29/3/19: This post got too long and I had to post it before catching up fully. I’ll write a separate entry for the past two weeks here on the North Island.

20/3/19: As I suspected, I haven’t had a chance to sit down with my laptop for the last couple weeks until now. Tyler and I are catching our breath after our first night at the YHA hostel in Rotorua for Crankworx. Somewhere along the way I managed to squeeze in some writing, but I lost it when WordPress didn’t save correctly. Time to exercise my memory once again.

The last update came from Ashburton which feels like forever ago. After finishing up writing, we said our goodbyes and drove back to Christchurch for the pancake feed we’d earned pulling weeds.

We met the owner’s three teenage kids, Elizabeth, Evie, and Hugh Mahy before the feast. As usual, they were fascinated by our accents and our experience as teens in America. Everybody was seated around two long tables, and there were probably thirty people in attendance, mostly families. Then the food came. There were both savory and sweet pancakes served, gluten free options for both. Toppings included poached eggs, bacon, roasted tomatoes, and hollandaise sauce for the savory cakes and chocolate mousse, whipped cream, fresh berries and syrup for the sweet. I capitalized on my opportunity to get stuffed.

Afterwards, all the kids went outside to burn off their sugar highs. We followed everybody down to Diamond Harbour’s famous “bottle tree” by the water. Tyler climbed up and added his own bottle.

When the little ones were summoned by their parents, the Mahy kids took us down to the wharf. We climbed on the roof of the shelter and listened to the crickets in twilight. Hugh jumped off the roof into the still water below.

The next morning, on our way back over the hill to Christchurch, Tyler dropped me with my bike so I could ride down the trails to the adventure park. He drove the van down to the main parking area and picked me up there. It was his first time driving on the left. He did just fine. Well, I wasn’t there to see, but he turned up with the van in one piece so it couldn’t have been that bad.

The Mahy kids really wanted to see us again, so after they finished school, we drove to meet them at the mall. We sat at McDonald’s surrounded by ten schoolgirls in uniform and Hugh. I regret not taking a photo with them just for comedic purposes. Tyler and I had some shopping to do, so everybody tagged along while we went to Pak N Save for a few essentials. Then they took us to the Christchurch museum and botanical gardens for a bit of a muck-about.

Tyler and I hit the road around 5pm and started driving towards Wanaka. We stopped at a freedom camping spot on lake Opahu near Tekapo for the night. The weather was nice but there was rain in the forecast. By the time we left the next morning, the wind was picking up quite a bit.

At lake Tekapo we stopped to see the famous church and eat lunch. The wind had picked up considerably. We walked out to the lakeshore and got blasted by the spray kicked up from waves crashing on the rocks.

Our next stop was at a dinky little town outside Wanaka. We bought carrots from Four Square to snack on and checked out a spunky clothing store.

It was raining in Wanaka. We got ice from Subway downtown before driving to Piyush’s house nearby. Piyush is a mountain biker from Northern India. Back in August I went for a ride with my friend Will Schwabacher who introduced me to his friend and former coworker John DeLello. They had worked at a bike park in Jackson Wyoming in summers past. John traveled to India in 2017 where he met Piyush Chavan at a tea house in a small mountain village. At the time, Piyush was planning to move to New Zealand to study in Queenstown. When John heard I was going to New Zealand for my gap year, he enthusiastically put me in touch with Piyush. John met both of us only once, but it was enough to establish the connection.

Piyush rents a house with a few other roommates 5 minutes outside Wanaka. When I hit him up on Facebook, he invited me to stay a couple nights when I passed through Wanaka. Upon our arrival, he welcomed us in and offered us showers and dinner. He broke his collarbone the week before we got there, so we helped chop the ingredients for an authentic curry.

It came out great. His roommates liked the curry so much they told him he should make a bunch and advertise it on Facebook marketplace. He doesn’t have a car, so we offered to run deliveries in our van. It became our mission for the next day.

After a decent night’s sleep on a real mattress, we gave Piyush a ride into town to buy curry ingredients at New World. Then we went on a mission to find suitable takeaway containers to serve the curry. The grocery store had none, so we tried a restaurant Piyush’s friend worked at. They couldn’t offer us any but pointed us towards a local supplier. They only sold in bulk, and we didn’t want to buy 50 so we kept looking. Mitre 10, the hardware store, happened to have just what we were looking for: 6 packs of 550ml foil takeaway containers. Perfect.

We got to cooking back at Piyush’s place. As soon as we finished our first batch, Piyush took a photo and published an ad in a local Facebook group. $10 dollars for an authentic Indian curry. We offered butter chicken and korma. $5 for delivery (which we got to keep). Legal? No. Chill in Wanaka? Yes

Piyush did get kicked out of the Facebook group, but only after a good number of people had seen the ad. We ended up selling 7 curries in 3 deliveries. One of them was 10 minutes out of town so we charged $10 for delivery.

It was a major success. Piyush made a few bucks and only used half his ingredients. We got fed and made $20. Everybody had fun. Our customers reported their delight. None of them got sick. None of us got indicted.

That night we watched super troopers and turned in early.

The next day I dropped Tyler and Piyush back in town to attend an agricultural festival taking place. I went to check out Sticky Forest, Wanaka’s trail network.

I was pretty surprised when I got there. Wanaka is situated among some pretty massive mountains, yet the best riding lies on a tiny piece of forestry with about 100m of vertical. All of the trails are quite short and close together making it seem more like a playground. You could easily spend hours here without getting bored or tired. None of the climbs are longer than about ten minutes, making it possible to ride a ton of trails at once.

After a couple hours in the saddle I met back up with the boys and returned to Piyush’s once again. Once we had thanked him and packed our stuff back in the van, we hit the road. There was a freedom camper facility station on the way out of town we used for showers. It was totally free, but I had to present the official certificate of self containment for my van. Cool idea. I’d like to see more of these around.

Queenstown is about an hour over the hill from Wanaka, and on the way there you pass by Cadrona, New Zealand’s best ski resort. I find it surprising how low altitude all the ski areas are here. Apparantly they don’t actually get much cover during the winter.

We had some difficulties upon our arrival in Queenstown. It was a Saturday night and the place was a zoo. There are three campgrounds in the area. Two of them had 150 nonpowered sites and were completely sold out. The only freedom camping areas in Queenstown were recently shutdown due to misuse. The third official campground seemed a bit dodgy on Campermate, but we figured we’d give it a go. The place was totally full when we got there. There was one empty site at the very end that had a camp chair all the way at the end, past the parking space. Other people had reserved their spaces by setting up camp chairs or tables in the parking spaces, but we couldn’t tell if somebody already had dibs. The people next door had the same camp chairs, so we thought it could have been one of theirs. Still, I was a bit uncomfortable. We came up with Plan B and C. There was one other space we could squeeze the van where nobody else would attempt. It was pretty sloped and right next to the river, but in a pinch it would work. We could have moved some branches to make room and made it work for the night. The C plan was less of a plan and more of a possible scenario. There was enough room for another van to park directly behind us without obstructing any traffic, and we figured that if someone else did indeed turn up they could just park us in and talk in the morning. Still I was stressed.

Queenstown has a huge clubbing scene in the summer. Tyler and I wanted to see what it was about, especially given the fact we are of legal drinking age here but not back home. After showering, eating dinner, and buying a few groceries down the street, we set off on the 15 minute walk downtown from the campground. Our first stop was Loco Cantina which supposedly had $5 tacos and cheap drinks. Their kitchen was already closed and the place had a lousy vibe so we continued on our taco mission. We got sidetracked when we passed a gelateria, but after getting our dessert fix we continued on to find tacos. All the places advertising tacos were closed. It was such a disappointment.

We were recouping at the public bathrooms by the lakeshore when the girls on the bench next to me offered me one of their extra drinks. Tyler emerged from the bathroom a minute later and they offered him one too. We started chatting and found out one of them knew Piyush! Then, out of nowhere, a French guy and German gal turned up and joined our group. They were both 18 as well. Another couple foreigners emerged from the darkness, and before we knew it there was a sizable group of us hooting and hollering by the lake. The kiwi girls I first met suggested that we take our group to a nearby club. Off we went.

They took us to Winnies which was just down the street from where we were stationed. The place had a proper dance floor, packed shoulder to shoulder with blaring pop hits from the early 10s. The music wasn’t the best, but the plus side was everybody knew the lyrics. We got down with our newfound friends.

Tyler and I walked back up to the van in the wee hours of the morning. At the campsite we found ourselves parked in by another van. Oh well. That’s a conversation for the morning.

When we woke up the next morning, the van behind us was unattended. The vehicle beside us had already left for the day, leaving plenty of space for us to back out. I wasn’t in the mood to wait around the dingy place just to have an awkward conversation with someone, so we cleared out.

Just up the road from the campground are the world-famous Gorge Road dirt jumps. They’ve been displayed widely in multiple mountain bike edits and movies. We had to pay our respects the the perfectly sculpted masterpieces.

I booked us a night at Nomads Queenstown to avoid staying at the campground again. Tyler and I got a 3 bed room with attached bathroom. We needed a little break after running ourselves ragged over the previous days.

We finally tracked down some tacos for lunch and sat with them by the water. The hostel was just down the street, so after lunch we walked over and checked in. We moved our stuff inside and parked the van in the free parking area 10 minutes away by foot. I needed some chill time, same with Tyler. We did our laundry and hung out in the room.

Our hostel had a 50% off deal with Loco Cantina, so we went back for dinner that evening.

After dinner we took a walk through the main park on the little spit of land adjacent to the downtown area. We sat on big rocks on the shore and took in our surroundings. Across the water was downtown Queenstown, to our left was the last light of the day, and all around were giant mountains making for a grand view. Waves lapped up on the gravely shore, and the faint soundtrack of the city was obscured by the drone of a passing boat. This was a very peaceful moment for me, definitely a highlight of my time here.

I was pretty whipped and wanted to ride the following day, so I went to bed early and sent Tyler out on his own. He says he made some foreign friends and had a good night out.

It was a mission to find parking near the Skyline gondola the next morning. I got super lucky by finding a free space on a residential street when a car left just as I was approaching on the same side of the road.

The bike park was more or less deserted, making for a super chill midweek atmosphere. After a few laps of exploration I started riding really well too. I felt pinned for the first time in a long time. The excellence of the trails only made it easier to ride well. I tagged along with a few groups throughout the day including a Swiss guy I ran into at Sticky Forest in Wanaka a few days previous. The van was close enough to ride down for lunch and recoup before heading up for more laps. I think I got 11 laps, keeping the rubber-side down successfully the entire day. I knew I couldn’t afford a serious crash here in NZ, so I’ve practiced riding conservatively the entire time.

The issue with writing this so long after it happened is I can’t always remember everything. I’m not sure what happened after the bike park. I know I picked Tyler up from the same street Winnie’s is on and that we must have taken a shower and checked out, because the next thing I remember is cooking dinner and spending the night at a freedom camping spot down the same lake from Queenstown. We went down to the water with our food at twilight to take in the night as we had the day before.

We got an early start the next morning so we wouldn’t have to rush the stunning drive to Milford Sound in time for our 3pm boat tour. We got water in Te Anau. There were signs saying there was no fuel on the way out to Milford sound. I did my calculations and figured we’d have enough to make it all the way in and back out. As we drove on I started second guessing myself as the needle on the gauge continued to drop. My foot was feather like on the accelerator from then on.

It’s raining about 70% of the time in Milford Sound. We lucked out with the weather big time. During our cruise there were patches of blue in the sky and none of the peaks were fogged in. Milford Sound is not a sound, but rather a fiord, the difference being sounds carved by rivers and fiords carved by glaciers. The walls of the mountains are insanely steep leading down to the water. We were in the middle of the fiord looking up at peaks just a few degrees shy of directly overhead. The beauty was breathtaking, and I’m so happy we decided to take the time to visit Milford Sound.

We had dinner next to a river on our way back to Te Anau before driving into the night to make tracks for Invercargill.

We spent the night 30 minutes out of Invercargill at a freedom camping spot in Winton. The next morning we drove through the city of Invercargill (which didn’t look very interesting) to Stirling Point in Bluff, the Southernmost point of easy access. We walked around a little on the rocks before stopping for coffee and wifi. We had 27 hours to get from Stirling Point up to Christchurch in time to pick up Lydia from the airport.

Dunedin was our first stop on our way back North. We took showers at a public pool and ran up and down the “steepest street in the world.” It’s too bad we were in such a hurry. I would have loved to see the endangered yellow-eyed penguins or take a tour of the Speights brewery while in town.

We camped that night by the beach partway up the coast. The wind was blowing at gale force causing the van to sway side to side while sleeping.

Lydia’s flight got in at 3pm, leaving us just enough to eat lunch and shower at the Pioneer Rec center one more time. It was smooth sailing picking her up, although I must admit I had my fears about sleeping three people in the van with all our stuff and a mountain bike, especially given the forecast of solid rain for the next five days.

From the airport we drove to meet the Mahy kids one last time outside their weekly youth group. The wrote us a really sweet card, and we took a photo together.

We hit Pack N Save to stock up on groceries for the next few days and had a snack in the car before leaving Christchurch late in the afternoon. I wanted to make it to a DOC campground outside Aurthur’s pass by nightfall.

I must acknowledge, we left Christchurch the day before NZ’s first modern mass shooting. Anybody reading this probably already knows, but over 50 people were killed when terrorists shot up two mosques in Christchurch, one of which was across the street from the botanic gardens we explored the week before.

We all got hungry around the same time and pulled of the highway to make dinner. The setting was beautiful. We were in the dry mountains on the west side of Arthur’s pass. We rode around on bikes and skateboards while we waited for our food to cook, fending off sandflies all the while.

It was lightly raining when we pulled into the DOC campground that night. We set up the bed and piled in the back of the van. We cracked a few ciders and stayed up late talking. We had some catching up to do. It was the perfect way to start the trip.

The next morning we packed up and set off in the rain. The drive over Arthur’s pass was astonishing. There were little waterfalls everywhere you looked, and the river adjacent to the highway was absolutely raging. At one point we drove under a big chute over the highway for the water to cross the road. It would make for a great ride at a waterpark.

Lydia drove for a little bit. We had sandwhiches on the West coast overlooking rough seas on the black sand beach below. Our next stop was at the pancake rock formations to get up and walk around. We checked out the gift shop before heading out on the loop track to see what the hype was about. Indeed, the rocks did resemble stacks of pancakes.

It rained all the way to Murchison. We had to drive the entire day so we could spend a full day in the Nelson area.

That night, on our way down the hill from Murchison, I felt a massive vibration through the steering wheel. I had thought I had noticed a little vibration when Lydia had been driving earlier. We had to drive quite a ways before I was able to pull off. When I finally stopped, I couldn’t see anything wrong with the tires. Tyler said he thought it might be the passenger side, as he was sitting practically on top of the wheel and could feel the vibration the strongest. I jacked up the front left of the vehicle and spun the tire. Sure enough, there was a massive bulge on the outside that surely would have blown out had I kept driving. Even though we had stopped driving, I had no idea how strong the casing was, so I deflated the tire a bit to keep it from exploding. I knew we had a full sized spare, but the next question was how much air it had. Once I had dropped it down from underneath the back of the van, I checked the pressure with my tire gauge. It had 43 psi. Lucky us. Then came the real challenge: the lug nuts were super tight. Somebody must have tightened them with an air gun, or they had been on there so long they had seized. Either way, even jumping up and down on the lug wrench they wouldn’t budge. I wasn’t ready to accept defeat. I put the fourways on and flagged down the next truck that came around the corner, hoping the driver would have a breaker bar on board. The truck stopped, and the driver told me he didn’t have a breaker bar but he’d have a go at it himself. When he stepped down from the cab I felt a pang of hope. He must have been 350 pounds. The guy was huge and had an Irish accent.

He stomped on the lug wrench and one by one cracked all the nuts free. He totally saved the day.

I installed the spare and stowed the busted tire. We celebrated with a late night snack before finishing the drive to a freedom camping spot outside Wakefield.

The next day was a busy one. After waking up and packing the van we drove into Wakefield to get breakfast at the bakery. I told Lydia she needed to try a savory pie while she was here, and the Wakefield Bakery is highly regarded. We had a delicious breakfast of pies that sat like bricks in our stomachs.

On the way to Tom and Robyn’s for lunch, we made a detour up the Aniseed Valley to the Hackett Creek bridge, one of my favorite spots around. We all felt a big antsy, so we went for a walk on the track behind the river. I felt the need to run, so we all jogged down the tack back to the van and changed into our swim gear.

The water was low, but still high enough to jump of the bridge. It was a great way to refresh after a couple days without a shower. Tyler did flips off the rope swing, and I perfected my form skipping rocks. We left the river in high spirits.

 

I showed Lydia the wharf at Mapua, just so she could see where I had spent my last few months. We got Tom and Robyn a little treat from the bakery on the way up to their place.

It was pretty strange to be back in Tom and Robyn’s house. Having lived there for a couple months, everything was familiar, but even though I’d only been gone a couple weeks, it felt strangely nostalgic. I was happy to introduce Lydia too. Now most of my family and both Annie’s best friend and mine have been to that part of the world.

Tom prepared my favorite fish tacos, and we had a special meal together out back under the pergola. We all took showers and said our goodbyes once again. I wanted to take Tyler and Lydia through Motueka where I worked and show them the Riwaka Resurgence out by Tasman’s place.

It was misting lightly at the Resurgence making for a spooky and spiritual setting. Tyler and I drank the water spurting up from under the mountain.

We went back to the Arcadia cafe next to Coppins for one last $6 meal before driving into Nelson to meet our friends. Indian food is my favorite. It was perfect for Lydia too, because everything is vegetarian. Even Tyler liked it. How could he not.

Tasman and Amber invited us over to their friends house in Nelson. We would have gone out to town with them afterwards, but Tyler was seriously sick at the time. I don’t think I’ve thought to mention it until now. Tyler came down with a pretty bad bug that lasted a good portion of the time we were on the road. We came close to visiting a clinic, but he resisted, then got better.

Once reunited, we all walked over to the mtb trail carpark with a slackline and set it up between some pylons. Everybody attempted to balance and walk the line. I made five or six steps on my best attempt, even in the dark. Tyler walked it from one end to the other, despite being sick as a dog.

Miraculously, neither Lydia nor myself got Tyler’s illness the entire time.

After saying our final goodbyes to Amber, Tasman, and Daniel, we hit the road again. Lydia drove us an hour towards Picton to a freedom camping spot in Rai Valley. We wanted to get a head start on our way to the ferry for our 7am check in.

The place was totally full, which was surprising given it’s not advertised on campermate. I wonder how everybody else found out about it. There was enough room for us to squeeze  behind another van right at the entrance. It was already late, so we got the van totally prepped up on the side of the highway, then pulled it in just to sleep.

We woke up at 5am to get to the ferry in time. We did the same operation in reverse, pulling the van out onto the road before opening and closing all the doors to stow everything for driving. I was whipped. I had slept about 4 hours the previous night, sardined in the back of the van with my pants on and wallet in my pocket.

There were a couple mishaps on the ferry journey. The first came in the line for check in. I was reaching back for my ticket and didn’t realize the van was still creeping forward in drive. My foot was on the brake, and I thought I was fully stopped. I became privy to the motion when I came to an abrupt halt on the back of the van in front of me. Shit. I had to wait through the line before talking to the owners of the vehicle I’d hit. There was no visible damage on their bumper fortunately. This is what 4 hours of poor sleep does to me.

The people I rear ended were super friendly about it. There was a little gouge in the back of their bumper, but both vans were otherwise fine. They were driving a 20+ year old Toyota Hiace they had borrowed from someone. Let’s just say there were plenty of other imperfections already, but we exchanged contact info for good measure. They didn’t expect any issue from the owners, but it wasn’t their call. It’s been two weeks now, and they haven’t contacted me.

I was able to relax a little when we finally boarded the ferry.

This is a good breaking point for this post. My parents are nagging me for an update, and it will be another few days before I can publish anything if I try to write in the past two weeks here on the North Island. I’ll finish catching up ASAP.