After a long but uneventful flight from Los Angeles to Christchurch (with a short layover in Fiji), Anja and I landed in New Zealand on January 31st. New Zealand biosecurity laws are very strict and it was a little nerve-wracking to have to fill out a form stating whether we had plant or animal products or had been outdoors or near animals within the last 30 days, and then to be questioned about it, but ultimately we passed through without problems. After taking the city bus to the University of Canterbury, I checked in to my housing here. I have a single room with a bed, desk, shelves, closet, and sink all to myself. There are 5 such rooms in my apartment, and then we share a room with a toilet and sink, a room with a shower and sink, and a kitchen with a stove, fridge, and microwave. There is an oven we can use in the common room we share with approximately 40 such apartments. After living in the van for the past month and sharing a bedroom for the past 2 years, this seems like an absolute luxury.
That afternoon we took a trip to the local grocery store, where I was delighted to find that many of the foods I cook with at home are easily accessible here. Food is pretty expensive here – fruits and vegetables especially so – but the conversion rate is 0.63 New Zealand Dollars to 1 US Dollar, so for me, everything is pretty heavily discounted.
In the evening, I walked to meet someone from the tramping club (link) here at the university. I had joined the club beforehand and had arranged to borrow some camping gear from them for our trip before school starts – it was incredible to have access to a sleeping bag, tent, and mats without having to bring or buy them.
On February 1st, Anja and I took the bus to a shopping center and got food for our trip, and in the evening, we readied our packs so we could get going easily the next morning. Our bus to Queenstown left at 8:50 the next morning. The bus was nice but most of the seats were filled. The buses here don’t have bathrooms – instead, they stop every two hours or so at rest stops so people can get off, go to the bathroom, and buy something to eat or drink. Some of these rest stops are in incredible places – we stopped at Lake Tekapo, which was my first taste of alpine New Zealand, and it’s just as breathtaking as you would expect.
We arrived that afternoon in Queenstown, checked into our hostel, and went into town to see if we could arrange transportation to and from the Hollyford Track. That is the track we had planned to do – it is one you don’t have to reserve in advance, and we had high hopes that we would be able to sleep in the huts. It turns out, however, that the Hollyford Track is pretty difficult to get to if you don’t have your own car, and we were unable to find a way to get out to the track and then back. At that point, we had to consider our options and do some quick thinking, so Anja and I sat down and looked at our options: there were buses that went to several tracks nearby, and there were many tracks with huts in the area. We had 4 days’ worth of food, but we had to get to Invercargill in 5 days to begin our next hike, which we had pre-booked. Ultimately, we decided on a relatively short hike with 3 huts along the way. This hike was accessible by bus, and for the last night, we booked a last-minute Airbnb. Altering our plans like this was a little disappointing, but I had suspected that we might have to, and so I had spent a significant amount of time looking at other options in the area, and ultimately, we really enjoyed the hike we ended up doing.
Queenstown itself is a little backpackers paradise. Coming off the bus, we met several people our age – one girl, we had already met at my apartment (she lives in the apartment across the hall), and she just happened to have gotten on the bus halfway through our journey. With another girl, it turned out Anja and I were sharing a room in our hostel with. After Anja and I figured out which hike we would go on, we met up with them and some other girls they had met for dinner and ate burgers on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. Afterwards, we walked along the lake for a bit, and then went to another girl’s hostel to hang out. We were all strangers who had never met each other, but there was an easy camaraderie between us – young women traveling another country, all with the same goal of experiencing new things and having fun along the way. Most of those people I’ll likely never see again, but for that evening, we were the best of friends.
On February 3rd, Anja and I got breakfast, then took the bus to Glenorchy, where we started our hike. After walking ~45 minutes to the trailhead from town, we finally got off the road and started walking up the mountain. Right away, we noticed how steep it was and how heavy our packs were, but now there was no turning back. When we stopped to eat lunch, it briefly rained, but cleared up again when we continued on. The first day, we hiked 10.6 kilometers, and climbed 1070 meters on the Judah Track. This was probably the most difficult day for me – I began to develop blisters from my boots and bruises on my hips from my backpack, and it became very evident to me that I had been sitting and working in a lab for the past month. The views were beautiful, though, and to my surprise, we came across several herds of goats just roaming the mountain! We also stopped by several historical huts – this area had been mined for scheelite, and the miners had lived in the huts during those years.
We finally arrived at Heather Jock Hut, which was a tiny hut with 3 mattresses and an incredible view. That first night we rested, made our first camp dinner, and feasted our eyes on the mountain ridges, lake in the distance, and valley below.
The next morning (February 4th), I waited for the sun to rise, but because of where we were on the mountain, this took ages, and by the time I was able to stand in the sun with my tea, it was almost 10, and I had been up since 7 waiting for it. We packed up and hiked back down into the valley – glad we weren’t going uphill because of the blisters on my heels, but realizing the control it takes to go down a steep hill with a big pack. Before lunch, we took off our shoes and crossed the Buckley Burn. Evidently, this river can be rather wild when it has been raining – luckily, the warning signs were talking about another time, as we were able to walk through it without a problem. From there, we had to hike back up the other side of the valley to the next hut. Now, my blisters were really starting to assert themselves, and in the end, it was so bad that I took off my shoes and walked the last 500 meters to McIntyre Hut barefoot. This hut was much newer than the one from the first night, and it had 5 mattresses instead of 3. However, once again Anja and I were the only people there.
On Sunday, February 5th, we slept in till 10. We only had to walk about 3 kilometers to the next hut, but walking up the mountain the entire time. It was a good thing we didn’t have far to go: we were tired and sore, and it rained all morning. We sat around in the hut playing card games and reading and resting. Around 3pm it started to clear up, so we packed up and hiked slowly up the mountain the McIntosh Hut. Once we got to the exposed saddle and climbed further up the mountain it was incredibly windy; every step, we felt like we were getting blown off the mountain!
McIntosh Hut turned out to be a unique hut that was almost historical in nature, with lots of old equipment, magazines, and entertaining writing on the walls from previous trampers. The wind and rain started up again that evening, and in the old hut with metal siding, it sounded very scary outside – way scarier than it actually was. The next morning we woke up early, because we had a long way to walk before we caught the bus back to Queenstown at 3. It sounded so wild and windy outside that we decided to stay in bed for just a bit longer… eventually, we decided we had to get up, and packed up our stuff, bundled up, and headed back down the windy mountain. It wasn’t quite as windy as the metal hut made it sound, and most of the hike presented no problem. There was one section of the hike, however, where the path became very small and went straight down the mountain at a steep angle. This was difficult to navigate with our packs, and we worked our way down, one slow step at a time. It seemed to take ages – we went down 600 meters in altitude over about 2 kilometers and it took us around 2 hours. From there, the rest of the hike over flat land seemed like a walk in the park.
On our way back towards the town of Glenorchy, we found a plum tree hanging over a fence filled with perfectly ripe plums. It seemed like it had been placed there just for us to find as we descended the mountain. On our way in we had seen a dumpling restaurant next to the bus stop, and all morning we had been dreaming of the dumplings we would eat when we got back into town. The dumplings were exactly as amazing as we had hoped – the first meal after a camping trip is always a glorious feeling.
For that night, we had reserved an Airbnb near Queenstown so that we could catch the bus to Invercargill early the next morning. This Airbnb was run almost like a hostel; there were several guests staying in separate bedrooms with a shared bathroom and kitchen. The house was also the cleanest house I have ever seen – everything was spotless, and it felt so wrong to be coming in dirty and stinky after 4 days of hiking. It was wonderful to take a shower and sleep in a bed, however – absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
On February 7th, we took the bus to Invercargill, stopping in Dunedin (pronounced duh-NEE-din) to change busses. This was the day I realized how dependent on tea I am – since we left the Airbnb early and ate breakfast on the bus, I hadn’t had the chance to drink my morning tea, and I felt like there was something missing all day until I was able to find a tea to drink in Dunedin. I’m not reliant on the caffeine in tea, because I often drink caffeine-free teas. I think there’s just something very psychologically calming about holding a warm cup of tea and taking the time to enjoy it.
Once in Invercargill, we decided to go out for dinner one more time before our next backpacking trip. I had seen this little hole-in-the-wall Indian food place named Curry Guru, and Anja had never had Indian food, so we decided to go there. It turned out to be some of the best Indian food I’ve ever had, which was such an unexpected thing to find in a city on the southern tip of New Zealand.
That night, we stayed at an Airbnb with a sweet old woman named Pam, who called us both “dear” and had a very cute dog. The next morning, February 8th, we took the ferry from Bluff (near Invercargill) to Oban, which is the only town on Stewart Island. The ferry ride was incredibly rough, with huge waves that the boat rocked across for an hour. My stomach was doing flip-flops, and I have been nauseous from boats before and know exactly how miserable it is. Luckily, I’ve also learned that sleeping somehow tricks my body out of experiencing sea-sickness, and so after about 10 minutes I went to sleep, and woke up only as we came close to the island and the boat slowed.
80% of Stewart Island is Rakiura National Park – Rakiura is the Māori name for Stewart Island, which translates to “glowing skies” because the aurora australis is visible from the island. It is about 2,600 km from Antarctica, which means it is one of the closest places to Antarctica you can be without making a special trip. Stewart Island also has mostly undisturbed native forests, and minimal introduced predators. However, there are still rats, cats, and brushtail possums on the island, as well as a small population of deer that are hunted for sport. There are also a fair number of native birds, including about 20,000 kiwis.
Once we arrived on Stewart Island, we peeked into the visitor center and then started our hike. After hiking along paved roads for a bit, we came to a beach, which we hiked along and eventually ate lunch at. After lunch, we quickly reached the trailhead and began hiking through the beautiful forest of Stewart Island. These forests are what is known as podocarp-broadleaf forests. Podocarps are a genus of conifers, and many New Zealand native trees are podocarps. The forest here is also incredibly wet, and mosses and ferns, including New Zealand tree ferns, where everywhere. Walking through the forest, I felt in awe of the beauty and uniqueness of all these plants, but I also felt frustrated because I didn’t know the names of any of them, and did not have a field guide (book or person) to tell me what they were. I did have Seek, an app that will tell you the name of any living organism if you can get a good enough picture, and so over the course of the trip I learned the names of many of the common plants. Just knowing the name does not tell you about the biology or ecology of an organism, however, and so I walked through the forest feeling a distinct lack of knowledge.
The other amazing thing about the first day was the weather. One moment, it would be sunny and warm enough to put your rain gear away and bring out your sunhat. Less than 10 minutes later, it would be pouring down rain and look like the most miserable weather you have ever seen, with dark and gloomy clouds and a chill in the air. Soon after, the clouds would move and the sun would shine, while still raining – moments later, the rain would stop and it would be back to being sunny and warm. At several points during the day, it even hailed! When I think about the weather, I usually think about it in absolutes: “It’s sunny today, it’s good weather” or “it’s bad weather because it’s rainy today”. The weather during the hike created almost an emotional whiplash, and I had to keep reminding myself that it was bad weather right now, but that did not mean that it was a bad weather day. Similarly, if the sun was shining, it was good weather just in that moment, and therefore it was not wise to take off all my rain gear, because it would start raining faster than I could put it back on. I learned to wear my sunhat and raingear with light clothing underneath, and when the sun was out, I would roll up my sleeves, unzip my poncho down the front, and put down my hood. If it started raining, I could activate “rain-mode” by putting on my hood, zipping up my poncho, and retracting my arms into the sleeves of the poncho. That way, we could keep walking no matter what the weather threw at us.
That evening, we arrived at the campsite next to the hut. It was a very nice campsite: there was a shelter with a counter, picnic table, and tin roof, tanks with rainwater, and a long-drop toilet. There were two other people there, and we chatted as we made tea under the shelter as it poured rain for the 15th time that day. Later, some deer came by and we watched quietly as they browsed the grass and eventually wandered out.
The next day (February 9th), we hiked across the peninsula of the island we were on to the campsite on the other side. The trail had big mud pits in places, which meant finding ways around them through the trees on either side – I only stepped into the mud once or twice during the hike (but when I did it came up to my ankle). During one of our breaks during the hike, we saw a New Zealand Fantail and a Tomtit, two birds native to New Zealand. Otherwise, we saw and heard cicadas but few other birds. I also saw surprisingly few mushrooms – I counted about 5 the whole trip, and all of them were growing out of wood.
We arrived at the next campsite around 4. There were quite a few people there that night, and we all sat under the shelter fixing our food and resting after the hike. Two older Australian women were especially nice, and we made a fire with them later on. That night, we also went out with our lights turned to the red setting to look for kiwi. We didn’t find any, but we heard them calling to each other throughout the forest – an eerie scream that pierces the otherwise silent night. Walking around at night can be kind of scary because you never know what might come out of the dark. Here however, there is nothing that could possibly come out of the dark to harm you – no bears, coyotes, raccoons, or any of the other things that still wouldn’t hurt you but I would be thinking about walking around in a forest at night. We did see Australian brushtail possums later that night, which was surprising to me because they don’t look like the mangy opossums I know – instead, they have big fluffy tails and move almost like cats.
The next day, February 10th, was Anja’s birthday! We packed up early and started our hike out. It was a beautiful, fully rain-free day. We didn’t stop for lunch on the way, and made it into town around 1:00, at which point we treated ourselves to a huge portion of fish and chips, made with locally caught battered blue cod. It was delicious! We took the ferry back to Bluff – this time a much calmer ride, but I still decided to take a nap – and then the lovely Australian women we had camped with gave us a ride back to Invercargill. That evening, we decided to go back to our new favorite Indian restaurant, and again the food was delicious.
On Saturday, February 11th, we took the bus back to Christchurch. This was a long bus journey, but also a beautiful one, and soon enough, we were back to my apartment where we had started.
What a luscious experience! There are many ways to spend our days on Earth, and you seem to spend yours so we’ll!