dabbled in the new Super Smash Bros on my Switch, watched Crazy Rich Asians, and drew concept art for a game I want to make.
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We came home to dying houseplants, dirty dishes, a downed tree, and a broken fence caused by windstorms. Home sweet home :) We held it together just long enough to get dinner and some groceries at Whole Foods and decided to let vacation last one more night.
Whenever I visit a new place I always ask myself “Would I enjoy living here?” Even when I’m having a great vacation, the answer is usually no. The verdict is still out on New Zealand because we barely scratched the surface exploring it. To do ourselves justice we would need an entire summer. We met travelers from around the world there, and they all lamented that vacations for Americans are relatively short. Two weeks is a rare opportunity for me, but one woman from Israel couldn’t believe we would come so far for such a quick turnaround. She had already been in New Zealand for six weeks, and wasn’t sure where her next stop would be.
Two weeks was enough time to observe the active, stress-free lifestyle that people live there, and everyone seemed really healthy and friendly as a result. They also care deeply about the environment, and with so much natural beauty it’s easy to see why. Maybe someday we’ll decide that kiwis make the ultimate snowbirds and we’ll fly run south for a season :)
TGIB
