New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: There And Back Again (A Traveler's Tale)

I've been back home for two weeks now and have had the opportunity to share my trip with friends and kind of debrief on things.  So here are my thoughts on the trip overall and what I might have done differently or not.

First of all, if you want to travel the whole of the two islands, I would say you want 6-8 weeks minimum.  I was there for 6 weeks and felt that another 1-2 would have given me the opportunity to stay in some places a bit longer, and perhaps seen some of the places I had to bypass because I just didn't have time.  If you're only going for 2 or 3 weeks, I would highly recommend just picking an island and staying there.  Or at minimum, visit Hobbiton and and then fly down to the South Island if that is your island of choice.  

If you want to go hiking, do the South Island.  There is hiking on the North Island, but there is so many more options on the South Island.  The South Island is more mountainous so they're going to be a different sort of trail than you find on the North Island.

My favorite places (in no particular order):

• Hobbiton (North Island)
• Giant Sand Dunes (North Island)
• Poor Knights Island for Scuba Diving (North Island)
• Picton to Farewell Spit (South Island)
• Area around Wanaka (South Island)
• Area around Queenstown (South Island)
• Mount Cook/Aoraki National Park (South Island)
• The Catlin Region along the south-southeast coast (South Island)
• Oamaru Penguin Colony (South Island)
• Doubtful Sound (South Island)

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan I would pick up a copy of The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook (I bought my at Hobbiton).  It was completely worth it. Pictures, maps, details about where to look.  If you do want to visit filming locations, I would recommend Hobbiton, Weta Workshop Wellington on the North Island, and the filming locations near Wellington on the North Island.  And then on the South Island head to Queenstown and book a tour through Pure Glenorchy and Southern Trails LOTR Trails.  Our tour guides were true LOTR nerds who know their books and movies and are giving tours because they are fans themselves.  They had photos of the scenes from the films so you could literally look at the scene and look at what was in front of you.  And then take a day to head down to Lake Mavora.  

Make sure to fit some time into your schedule to rest here and there.  That is part of the reason I wish I had had another week.  It would have given me time to have a down day here or there.  If I could have, I would have taken another 1-2 days at Mount Cook NP.  I didn't have a chance to stop at Lake Tekapo.  They say it is a fantastic place for stargazing and I never had the opportunity because I didn't have time.  I also would have spent another day up in the Bay of Islands area, I think.  And I would have totally done another day of diving at Poor Knights Island.

In hindsight I would have skipped out on scuba diving at Kaikoura on the South Island, though the town is worth a visit for its seal colony.  I probably would have bypassed Christchurch and the Akaroa peninsula as well.  I'm still debating whether the Coromandel Peninsula was worth the trip up there or not.  Cathedral Cove was a neat stop and by that point you're most of the way up the peninsula anyway, so I suppose you might as well keep going.

One big recommendation I have is get going early.  I can't say if it was because I was up there post-Christmas or if it is always like that, but on the north tip of the North Island it wasn't too crowded at 8am, but by 10am it was starting to get busy, and I was told it was insane by 1pm.  

I'm glad I made the decision to rent a car and not a campervan for this trip.  Part of that is due to the length of my trip.  I don't think I could have made it 6 weeks in a camper van.  I liked having room to stretch out at a hotel.  But also, the vans in NZ were a lot larger than the ones in Iceland.  And in NZ you're dealing with a lot of narrow roads with one lane bridges and twists and turns.  Gas was about $2.70NZD/liter, so roughly $6.00/gal.  When looking for gas, look for an NPD, Waitomo, or Gull.  They are your cheapest gas and usually found at unmanned stations.  I ended up driving somewhere around 4500 miles and spent nearly $800 on gas.

Most towns have free public toilets that are actually pretty nice.  They're usually stocked and clean.  Just look for a blue bathroom sign in on the road through town and it'll point you there.

Your grocery stores are Pak'NSave, Woolworths, and New Market.  Warehouse is like a Walmart with just the general merchandise.  Look for Chemist Warehouse for everything from shampoo to sunscreen to bug bite cream.  Overall the food was good and cheap compared to American food.

New Zealand loves their meat pies.  Imagine a 4" little pie filled with steak or chicken.  They're filling and cheap and available at pretty much any cafe, bakery, or manned gas station.

The flight there is long; 12-13 hours from LAX to Auckland.  I flew on Air New Zealand specifically because they have a Skycouch option, where you can pay to get all three seats together to make a bed.  The Skycouch option is available for 1, 2, or 3 people.  If you have 3 people you can still make the bed, but you're not going to have much space.  But with 1 or 2 people, it makes for an opportunity to lie down.  

The hotels along the way are usually quite nice.  You don't find much in the way of chains.  A lot of the hotels are 10-15 room motels owned by a family that lives there.  In most cases I found them nicer than American chain hotels.  If you're willing to share a bathroom with others, you can find a lot of cheaper alternatives in the form of hostels (with private rooms or dorms) or what I'd call guesthouses with a private room and shared facility.  I think probably 90% of the places I stayed had a place I could cook food, either in a shared kitchen or in my hotel room on a stove.  I stayed at 3 AirBNB's along the way in places where hotels were hard to find.  I booked most of my stays 0-5 days out.  The best hotel I stayed in was Aura Accommodations in Rotorua, but there were many places I stayed that were fantastic!

Sorry this is all really random.  It is just my thoughts as I think through the ins and outs of my trip.

Remember, there is a good chance you either won't ever be back again, or it may be a while, so if you see something that looks interesting, visit.  I totally splurged on my Tasman Glacier Helicopter-Hike and I'm so glad I did because while I didn't enjoy the helicopter ride, the views from the glacier were amazing.

When you're looking at place names, the WH sound in Maori sounds more like an F, so Whangarei is Fahnguhray.  That also means when you're listening to the radio on the South Island around Nelson and you think you hear someone saying Fuck-It-Too, they're actually saying Whakatu.

Overall I felt that the South Island was a bit more laid back and the people nicer than on the North Island, but overall, the people are pleasant and ready to have a conversation.  New Zealand was full of wonderful people.  

New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: The Last Stage

 My last few days in Auckland were spent lazing around.  Well, not quite, but there was a lot of laying around and not doing much.

On New Year's Day, I got up not as late as I would have liked because of that darn summer sun, even with blackout curtains...they just didn't block the sun from shining around the windows.  I booked a ticket on the 10:30 ferry to Rangitoto Island to spend a few hours hiking.

Leaving Auckland on the Ferry.  The red NZ flag is used for non-military maritime.

Rangitoto is a volcanic island in the middle of the gulf just outside of Auckland.  The ferry ride took about 25 minutes from the city center.  It doesn't have any permanent population and is purely a day trip place with 3 ferries a day there, and 3 back.  There is a trail from the ferry dock to the summit of the island, from whence you can see into the crater of the volcano and across the gulf to Auckland and surrounding areas.  The volcano last erupted around 600 years ago and has been dormant since then.  And they don't really expect it to erupt again.  

Lava fields on Rangitoto

As you hiked up, there were jagged lava fields all around you.  At lower elevations there were more lava fields and fewer forests, but as you moved up in elevation you found yourself around a forest.  Signage along the way said that initially mosses and lichens would start growing and as they lived and then died, they would create a soil with nutrients, and then smaller brush would grow, and eventually enough soil was built up that trees would start growing.  Drawings from 200 years ago, show almost no plant-life or trees on the upper part of the cone, but now it is covered in trees, so it is kind of neat to see that sort of evolution of plants on a volcanic island.

Rangitoto volcanic crater

After taking the ferry back, I was shot.  I went back to my hotel and didn't leave again that night.  I had a gourmet supper of FastMac, chocolate, and wine (a New Year's gift from the hotel...probably a pretty cheap wine).  

Auckland Domain

The next morning I got up and wandered over to a couple of parks.  First Auckland Domain, and then to Albert Park.  Auckland Domain is sort of like a Central Park.  It has large, lush grassy areas, some gardens, a duck pond, some sports fields, a cafe restaurant, and a museum.  They were setting up for some sort of tennis tournament set to start on the 5th.  It was right next to the Bowling Club.  So many towns I went through had signs for the Bowling Club and I had no idea what they were talking about.  Turns out it is lawn bowling.  I guess bowling, along with cricket and rugby, is something the US missed out on by declaring independence too soon from Britain.  Cricket and rugby are king in NZ.

Wintergarden at Auckland Domain

I had an amazing breakfast at the cafe in the park before wandering around.  I sat and read some, here and there.  I eventually made it to the Winter garden.  Two glass houses with plants in them (one with a pond), and an outdoor area connecting the two, with a large pond and statues.  Off to one side was a fernery, which was full of ferns and palms.

Wintergarden at Auckland Domain

I made my way back toward the hotel via Albert Park.  I didn't stay long in Albert Park before heading back to the hotel.  It rained off and on in the evening before a super hard rain finally it.  I had the sliding glass door open in my hotel room and listened/watched the rain come down.

Then came the last day.  I made the most of my morning at the hotel before checking out.  I stored my luggage at the hotel and wandered around the viaduct for one last time before collecting my things and heading to the airport.  The rain that had been threatening all morning finally hit just outside the airport.

Anyone looking for a sailboat?

Checking in and everything for my flight seemed fine.  My bag was .2kg over the limit, but she said it was fine.  I'm coming home with honey and hot chocolate mix that I purchased at various places, otherwise I would totally have been in the clear.  Then the time to load our flight came and went.  We wait, and then finally they said that there was a maintenance item still being worked on.  Finally that was taken care of and we got everyone onboard and pushed back about 70 minutes late.  Finally!  And then we sit there and sit there and then they come on over the sound system and say that we are going to have to go back to the terminal due to a medical issue onboard.  NOOOOO!!!  My connection was already tight.  If everything happened as planned, I would have 2h and 40m in LAX before boarding my flight to Denver.  Instead, we didn't get airboard until about 2 hrs after our original departure time.  There's no way you can make up 2 hours.  

With about 3 hours left in our flight, a flight attendant started making his way around talking to people with tight connections or those who had been rebooked on later flights.  I was one of those who was booked on a later flight, which rather screwed things up.  My new flight wasn't going to get to Denver until after 10pm, which meant I definitely wasn't making my 9pm flight to Wichita.  That flight had been booked separately so I had to rebook that one too.

Upon arrival in LA, I got off the plane and headed to Customs, which was easy and smooth and I was through in probably about 5 minutes.  While I was waiting in line, in another zigzag of it, I looked up and recognized the actor Utkarsh Ambudkar.  I know him best from Pitch Perfect and Free Guy, but he is also one of the stars of the TV show Ghost.  After doing the ridiculous pick-up-your-bag-to-drop-it-off 100 yards away rigmarole, I stopped by a special counter to officially do my "interview" for Global Entry.  This "interview" involved me telling them what I did for a job and being fingerprinted.  I had applied for it last fall and got accepted then, but this interview has to happen in person at certain airports across the country or upon arrival at certain airports.  The closest place to Wichita is Kansas City, but it seemed ridiculous to go up there on a day off just to do that, so I waited until I got back to LAX for it.

Not me stalking Utkarsh Ambudkar from across baggage claim.

Then I had the joy of trying to get to my gate.  LAX is the worst airport I have ever been to.  The signage is terrible and moving from one terminal to the next is just as bad.  I was so confused because after being dumped outside security at the international terminal I knew I had to get to Terminal 7, which is the United terminal.  Signs inside the International terminal say "Terminal 4-7 -->", but if you follow them, you end up at a wall.  Turns out, you have to exit the building.  There is literally no way to move between them inside.  And of course it was rainy outside, so that was cool.  I got to walk in the rain down to Terminal 7, where I had to pick up my new boarding pass and figure out what was going to happen to my luggage since it had been checked through, but still had tags for my old flight.  I was told it would probably get put onto the next flight to Denver and likely beat me there (it did and was actually kinda convenient because I didn't have to wait for it at the baggage carousel).  Next I had to wait for my flight.

As I was waiting I was thinking through things, figuring out what I was going to do for sleep.  It seemed ridiculous to pay $120 for a room at a nearby hotel because I figured it would probably be 11pm by the time I got to the hotel, and I would be getting up around 2:30am to head back to the airport for my 5:15am flight.  That meant crashing somewhere at the airport in Denver.  I wandered around for a while looking for a spot.  It was rather unfortunate that I was stuck landside because I know the new portion of the Terminal C has some fantastic areas for sleep.  But because my suitcase was landside and I was switching airlines, I had to go out of the secured area.  After wandering around for a bit, and not finding anywhere comfortable to lay down on a padded chair (they had metal armrest preventing sleeping comfort), I ended up at the carpeted area near Baggage Carousel 4 along the wall (so next time you're there, imagine me being curled up under a blanket against that wall).  Now the floor isn't exactly comfortable and despite the fact that things slow down at Denver late at night, they never actually shutdown.  After midnight there were still bags coming in about every 20-30 minutes.  I rested and came close to losing consciousness, but never actually slept slept.  I did dream once about some baby kiwi that looked more like fuzzy platypus mouthed birds, but I could still hear baggage carousels around me. At 3:15am, my alarm went off.  I reshuffled stuff between suitcase and backpack so I could get my bag under 50lbs and went upstairs to check in (bag came in at 49.7 lbs).  

My flight home went via St. Louis (not my favorite option, but the only direct on Southwest was at 9pm that night and direct flights on United and AA were either late or $700).  There were a whole 28 people on my flight to STL, so that meant I was able to lay down and actually sleep a bit.  From STL, I flew home to Wichita and my friend Diana came to pick me up!  I was home!  I promptly went to sleep and slept for 5 hours before waking up, going to get some food, and then to Dillons for groceries (I was originally going to go on a Walmart run too, but I decided I was too tired for that).  When I got back home it was off to bed.  The good news was after texting my boss from LAX, I had Monday off so I could get settled a bit more, which was a good thing as I slept from about 9:30pm to 1:30am, then 5:30am to 9:30am, and then from 10:30am to 12:30pm.  It was a great trip, and with one last post to come, I'll be wrapping things up!