Who drove us out of our nest in Kerikeri?

It was three months since my friend Simon and I came to Kerikeri. We built our nests and were quite cosy up there. We had a roof above our heads, so we didn’t need to think of where we are going to sleep each day, we had unlimited fast internet, which is quite a rarity in Kiwi land, we had jobs, we met a lot of spectacular friends there, and it didn’t even cross our mind to move out, to travel. Heck, now that I’m thinking, Northland was almost all we had seen since coming to New Zealand!

The arrival

One random day I receive a text message from my younger brother. In the text, it was casually written that I should plan to pick him up at the Auckland airport on February 12th. It is true that we have talked about his visit before I left for the trip to the bottom of the world, but I never expected that he would actually visit me.

Me being me, I immediately started planning what I have to do and how much money I have to earn until his landing so that the trip will run smoothly. Few jobs, sleepless nights and goodbyes later, Simon and I were heading towards the pickup zone. For the laughs, I made a pizza box sign with Rambo Escobar written on it, so that I could embarrass my brother waiting for him at the arrival gate. As if he knew, when he came out on the terminal, he went in the opposite direction of where we were standing. A perfect occasion to raise the box above my head, so everyone could see it and walk through the crowd to catch him ;).

First few scenic views

Fast forward, three hours later we are in Kawhia, on a black sand beach, with an almost full moon, trying to find shelter from the cold whirling wind. We cracked open a cold Mac’s Green Beret beer and wished we knew we were mere 10 meters away from a hot beach pool. All we should have done is dig a bit around 55°C thermal spring and we would have a private jacuzzi.

In the morning, we finally booked a camp so that David could lose his battle with jet lag for a day and Simon and I could relax a bit. The weather wasn’t perfect anyway. Oh, didn’t I mention that until we crossed to the South Island, we mainly had rain? Yeah, some days were only cloudy, but no clear skies for us.

First things on our itinerary were Waitomo Gloworm Caves, some canyoning, blackwater rafting, and climbing. If it is raining, there is no better plan than exploring caves, as they are not much affected by bad weather. Only the cave river gets a bit rougher, but nothing compared to winter season roughness, we were told ;).

Lord of the Ri… NOT!

Next on the list was the biggest disappointment of our trip. HOBBITON!. I’m sorry if I offend any Tolkien fans, but the place is nothing else but a tourist trap. I applaud the owners what they succeeded to create, how good their marketing is and everything, but… the place sux! 80$ for a bus ride to the property, walk around the film set and a 1,5dl of beer while being timed and rushed forward as there are five groups before you and five behind, all running on a 15-minute schedule. If the beers were any bigger, you would even be rushed to drink it. The only bright spot of our tour was our guide, but still not enough of a bright spot to outweigh the overall feeling.

In protest, I took zero photos in there.

The Tongariro Crossing, a scenic walk through active volcanic areas, past Mt. Doom and Emerald Lakes. This was another activity where the weather helped us. The full overcast day was just perfect for walking 19,4 km (we had some broken clouds only in the beginning), as I cannot imagine on a blue day, how much heat must radiate from the predominately dark ground.

My brother still managed to burn his face off though… :D. Dead tired, from carrying all my photography gear across the mountain range, we found an Airbnb to rest and visit Wellington for a few days.

Crossing to the other side

Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. It really has a different atmosphere than Auckland, and I liked it a lot. Free weekend parking in the city centre, beer tour, super spicy chicken pizza, TePapa Museum. Last shopping in New Zealand’s cheapest supermarket Pak’N’Save and we were on a ferry to Picton, South Island!

For an intermezzo, it would be appropriate to mention what food Simon and I tortured David with. Already being used to crap food, we were buying mostly tuna and chicken in cans, tortilla wraps, 1$ toast bread, bananas, apples, cheapest fruit jams, peanut butter and hazelnut spread Nutino (fake Nutella), cheese (the only food cheaper than in Slovenia), eggs, noodles and the occasional best chocolate in the world, Whittaker's chocolate, all while sleeping in budget camps. We would be really mean travel buddies if we didn’t from time to time treat ourselves with a burger, pizza, or buy a juicy steak from the supermarket.

Ok back to the story. We are already driving to the South Island’s oldest capital Nelson. Three days of sunny weather, a backpacker hostel with a pool, tonnes of foreigners, beer and the best ice cream I ate in my entire life (honey and lavender flowers flavour), can tell you how lazy we were. Well, some were more active than others to be precise. Simon rented a bike and did a whole day beer brewing tour, he and David also did a pub crawl,… and me? Being lazy, and finished watching long-overdue The Wire series.

A race with time

A 200 km detour to see Pupu Springs for 15 minutes, help an old Scottish couple with their campervan, as the wheel from their campervan was torn off when they were driving in front of us, drink a good beer while playing Scrabble, and return to Nelson for a forgotten swimsuit. Then do another 220 km to a sandfly and drunk Kiwi infested campsite would sum up our day after leaving the hostel in Nelson. The best thing, however, was a warm fire oven in the camp, just waiting for us to bake tortilla wrapped cheese and sweet chilli tuna and enjoy a beer that we chilled in the river flowing by, all while listening to a Kiwi story how he hunts wild boars with three dogs and a knife (dog bites boars in the nuts to neutralize them etc., you don’t want to know).

The reason we drove so much that day, was the weather. Crystal clear skies are quite a rarity around Lake Tekapo and that is why I wanted to be there as soon as possible, to shoot milky way in the Earth’s biggest dark sky reserve. After waking up next morning and enjoying well-deserved meat pies from a local shop, we were back on the road towards the lake. At 6 PM, after driving over 2/3 of South Island, we were finally there, and I spent no time squatting the best possible spot. It took me 9,5h, beer, snacks, helpers, and shaking off cold to get all the necessary exposures, but it was well worth it! I would do it again if in a heartbeat.

The shot I came to New Zealand for was done, what now? From this moment on I didn’t care. Anything we did was good enough for me. So we drove to Wanaka to wash our laundry, rest and recharge after a sleepless night, before continuing next morning towards Rob Roy Glacier 3h walk. Because of my photo session, it took us around 5h to walk it, but that’s normal with me around ;). Next stop Queenstown holiday park for a shower, veggie/sausages rice, beers and a good night’s sleep. It was only in this camp that we met a first Slovenian person in Kiwiland (after four months!). It was a guy from eastern Slovenia, who was working there.

Pies, pies, pies, we ate soo much of them! We devoured them when we were hungry, enjoyed them when we had extra time to spare, burn our tongues when we couldn’t wait for them to cool down. We have tried from cheap and bad pre-packed pies to award-winning bakery pies. You get them with vegetables, chicken, smoked fish, mushrooms, venison, beef, pork, cheese, you name it! Pies in New Zealand are as popular as kebab and burek in Slovenia. You can get them everywhere and they taste pretty similar too :).

Sandfly kingdom

Another sleepover in Te Anau, with 5 AM alarm to wake up and drive to 9 AM boat ride in Milford Sound. Milford Sound enjoys one of the highest rainfall statistics in the world, but to our “luck” there was no rain for seven days already and almost all of the waterfalls that drop into the fjord were dry :(. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful morning sail and we were admiring the sun rays being cast across the fjords. There were playful dolphins, sunbathing seals and a wide range of birdlife present. A small complimentary bacon sandwich, and a glass of juice, some showering below the waterfall and we were back to running to our car, as Milford is infested with blood-sucking creatures called SANDFLIES! They even have a stop there called Sandfly point. Maori people believe that God created sandfly to protect the beauty of New Zealand, I, on the other hand, think they were created to test your patience.

A long drive to Invercargill was the second thing after damned Hobbiton that David wanted to see. He wanted to visit Burt Munro’s museum and track down movie shooting locations for “The world’s fastest Indian”. It is a film about Kiwi Burt Munro, who rebuilt a 1920 Indian 1000ccm motorcycle to claim the world land speed record in 1967. The record still stands by the way. After the Hobbiton failure, this venture was quite refreshing. We all enjoyed the city.

Wrapping it up

We were quite close to the end of our journey with David by now. Only a few days left, so we decided to go to Dunedin and find something comfortable to sleep before David’s takeoff towards Auckland. First night in Dunedin,… fail. We were late, AirBnB’s didn’t want to accept us anymore, so we spent a night in free DOC camp (Department of Conservation camp). All three sleeping in the car sits, poor David :D. In the morning we realised we had two nails in our tyre, so we needed to get a new one. With what we saved with this camp for sleeping for free (new tyre expense was on Simon and me), the next morning I booked the whole house for 130nz$. Last-minute washing and drying, juicy steak and a glass of Chardonnay, beauty sleep, beers, pizza and the 3500 km, two weeks and five days long road trip has come to an end.

Back to budget living, I suppose.