Now about a Month ago ago I finished up the summer semester classes, papers, exams and all and began our two weeklong break between the last and fall semester. The girls and I decided to spend 10 days in the south island of New Zealand road tripping and exploring the cities and countryside. Armed with our backpacks, a heap of Google map directions, and a sizable amount of beef jerky we left Auckland in the wee hours of the morning to catch a 6am flight to Christchurch.
Christchurch Day 1:
We picked up our '97 Nissan pulsar and set out for the center of town. We spent the day walking up and down the old streets of the city, following the trolley tracks, popping in and out of used bookshops and eating cheap Asian food. I fell in love with the city, quaint, busy and quirky, Christchurch is a place that I could easily see myself living (if it weren’t for the fact that its built on a fault line). We wandered into the botanical gardens and passed out in the sun on the pristine green grasses. I'm sure that the three of our travel weary bodies and us found our way into the backgrounds of a few Asian tourists’ photos.
After our nap, we returned to the car and headed south down to our campsite at the Wahai Gorge for the night. We drove through dirt roads surrounded by fields of sheep and cows for a few minutes before we finally found the entrance for the Wahi Gorge. We set up our tents, cracked a few beers and laughed for a while. At one point, just before the sun started to set, the farmer who owns the gorge let out his cattle onto the campgrounds (a common practice in NZ as cows are much more efficient mowers than 13 year old boys with tractors). We were quickly invaded by cows mooing and pooping as they pleased all around the campgrounds. We drunkenly chased them through the fields mooing wildly. As night fell we befriended a group of Israeli solders, ate hot dogs and told bad jokes until we retired to our tents for bed.
Timaru/Duendin Day 2-3:
We swung by Timaru on our way down route 1. Not much to report on the sleepy coastal town of Timaru, we stopped in for lunch at quite possibly the best chain restaurant in all of New Zealand. Now I know what you’re thinking, “JULIA, you should be sampling the local fair!” but I pose you with this. You’re hungry, its 2pm, you walk by an establishment named “noodle canteen”. Would you go inside? OF COURSE YOU WOULD. It’s a well known fact to my closest friends that i've established at the basis of everything that I do is an undying desire to attain noodles. Go to college, get good job get paid well to at the end of everything, be able to eat noodles for the rest of my life. In any event, after spending about 7 USD I became overwhelmingly full of noodles, vegetables and salty meaty goodness. This place has forever burned its name into my heart and I made sure to grab a listing of all the locations of this glorious establishment so I would never been lost, noodle wise, again.
Just look at these.After lunch we continued our drive to Dunedin. Plowing through a series of mountains and hills we drove over the top of a ridge and watched the city sprawl out before our eyes. Now let me tell you, this place rules. As if driving on the left side of the road, in a foreign city isn’t confusing enough, the city planners of Dunedin by passed the normal rectangular grid system and built their entire city around a fucking octagon. AN OCTOGON. We finally fund our hostile after going in 8-sided circles for about a half an hour. The hostile we stayed in was adorable. The bunks were made of wood, the walls were half brick and Persian rugs were stapled to the ground. Not to mention our bunkmate was a 20 something year old guy named lee that was single handedly motorcycling across New Zealand, no big deal. We drank some Scrumpies and proceeded to run circles around the city. Found a 70’s themed bar with a light up dance floor, also a bar that found it in their hearts to play jock jams in its entirety just so I can dance. We also made friends with some fire throwers, shit happens man. Whatever, this night ruled.
Seriously, WHY?
The next morning we went to the Cadbury factory, watched 1 ton of chocolate fall from the ceiling and ate some of the best chocolate i've ever had. Good call on buying that company up Hershey’s, they’re chocolate is way better than yours. We spent the rest of the day at a house show / BBQ / block party that my friend Adam invited us to. The home was beautiful and apparently Ben, the kid who threw the show, his dad designed the house himself. The backyard and house itself was completely unreal. Everyone there was warm and friendly though it could have just been the beer and gin that seemed to be flowing through everyone veins but I talked my face off discussing misc politics and travel with old men and kids alike. Three men in general seemed to keep my ear for most of night. Ben, Matt and Mike, all quite a few decades older than me were standing around the fire pit trying their hardest to keep the fire going. I cam stoop and talked with them fro what seemed like hours while desperately batting away their hands as they tried to throw pine cones into the fire. So much for being mountain men, took the blonde American girl to get the thing going again. The ladies and I stuffed our faces with a spread of genuine kiwi BBQ food and generally had an awesome time. Adam was kind enough to let us stay at his place that night. He’s a champ.
Day 4 Te Anau:
The next morning his parents had prepared a breakfast spread of eggs, mushrooms, toast, and Watte's pasta and sausages. We chatted with Chris and Lance long after Adam had to leave from work, said our goodbyes and set out on the road for Te Anau. Heading west across the island, we took a wrong turn in gore (the proposed armpit of NZ) and ended up more south than north. We got back on track and made it to Te Anau to start our 3-day tram around the Keplar track in Fjordland. In the face of a threatening rainstorm, we geared up and headed on the trail. After a few hours of hiking, we made it to our first camp, Brodes Bay; set up our tent under the shelter killed more sand flies than I can count. The campground was right on a lakefront with tall trees and moss spilling over ever inch or root and ground in site. We could hear the strange call of some bird off in the distance. It sounded like a 3rd grader just beginning to learn to play the recorder playing sporatic unsystematic notes. The only obvious reason that a tent full of girls could find was that the sound was from a serial killer dubbed “the recorder killer” which scared the shit out of Navah and was quickly abandoned as we began to all get a bit scared. In the middle of the night we were awoken by the noise of munching and scratching around or tent, the brave and courageous woman I am, in the face of sheer danger I jumped out of the tent to defend my women. Turns out it was an opossum eating our banana chips. Seems that though we don’t have to be careful about food due to the lack of large land animals in NZ, we can’t be completely blind to it.
Day 5 Invercargill:
We woke up surprisingly dry in our tent on day 5 packed up camp and decided that we were grossly unprepared for the amount of rain we were to endure on the next leg of the track. Defeated we walked back to the car from the trail getting fully soaked to the core along the way. We were passed by groups of 60 something’s BEASTING this trail waiving in ponchos and full backpacks. We felt like wussies, but without the booking of a hunt and a lack of a truly rainproof tent we had no choice. In an attempt to save the day we decided to visit the noodle canteen in Invercargill. Of course along the way I managed to get pulled over and ticketed by the ONLY COP IN NEW ZEALAND. I still find it hard to issue a ticket for speeding on a road that has no speed limit signs. But that’s my battle to fight.
Once we finally got to Invercargill we arrived to a noodle canteen that was still BEING BUILT. Oh the woe of this moment, after driving all this way hoping and dreaming of a hot meal and finding a vacant shell of a noodle shop. We all choked back tears and found some terrible take out replacement Chinese food place where they charged us for everything, including the plastic forks.
In an attempt to save the day we drove down to the southern most point of the south island, Bluff. Now i'm not bluffing (HA) when I say this place was a bit dead, but it was a quiet sea town, surrounded in small green islands. The down was covered in a thick fog and many of the homes featured for sale signs in the windows. We summited the lookout point took pictures, urinated in public and started the return back up to Te Anau. Halfway up the coast we pulled off to a summit above a small sea town to sleep in the car. Just as the sun went down a rainbow peaked out of the clouds. It was a sight for sore eyes on this rainy, expensive day.
Day 6 Te Anau:
The next day we made our return back to Te Anau. While standing at the front desk of hostile checking in, the lights overhead began to sway. The woman working immediately looked around and mumbled “shit” under their breath. I was pretty confused until she said that it was an earthquake, probably in Christchurch. Seemed weird to have been feeling it all but 6 hours away, they mentioned. We didn’t really realize the magnitude of the earthquake at the time, to be honest; we carried on with our day. With the rain holding off we headed back into Fjordland national park to do a bit more of the Keplar Track before we had to leave for good. W tramped for a few hours before emerging over rainbow reach, a large suspension bridge along the track. Seeing as how we didn’t want to take the same track home we decided to try and hitch hike. We slumped along the roads with our thumbs out trying to smile as the rain began to come down. Finally after be passed by a hand full of cars an older man in a red Toyota pick up truck had us piled into the cab and took us back to town. He seemed sweet and engaging for a man that had a 10-inch rusty knife rolling around on the floor as well as a small stuffed kiwi. He drove us by his home, pointed out a few places and dropped us back off at our car. Back at the hostel, I came home to countless emails and texts from friends and family franticly asking if I was all right. We had only been gone for about 6 or 7 hours but the news of the quake traveled quickly. We spoke with the women in our dorm about tramping and I met a lovely Irish woman named Harriet. She and I drank tea outside in the morning under the covered porch as the rain came down and talked about politics, life, and love. I don’t think i've ever met anyone as sincere, hard working, and loving than this woman. We wished each other well before we parted ways in the morning.
Day 7 Milford Sound:
We shoved or things into the car. We stocked up on sandwiches and headed out to do a quick hike off the famous Routebourn Track and see the notorious Milford Sound. The drive through the park was dark and beautiful, reminded me a lot of the back roads in rural CT. We parked at the track, assembled our lunches and started our hike. Brittney told us plot lines to Beverly Hills 90210 to pass the time as we summeted the mountain. Once we reached the top we ate our lunches, took a few pictures and descended back down so that we could start the rest of the drive to Milford Sound. Two hours of winding mountain roads later finally reached Milford Sound. Ok so there is a lot of hype about this place, it “changes lives” make you “rethink everything” and while I didn’t have a complete spiritual reawakening, the place WAS absolutely gorgeous. Tall rigid mountains shot up from the still blue waters, a waterfall is off in the fucking distance, birds are chirping, wheat is swaying, the waves are slowly lapping up on the shore, this place man, JESUS! We spent and hour or so at the sound before driving 4 hours into Queenstown. Its pretty funny really how close Milford Sound is to Queenstown, but because of the Southern Alps, an otherwise 1-hour drive becomes a 4-hour loop.
We started to approach Queenstown just as the sun went down, driving along route six (which follows along the water) the sun turned the sky purple and the mountains a vivid pink, with every turn along the sunset became more beautiful. Navah, Brittney and I sat in the car screaming and the sheer beauty of this moment. Also, I couldn’t resist, I put on Sigur Ros and cried for a bit in the passenger seat. When we finally made it into town, we were famished. On our way to the campsite we got a bit lost in town, and by some act of god, in our confusion pass by a noodle canteen that is not only FULLY CONSTRUCTED but ALSO OPEN. We immediately pull over the car, order the sweet savory noodles and engorge ourselves before heading to the campsite. We parked our car in a makeshift campsite, drank beers and slept in the car for the night.
Day 8 Queenstown:
We spent the next day exploring Queenstown, falling in love with it and buying yet MORE noodle canteen. After a few hours of exploring, gawking at the scenery, and buying postcards we drove up to Wharanaki, which is a small lake front town north of Queenstown. The drive to the place was on of the most intense I've ever done, tight curves, small roads and winding turns proved to be pretty challenging but we made it unscathed. Once we arrived in Wharnaki we found a holiday camp to stay for the night, bought a few Scrumpies and pitched our tent. We drank, climbed trees and skipped rocks into the lake. Eventually this turned into yet another Ryan McGinley photo shoot and yet even more Kesha until the sun came down.
Day 9 The return to Christchurch:
We set out early in the morning for the 4-5 hour drive back to Christchurch. Luckily our hostel was one of the 3 that wasn’t damaged from the earthquake so at least we all had beds to sleep in that night. Driving into Christchurch it was imminent the amount of damage that had been done, before we even reached the city limits itself, the city was hemorrhaging cars, full of families, with their few belongings just trying to escape. Much of the city at this time was without power, food or water making it unsuitable for families to live in. As we got further into the city, we began to see NZ army men at every corner, directing traffic, talking to locals and generally aiding whomever they could. It took a few minutes driving into the city before we saw any real damage, streets were flooded, roofs collapsed, huge crevasses in roads and everything was covered in yellow caution tape. Not to mention that the entire city lay under a pile of dust that grayed out the sun. It was depressing to say the least, people stood in their yards looking at their homes, walking to the closest grocery store, and talking to each other. I would say that everyone looked in high spirits, but they didn’t, and I don’t blame them. After what they’ve been through last September and now another earthquake, it’s hard to (forgive the pun) just shake it off. Many of the people I talked to had simply accepted it, accepted the fact that they would have rebuild yet again, rally again, stand up again because Christchurch, even with all of the shit that the city has put them through in the last 6 months, is still their home.
After following a series of detours we snaked around and finally made it to our hostile. The street that our building was on was completely untouched, while 100 meters away; there were homes, and shops that were completely demolished. While walking from our car to the front door the earth started to shake, startled I looked at a family sitting and talking to each other on the front lawn. He asked us if we were alright, and explained that what that was was an aftershock, and that that wouldn’t be the last one we would feel before we would leave. We checked in, got situated, met our few hostile mates for the night and set out to get something to eat. Unfortunately, the supermarket had closed before we even had a chance to buy dinner. But down the road on a corner there was a small family run fish and chips shop. People were packed in sitting around, ordering, exhausted from the day. It was funny, here was a microcosm of the Christ church community, a man in a business suit, a few construction workers, a mother picking up food for the family, pakhea, Maori, Indian, Asian, everyone was here, eating food, at the only place in town. Brittney and I ordered some food, talked to a few women and set home with our spoils. We ate with the people at the hostile, met a wonderful man named Jason, and a lovely couple on vacation from Fiji (I KNOW RIGHT? WHY WOULD YOU NEED A VACATION FROM FIJI?) Apparently, alcohol is outlawed in Fiji, so they both needed a vacation. We al talked, drank and generally had a great time with each other. We felt a few more aftershocks before we all went to sleep.
Day 10 The return home:
On the last day, we returned our car, and headed into the airport. The airport was filled with people leaving, carrying small bags, and admittedly it was hard to not get upset looking at everyone. Rescue teams form Mexico and other countries had just arrived to give aid in town and I was ashamed that I didn’t see one American team. Two barefoot Maori men stood in the terminal playing ukulele songs and trying to uplift the spirit. We DID get to ride the All Blacks themed plane back home, and that put a smile on a lot of weary faces.
Exiting the terminal, seas of families were waiting to put up family members, there was lots of crying, lots of hugging and lots of love going on in that terminal at that moment and it really delivered me back to the human aspect of a disaster. Sure, you can watch footage of buildings falling on CNN sad pictures of children in war zones, and listen to the mayor talk about the damage but there is nothing like being there. Seeing the destruction, talking to the victims and really truly having to realize that these things DO happen. They are real and not just sad stories and pixels on a screen.
While our trip ended solemnly, this was easily one of the best times of my life. I fell in love with the south island, its people and the land in 10 days and I can’t wait to go back in a few weeks. There is something about road tripping that allows you really bond with as placel. It lets you out of that plastic bubble that most vacations keep you in. When its just you, friends and a car, there is nothing keeping you from delving into a town’s culture. I feel like a lot of people miss that, miss the real New Zealand. Sure you can bungee jump in Queenstown, you can zorb in Rotarua, you can do all the touristy things that you want here and you will still have the time of you life, but if you only explore what they want you to see, if you only follow the well beaten tourists trail your going to miss what it is about this place that makes it so special, the community, the culture and the wild.
-juju
