Hi friends. I’m in Australia and safe. I’m very glad not to have still been in New Zealand for the earthquake. Quite scary! Sending love to you all. 

I drove from Fiordland to Dunedin (quite a long drive!) and arrived at my hostel, which was called Hogwartz and had a Harry Potter theme. I was a bit disappointed though – if I had a Harry Potter themed hostel I would do more Harry Potter stuff! I met some lovely girls in my hostel that night, Karin and Eva from Germany and Yvonne from Switzerland. In the morning Karin and I went around Dunedin together and went to see the art museum in town. We had a lovely time discussing the art together. It was really interesting to see the cultural differences in how we responded to the art. For example, the museum was organized around themes like color or scale, rather than by time period. Karin found this very offputting and felt that it made it hard for her to think about the art because it was very disjointed, while I loved it and felt like it helped me consider the art from different perspectives. She said something like that would be unheard of in Europe, where art is generally arranged by time period only. 

That afternoon I went with all those girls and a German man called Keno to see Baldwin Street, the world’s steepest residential street, and then to drive around the Otago Peninsula. It was quite beautiful. The road was right next to the sea for most of the drive, with less than a foot between the edge of the road and the ocean! We stopped at an albatross center and I saw an albatross flying! 

The following day I drove up the coast to see the Moeraki Boulders, large round boulders on a sandy beach. Very unique! I continued on to Oamaru. Oamaru was quite rich in the Victorian time, due to the ice shipping industry. There was a gorgeous street of Victorian buildings. It is also the steampunk center of New Zealand. Steampunk is a genre of science fiction inspired by 19th century designs and steam-powered machinery. I spent a long time walking around the Victorian district and then I visited the Steampunk Museum, which was really a trip highlight for me. It was a massive installation of steampunk art. I really loved it. I had a blast taking photos there. 

I then headed on to Lake Tekapo, a glacial lake with a beautiful cloudy and bright blue color. I went up to the observatory for a beautiful view of the lake and the surrounding area. There was a charming little stone church on the waterfront. That area is a dark park, so I was hoping to do some stargazing, but it was cloudy the night I was there. 

I finished my time in New Zealand in Christchurch. Christchurch suffered a horrible earthquake a few years ago and is still recovering. There is tons of construction everywhere, and lots of street art on the damaged buildings. 

I spent one night in very nice little hostel in Te Anau. It had a cozy great room with a wood burning stove that kept us all pleasantly toasty despite the cool weather at night. The guests there were really friendly and I had fun talking to everyone in the evening. Plus… there were llamas!! From there, I did the Key Summit Hike in Fiordland National Park. This hike was up, up, up, so not the easiest for me. But the view was worth it — gorgeous alpine views in all directions. I stayed my second night in a sweet little cabin right in the park. The drive to Milford Sound was stunning, maybe the most beautiful I have done so far. 

Wanaka and Queenstown are both surrounded by beautiful mountains. In Wanaka I made a friend, Robyn, from Taiwan. We got coffee together in town and she showed me around a bit. In the afternoon I spent some time printing and completing my ballot for the election so I could get it in the mail. I didn’t much care for Queenstown, despite the beautiful setting. It felt really touristy. The whole town is covered in advertisements for adventure sports like sky diving, canyoning, and bungy jumping. I did enjoy watching the bungy jumping though! I also spent a few hours wandering around the town gardens.

I went hiking on a glacier!! I got to ride in a helicopter up to the surface of the glacier. Then we did three hours of hiking on the glacier — through ice caves, over cracks and streams, and past massive walls of ice. It was amazing! The surface of the glacier was mostly like the crushed ice of a snow cone, loose and crunchy where air permeated the surface of the ice. But underneath that was the incredible blue ice, which we could see in the pools and caves and cracks. That blue was breathtaking. On the helicopter ride back to town, the pilot made a wide turn and the helicopter turned sideways!! This experience was in my lifetime top ten, for sure!

From Arthur’s pass, I drove over to the west coast. I stayed at a lovely beach-front hostel in Punakaiki. When it was high tide, I took a walk at the Punakaiki Rocks — a series of rock formations and blowholes along the beach. I loved seeing the water crash against the rocks and watching all the blowholes was so cool! My favorite was the Chimney Pot, where the waves forced water up into the inside of the rocks and it was pushed out a small hole as vapor, which looked just like the steam on a giant tea kettle! The next morning I took a hike along the coast at Motukiekie, which can only be done at low tide. I explored some tide pools and saw the rock towers. After my hike I enjoyed a restful afternoon in the hostel. The following day I headed south and stopped at the Hokitika Gorge. This was my first sight of the beautiful blue of the water that comes from the glaciers. The rock dust causes the glacial melt water to take on a cloudy bright blue. So beautiful! I arrived in Franz Josef planning to hike on the glacier the next day. My plan was thwarted by rain, and I ended up spending the day in the hostel doing some trip planning for my time in Australia. I was overjoyed when I woke the next day to a clear morning! I got to take a helicopter up to Franz Josef Glacier and hike for three hours on the glacier!! I want to share a lot of photos from that experience so it will get a separate post.

I arrived in Picton and drove along the coast to Nelson, a city known for its art. I arrived on Sunday, so everything was closed and I spent the afternoon reading in a hammock which of course made me very happy. I went walking in the downtown area on Monday. I enjoyed checking out some art and I also bought some necessities in the shops there. I had a lovely back-in-time experience shopping for shoes. The salesperson actually helped me try them on! From Nelson I drove out to Elaine Bay, which didn’t have the beautiful views I was expecting so it felt a bit like a waste of time, then headed to Blenheim. My hostel there was horrible – very dirty and unkempt. The next day I hired a bike and went wine tasting. Very fun! I managed to switch my accomodation so I didn’t have to stay in the gross hostel again. 

My next stop was down the coast at Kaikoura. On the way I stopped at Ohau Point to see New Zealand Fur Seals! There were lots of pups and they were so cute! In Kaikoura, I went whale watching and we saw some dusky dolphins but no whales. The boat ride was pretty rough — I may have made a vow to myself never to get on a small boat ever again. I stayed the night in Christchurch in an old jail. The rooms were the old cells! 

From Christchurch I headed into the mountains. I stopped at Castle Hill, an area with loads of limestone boulders coming up out of the earth. They were really interesting landforms to hike through. This area was used for the filming of the battle scene at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie. I also stopped at Cave Stream, where a river runs underground through a limestone cave. My intention was to hike through the cave (in the river) but when I got there I had some second thoughts involving hypothermia and frostbite so I decided to skip it. It is only spring here and the river was VERY cold! I drove up to Arthur’s Pass, high up in the mountains and stayed the night there. In the morning I did a bit of hiking, after waiting for it to warm up — it was so cold there at night!

I stayed four nights in Wellington in a huge six-story YHA hostel. It was supposed to be three nights, but by the end of the day before I was supposed to leave, I hadn’t actually planned out where I was going next, so I added on a day to do some logistics. My first day in Wellington was beautiful. I took the cable car up the hill to the botanical gardens, which were quite lovely, and wandered down Cuba Street which is full of fun shops and cafes. On the second day I went to the Te Papa museum. I saw some exhibits about the Maori, some art by New Zealand artists, an exhibit about how New Zealand has changed in the last century, and a section about New Zealand biodiversity (it reminded me of the Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Biodiversity — my favorite). The third day was all rain, but I didn’t mind because I spent most of my time in the hostel using the wifi anyway 🙂 It felt great to have some long phone conversations and get some planning done. This morning I took the Interislander ferry to Picton on the South Island. 

Rotorua was my next stop. It is situated in a geothermically active region so there are lots of interesting things to visit in the area. Also, tons of hot springs! I spent a day hanging out with a lovely Belgian woman I met in my hostel. We had a lively political discussion on the porch of the hostel, then we visited a mud pool (boiling mud!) and Kerosene Creek hot spring. Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland was the highlight of my time in the area. I loved seeing all the different thermal features. I also visited Craters of the Moon, which is an area where steam from underground vents up through the earth. It wasn’t as exciting as Waiotapu. 

I stayed overnight in Taupo, then headed on to Napier. Napier was leveled by an earthquake in 1931. They rebuilt the city in less than two years, and almost all the buildings were built in the Art Deco style. In the 80s, they realized the value of their beautiful architecture and now they have protected the buildings and worked to preserve the style of the city. I took a lovely walking tour with a sweet older lady as a guide. It was really interesting to see the different design elements in the buildings. I also had the best meal of my trip so far while I was in Napier, a spring risotto at a restaurant called Mr. D. Yum. Napier is in the Hawke’s Bay, which is know for its wineries. So I stopped at Elephant Bay winery for a tasting on my way down to Wellington. 

My first stop after leaving Auckland was the Waipu caves. It was muddy and very wet in there! It was cool to explore the cave, but the best part was the glow worms! You just turn off your light and look up and there are hundreds of little points of light glowing on the top of the cave.  

I stayed one night in Whangarei (in Maori the WH makes an F sound) at a slightly dingy hostel, then headed out to the Bay of Islands. I drove a crazy curvy road all along the coast to get there — such a beautiful drive but a bit scary given that it was only my second day of driving on the left side of the road. I did ok 🙂 My guidebook recommended a stop at Elliot Bay and WOW. Such a lovely beach, and I was the only one there. 

My accommodation for the night was in a tiny town called Russell. When I arrived at my hostel, it turned out I was the only guest and I ended up chatting with the owner for most of the evening. He was an 83 year old Kiwi man named Ron, and he told me amazing stories about New Zealand’s history! Did you know that American soldiers were in New Zealand during WWII? Ron remembered the relief everyone felt when they arrived — “we didn’t have to be scared anymore.” I did a bit of exploring around Russell (not much to do in a town of 816 people) and then headed to the Aroha Island Kiwi Preserve where I was hoping to see a kiwi!

Kiwi are flightless birds that are native to New Zealand. They are mostly nocturnal and they have nostrils at the end of their long beaks. They poke their beaks into the ground to find insects, and they also eat fruit. The kiwi preserve turned out to be a bit different from what I was expecting. It was more of a protected area than a kiwi preserve. The kiwi could come and go freely from there, and there were only two kiwi living there when I arrived. I braved the cold and a big thunderstorm to sit outside in the dark for three hours watching for kiwi. In the end, I heard one quite close to me, but I didn’t get to see it. A kiwi’s call sounds really cool – you can hear it here. You have to imagine hearing it in the middle of a forest, in the dark, during a thunderstorm 😀

Rainbow Falls was on my way to my next stop, so I made a stop there. Beautiful! The sun even came out for a few minutes and I got to see the rainbow! I spent most of the day in the virgin Waipoua Forest. This forest has lots of native Kauri trees. Kauri trees can be HUGE. They can grow to be over 50 meters tall and their trunks can have girths of 16 meters. When people first arrived in New Zealand, it had many Kauri forests like this one, but most of the giant trees were cut down for timber. I hiked to the Four Sisters, Te Mauta Ngahere, Yakas, and Tane Mahuta, all Kauri trees. Tane Mahuta is the largest Kauri tree and more than 1250 years old. I was really impressed with the protections the Department of Conservation had in place to protect the trees. The trails around the trees are elevated boardwalks designed to protect the sensitive roots, and when you enter the forest, you have to clean your shoes to protect against Kauri dieback disease.

I spent one night in Omapere, then headed back to Auckland. I stopped at the expensive but cool Kauri museum on my way. I really liked the displays of Kauri gum, which is a resin like amber. It can be collected from the ground and also by tapping the trees to get them to release it. There was a whole industry in Kauri gum. 

I really liked traveling in the Northland. It was beautiful and peaceful, and the Kiwis there were so friendly (the people, not the birds!)