maybe not quite yellow enough to be CA in the summertime

After the hold up at the airport, my only objective for today was to make it to Hobbiton (thanks again Nick and Keiko for this Christmas gift).

When the guide explained that the tree on top of Bag End (this hobbit hole) was fake, people were awestruck… would love to see their reaction the the tree of life

I could go on and on about this whole experience, but I’ll leave it at: it’s incredible what can be done when studios invest in practical sets and designers.

Te Puia

What made this maori village a little more unique than the others was that it has the largest geyser in the southern hemisphere on it’s grounds. It’s funny, I try and think/act less American-centric when I’m abroad, but then you go on a tour and they ask who knows what Old Faithful is and you’re the only one to raise your hand 🙃

Theme parks have definitely broken my brain, because these rock formations looked so artificial to me

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the geyser at it’s full height (about 98 feet) when I was walking through, but I did see some of the smaller “warning” eruptions

The other half of the tour walked us through historical Māori life and this group’s trades (woodworking, bone carving, and weaving). Also, I can now leave New Zealand having seen a kiwi bird! There’s a habitat on site, but since they’re nocturnal, no photos were allowed.

thanks mary for the sandals :’)

Headed further down the road and pulled over for a few road side attractions, like local glass blowing artists and Huka Falls here.

Finally made it to my last stop of the day Lake Taupo

Took a sunset sailing to see the Māori carvings further out on the lake and enjoyed the last bit of sun on the water. I have to say, the sun here is INTENSE. It was only 80° here and if I had to guess, I would’ve said it was about 95°. Can’t imagine what it’s like during a heat wave here!

Tomorrow’s meant to be the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (aka Mount Doom), but the weather forecast isn’t looking in my favor

totally sunny!!

For a moment I considered figuring out a way to move my car (it’s a one way hike and the parking lot has a 4 hr limit), but decided it was too late at this point to do the whole thing.. I hiked about 2 miles in, up until the first real incline, and headed back to my car. To be fair, as I was heading back clouds did start rolling in and I even had a bit of rain on the drive out, so maybe the DOC does know what they’re doing after all

how much darker it was walking back vs. on the way in

Since my gameplan for the day had been to do this 7-8 hour hike, I decided to slowly make my way back toward Auckland and decide along the way what I wanted to stop at. So stop 1 ended up being this little blue lagoon in a conservation area

Couldn’t even tell you the name of this place… the blue pools? something like that?

From there I went to the botanical gardens in Hamilton, which was really impressive for a seemingly moderately sized city!

I was slightly offended though because there was a “California Calling” garden and it was literally a pool with some poppies in the background

what a beautiful California “garden”

Hamilton’s just over an hour from Auckland, but I wasn’t quite ready to head back yet, so I drove over to the surf town, Raglan.

Ngarunui Beach

Got some seafood and an ice cream cone and started the windy road back toward the airport!

here she is!

After stocking up on groceries, I headed out of town and toward Mount Sunday (yet another LOTR filming location). The plan was to do this quick little “walk” and to head on to Lake Tekapo

Turns out my definition of a walk vs hike is different than the NZ definition

The views were worth it, but I hung out in the area longer than I expected and in turn got into Lake Tekapo later than expected. The weird thing about NZ is that everything shuts down early. It’s summertime, so you’d think things would stay open later, but most stores and things have closed by 5 or 6pm.

Lake Tekapo famously is lined by lupin flowers which you may have seen pictures of when you see visit New Zealand ads, but unfortunately I’m too late in the year for them. It was a clear night though and with this area being a dark sky reserve, it was the best stargazing I’ve ever done!

Randomly there were two people from CA on my stargazing tour and one of them lives in the bay and works for Lucasfilm. Started talking more and it turns out we all hiked Mount Sunday at the same time! For context, we’re about 2 1/2-3 hours away from that hike. It’s a small world and NZ is a small country!

Before I left though, I had to get a quick pic of this hostel’s kitchen view

First stop was a little town called Fairlie. Their meat pies are supposed to be some of the best in the South Island and the country, so I tried their pork belly and apple pie. I’m not really a meat pie girlie, but felt like I had to try one while I’m here and it was pretty good!

From here I stopped at a few road side attractions, shops, and view points while making my way toward Mt Cook/Aoraki National Park.

the base of the mountain range on the other side of the lake is where my campsite was

Like most of the roads in New Zealand, it was a very windy drive back to the campsite but the views were incredible!

Finally I made it to my camp site, claimed my spot, and started to unpack a bit! This site was amazing because there were 4-5 trailheads that started here. I did the quick Kea Point trail to get a closer look at the mountains and then walked about 45 minutes to the national park village.

you may be able to hear the snow/glacier toward the end of the video

Afterwards, I made myself some dinner and had an early night! The plan was to wake up before sunrise to the do the hooker valley track before it got crowded, but I’ll write about that later! \240

It was easily the prettiest hike I’ve done yet and by going first thing in the morning, I practically had the trail to myself!

I met a nice older Scottish man who took the picture above of me and told me that the water felt great. I went to sit on the edge of the lake to put my feet in and saw that it was absolutely covered in mosquitos.. so I stuck to dipping my hands in and calling it a day! (It was icy cold, but felt so good after the long walk) \240

One of three suspension bridges on the trail

Back at the campsite, I got everything packed back up and headed out toward my next stop: Queenstown. Stopped a few places along the way like a wool shop, bakery, and the town Wanaka. Mileage wise, I wasn’t too far away, but the roads to get there were slow and windy

here’s just a fraction of what the drive was like into Queenstown

After checking in to my hostel and taking a quick shower, I headed out to check out the downtown area. I’ve quickly learned that Queenstown has a quite small downtown area and the city’s kind of spread out along the lake and up the mountain side. Since I was in town I had to get the famous “Ferg Burger” for dinner

(it was a good burger, but nothing insane? It’s supposedly the best in NZ)

Afterwards I wandered around the beach and gardens and watched what would’ve been the sunset, had it not been such a cloudy day.

I even have a little stream behind my site

Since I’ve arrived I’ve had zero service, so after a quick nap, I caught up on some reading, and went for a walk along the paths, streams, and lakes nearby

This is the last campsite before you reach Milford, which is my destination for tomorrow.

Mitre Peak

I’ll go back a bit. Luckily the road I was camping on essentially became a dead end at the docks, so even though I didn’t have service, I knew where I was going. The boat itself was MUCH smaller than what I was expecting and there were far more people going than I expected. So I was slightly stressed about getting on quickly and getting a seat near the railing.

There was a long line for our dock and as more people checked in, people started just walking straight up to the dock, crowding it, and ignoring the line of people. To my luck though, those people crowding it didn’t seem to speak English as their first language, because when the announcement was made about coming forward, I was one of about 10 people to quickly move before the mass did.

secured my seat on the top deck railing

Despite the drought and lack of waterfalls, it was still a beautiful day on the water. We did get to see a couple of waterfalls

As well as some fur seals and bottlenose dolphins!

After the cruise was over, I slowly made my way out of the area at back to Te Anau, which I had passed through yesterday. I’m staying here tonight because I have another early morning and another boat ride tomorrow to Doubtful Sound.

I had planned on booking a cruise into the glow worm cave this afternoon after I settled in, but honestly I’m just so tired. I took the afternoon to read, walk around town, and just rest.

my little campsite for the night

The view coming over the pass

It started out pretty gloomy, but like Milford Sound, they hadn’t seen substantial rain in weeks and was unusual for the area. We slowly made our way through the sound and out into the Tasman Sea where we saw a colony of fur seals and even some pups!

As we came back into the sound, the clouds started to dissipate and the sections of the water was practically glass

Fun fact about doubtful, it was originally considered as a filming location for Jurassic Park! Unlike my visit though, the scouting and production team visited for 10 days and after 10 days of rain, decided to go for the sunnier Kauai.

After about 3 hours, we headed back to the harbor, for yet another hour bus ride, and another hour on the ferry. It was a long day in the sun and I was so excited to get back to Queenstown and rest for the night… the only problem was I apparently never confirmed my campsite for Queenstown. After 2+ hours of driving, I got to the campsite just to realize I never actually booked it 🥲

This is the busiest time of year, besides new years, and everywhere else was booked up, so I found myself back at a hostel again last night. I decided to make the most of the night and take a trip up the nearby gondolas to get a view of the city.

On my gondola ride back down I met an Ohio State fan celebrating their national championship win. Something I can miss sometimes while abroad is the random small talk with strangers. Americans are way more likely to give you a random compliment or start a conversation. We talked for awhile walking around the city and they told me about how they spend every January in New Zealand to escape the winter (the ideal snow bird situation imo).

I grabbed some dinner and repacked my van, bc tomorrow (today now) \240I’ll be back in Christchurch and getting ready to return it! I also learned not to trust google reviews for Queenstown restaurants bc I had some of the most awful pasta of my life at a 4.7 star restaurant. That’s it for yesterday!

Tomorrow I’ll return my van and explore Christchurch a bit more!

From here I went for a long walk around Hagley Park and the botanical gardens. The park itself really reminded me of some of the parks in England and I took some time to hang out and read.

Hagley Park

On my way back toward my hotel, I stopped by Riverside Market and got some lunch before I had to go return my van.

9/10 burger tbh

So I said farewell to my van/home for the past 7+ days! It took a good while to return it and get back into town. Once I did, I walked around the city, checked out the murals, cathedrals, and evedything I didn’t have a chance to earlier today, because I head back to Auckland tomorrow!

Ended my night with the best dairy free ice cream I’ve ever had!

view of viaduct harbour

After dropping off my bags, I took a quick 45 minute ferry over to Waiheke Island. The best way I could describe Waiheke is it’s a combination of a Hawaiian island and Napa Valley. It’s a fairly small island that’s much warmer than Auckland and is filled with vineyards. They have a hop on hop off bus that takes you around, so I checked out a few vineyard, olive oil shops, and lastly the beach.

if you zoom in, you can see the Auckland skyline in the distance

Olive oil testing

made a friend at lunch

After getting sufficiently sunburnt, I took the ferry back to the city, wandered around the harbour, CBD area, and headed in for the night!

It was extremely windy and turned into a rain storm, so I ended up not going out to watch the women’s final of the Australian Open like I had planned, but enjoyed my last night in.