October 23, 2023 – New Zealand: In the footsteps of James Cook

On a long journey there are sometimes those moments where you sit there and ask yourself why you are doing all this to yourself. We had one of these moments recently. It was 1am, we were sitting in the lobby of Auckland airport on the top contender for most uncomfortable chairs ever and we still had over five hours to wait for our onward flight. This was preceded by a customs check that resembled the hunt for the A38 permit from the film “Asterix Conquers Rome”. As is usually the case with international flights, we were given an entry form on the plane on which we had to declare a lot of different products and items. For example, at one point we were asked whether we wanted to enter the country with sports and hiking equipment. We answered yes, after all we had, among other things, hiking boots and snorkeling gear in our luggage. Until now, we knew that this entry form would be checked once by customs and the matter would be settled. Not so in New Zealand. The first step is a check in which the customs officer looks at the document in question, asks a lot of questions and then writes a few confusing numbers on the note. After we had gone through this check, we moved on to the next queue. This involved checking the medications we had with us. After this check was completed, the next queue was already waiting for us. And this is where things got annoying. The customs officer asked if we had hiking boots and if she could see them. Now it's hard to say no in this situation. The only problem with our backpacks is that the hiking boots are at the bottom and it's quite an ordeal to put the backpacks in and out because space is (unfortunately) at a premium. But it didn't help. So we were able to completely empty our backpacks so we could get our hiking boots. The customs officer then took them, examined them suspiciously, collected two stones from the profile, put them in a plastic bag, gave them back to us and explained that they were OK. It was now just before 1, we were tired and had to put away all the backpacks that we had packed so well in Nadi. Once that was done, we were allowed to join the next queue. Now it was time for the general baggage check. The luggage was completely scanned again. And then it was done, we officially entered New Zealand. After we had waited in the entrance hall until five in the morning, it was time to shoulder our backpacks and head to the plane. To do this we had to walk from the international to the national airport. And luckily there are always those moments, and luckily these predominate, when you know exactly why you're doing it all. I had this moment during the flight from Auckland (North Island) to Christchurch (South Island), our first destination in New Zealand. This moment when we flew over the snow-capped mountain peaks was so beautiful that it made up for all the stress of getting there. But we were still tired and exhausted when we arrived. However, there were still a few things to do before we could finally get some sleep. From the airport we took the shuttle to our rental car provider, through whom we had rented our campervan for the coming weeks. Afterwards we drove to a shopping center to buy some groceries and get SIM cards. It was now 12 noon and we hadn't slept in around 30 hours. Luckily, after shopping, the list of to-dos was completed so we could finally drive to our campsite. Once there, we checked in, quickly converted the car into a bedroom and finally slept.

After we slept in the next morning, we drove into Christchurch and looked around the city. New Zealand's second largest city has been known worldwide since 2010 and 2011 at the latest, as two severe earthquakes occurred within a very short period of time, the consequences of which still shape the cityscape today. Our first trip took us to the “Quake City” museum, where the two earthquakes, their origins and consequences are examined and eyewitnesses speak and look back on the events. Afterwards we strolled through the city a bit, looked at a small exhibition and also drove briefly to the sea to enjoy the wonderful view of the surrounding mountains from here.

Unlike in Australia, where we had no time pressure, our stay in New Zealand is limited because we have already booked our onward flight. For this reason, we thought about a rough route in advance. Our first road trip took us to Kaikoura, which is also on the coast around 180 kilometers north of Christchurch. A friend of Helene's is currently working here and we wanted to pay a little visit. But a trip to Kaikoura is also worthwhile. The city is surrounded by large mountains that are currently still covered in snow and there is a lot of maritime life that can be seen on the coast and at sea. We were able to see a few exciting animals on our trip, but in Kaikoura there was another one that we hadn't come across before, or rather crawled over: the seal. A huge seal colony lives on a certain section of the coast, which we visited as part of a hike. There are supposed to be a few penguins living there too, but unfortunately they didn't want to show themselves to us. Because, as I said, our schedule is a little tighter, we set off again after a night in Kaikoura. In general, driving here is much more fun than in Australia. While down under you often drive for hours through sparsely populated and barren areas, in New Zealand the places are much closer together and the nature is much more spectacular. You keep looking out the window and see huge mountains, huge valleys and crystal clear rivers and lakes. A visit to New Zealand is worth it just because of the trips from place to place. Although it should also be mentioned that the car journeys themselves are a bit more strenuous. You first make your way up the mountains over kilometers of serpentines and then drive back down again. People with nervous stomachs won't have much fun here. Luckily, Helene and I didn't mind so much, so we arrived at our second destination, the small town of Hamner Springs, unscathed. I don't really need to mention that Hamner Springs is located in a beautiful mountain panorama, somehow that applies to pretty much all towns and villages in New Zealand. However, the beautiful location was not the reason for our visit. As the name suggests, Hamner Springs is known for its hot springs. And since the day was very rainy anyway, we spent a few relaxing hours in the pools, which were up to 40 degrees Celsius. We then continued our crossing from the east to the west coast. First of all, we drove to Lake Kaniere, which is not necessarily one of the absolute must-sees in New Zealand, but was still a nice place for us to spend two days. Here we were able to camp right on the lake and explore the surrounding area undisturbed. Among other things, we hiked up to Mount Tuhua. It is “only” 3.6 kilometers to the summit, but you overcome an altitude difference of more than 1,000 meters. So it's not surprising that we arrived at the summit soaked in sweat. Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated and Nobel arrived within a few minutes, meaning we were only able to briefly enjoy the beautiful view of the lake and the surrounding mountains before we began the sweaty descent again. And because we didn't have enough, we continued straight away for the next two days. On the west coast are the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, which drop almost to sea level and are therefore easy to reach. Although easy is a fallacy in this case, our hike to the Franz Josef Glacier was anything but easy. Again we went up to almost 1,000 meters and again we were unlucky with the weather. When we arrived at the viewpoint, we were faced with a wall of fog that didn't clear for a moment, giving us a glimpse of the glacier. But we made up for it the next day. Even though we chose a shorter and more relaxed track this time, the view of the Franz Josef Glacier was still very spectacular. The same applies to the Fox Glacier, which we looked at afterwards. I think the pictures here speak for themselves. We would have liked to spend another day or two in the region, but an opportunity arose further south that we no longer expected and that we had to take. More on that next time. I guess I'm not promising too much when I say that something very cool is waiting for us.