So! Starting off, planning. I booked everything back in October of last year for this trip from late February through mid-March. The Milford Track (called “the greatest walk in the world” and accordingly popular) was already fully booked, but everything else was available. I actually moved my vacation dates to accommodate this, as my initial mid-to-late-February window had several filled dates on the Routeburn Track. Apart from the Great Walks, everything seemed to have enough availability, although accommodations in Queenstown looked a bit tight, and some of the best AirBNBs in Wanaka were taken during the week I was planning (although I was still very happy with where I ended up in both spots).
For packing, my checklist was a hybrid of my personal California backpacking checklist and the invaluable Young Adventuress blog post on tramping in NZ. Her list is gold and I enthusiastically recommend it. A few items in particular that I wouldn’t have brought otherwise:
- Merino. Merino is great, and layered merino is kind of magical. I would often start the day snug in two layers, both zipped up like turtlenecks; open both when the day heated up in order to stay cool; and continue to adjust necklines and sleeves as I moved in and out of alpine elevations, All without ever donning or doffing another garment! It’s a nice upgrade over my previous layered approach, and I’ll probably be using it for other longer hikes going forwards.
- Ear plugs and a sleep mask. I haven’t slept in a communal room in AGES, and these really helped me quickly go to sleep in the tramping huts. They don’t block out everything, but soften all the distractions, which, combined with the natural exhaustion of a full day of walking, did the trick.
Here was my high-level itinerary:
Day 1: Arrived in Queenstown. Dropped off my bags at my lodging, spent the day wandering the city and acclimating. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic moves on the left. Jetlag helps me go to sleep early.
Day 2: Pick up my rental car, drive to Te Anau, pick up my Kepler Track hut passes from the Department of Conservation in Fiordland National Park Visitors Center, eat lunch by the lake, drive to the Lake Te Anau Control Gates Car Park, walk to the Luxmore Hut.
Day 3: Walk from the Luxmore Hut to Iris Burn Hut.
Day 4: Walk from the Iris Burn Hut to Moturau Hut.
Day 5: Finish the Kepler Track, drive to Tuatapere. Check in to my lodgings, shower, eat some nice meals, pick up the Hump Ridge Track pass, scenic drive to Riverton.
Day 6: Drive to the Rarakau Car Park, walk to Okaka Lodge.
Day 7: Walk from Okaka Lodge to Port Craig Lodge.
Day 8: Finish the Hump Ridge Track, drive back to Te Anau, check into my AirBNB, pick up the Routeburn Track hut passes from the DOC at the Visitors Center, pick up my Easyhike car relocation lockbox, shower, have a nice meal, do laundry.
Day 9: Drive up to Milford Sound, stopping at a few scenic spots along the way. Cruise in the Milford Sound. Drive back down to The Divide Car Park, walk to Lake Mackenzie Hut.
Day 10: Walk from Lake Mackenzie Hut to Routeburn Falls Hut.
Day 11: Finish the Routeburn Track at the Routeburn Shelter. Retrieve my relocated car, visit Glenorchy, drop off the lockbox, eat a nice meal, drive to Wanaka, check in to my AirBNB, shower, visit the farmers' market.
Day 12: Walk to Roys Peak and Mount Alpha. (If I’d had one more day, I would have tried to squeeze in Rob Roy Glacier or some other Mount Aspiring hike here.)
Day 13: Have a massage, relax, read.
Day 14: Drive back to Queenstown airport, depart.
I was super-happy with how everything worked out and don’t have any major regrets. Logistically, it might have made more sense to do Hump Ridge -> Kepler -> Routeburn to minimize driving, but there wasn’t that much overhead, the scenery was nice, and it was kind of a treat to have the Hump Ridge’s more comfortable accommodations at the midpoint of my trip.
I do kind of wish I’d spent more time investigating rental-car alternatives. Apart from airfare, the car was my single biggest expense of the trip, which seems dumb since it spent most of the time sitting in car parks while I was off backpacking. I did really appreciate the flexibility of arriving and departing when I wanted without needing to worry about shuttle schedules. But, if I were to do this again, I’d look a bit more to see if there are any other options available, like private car service to/from the trailheads or something.
I didn’t meet many other Americans during the trip (except while on the Milford Sound cruise). On the Great Walks, I’d estimate that roughly 1/3 of the walkers were Kiwis, 1/3 were Australians, and 1/3 from the rest of the world, with France and Germany particularly well-represented. I’d felt like two full weeks on vacation was a bit of a splurge, but everyone else reacted with horror after asking how long I was visiting for. “That’s much too short!” they would all exclaim. Most people I spoke with who visited from Europe had come for six weeks, and some were as part of even longer trips. Which is a very long and round-about way of saying that I probably would have planned and executed the trip differently if I’d been there for so long. Spending a single day managing shuttle busses at the end of a one-way hike wouldn’t be as big of a deal in a month-plus vacation as it would be in a two-week vacation. I’m probably reading too much into this, but it’s tempting to generalize: Americans, with higher productivity but lower vacation time, are happier to spend more money to maximize their leisure time, while Europeans are content to simply take more time.
One nice aspect of the driving, though, was prolonged exposure to even more beautiful parts of New Zealand. My routes were incredibly scenic, often driving through long narrow valleys, alongside rolling fields and small farms, with occasional flocks of sheep grazing in the near distance, while mountains dramatically rise just beyond them. I do regret not taking photos during this time (I was too busy driving!), but it was a definite highlight. This video gives a pretty good idea of what the terrain looks like:
Prior to the trip, I was mildly worried about driving, having never operated a vehicle on a left-side road before. It ended up working out really well, for a variety of reasons. I was glad to have included a buffer day between getting off an airplane and hopping behind the wheel of an automobile. The roads in New Zealand are very well maintained, with smooth asphalt and no potholes that I encountered. They’re also a lot simpler than the roads I’m used to… this might be different in larger cities, but even in Queenstown, the busiest street was only two lanes wide (total), and I encountered almost no stop lights (only two in Queenstown). After leaving town, traffic grows even sparser, and it wasn’t unusual for me to drive fifteen minutes or more without encountering a single vehicle in either direction. There aren’t any passing lanes, but, again, traffic is so light that it wasn’t a problem: just wait for a clear stretch of road and then pass on the right. (There are also occasional pullouts for slower traffic in twistier / more mountainous areas, and people are pretty good about using them.) It felt a bit weird to adjust to sitting on the right side of a car, and early on I tended to overcompensate by driving too close to the left edge of the road, but after a day or two I had pretty much subconsciously adjusted my understanding of the car’s footprint under me.
There were a few unique challenges to handle. New Zealand’s roads are very narrow, without any breakdown lanes, and outside of town not even a shoulder, giving even less margin of error for uncertain drivers. Also, several of the specific trailheads I drove to were at the end of longish unsealed roads, so a fair amount of driving was over gravel. This probably isn’t a novelty for folks who grew up in more rural areas, but for a city-driver like me, it was a little nerve-wracking at first.
Again, though, the fact that traffic is so light alleviates all these issues. Even some of the “problems” end up being kind of fun. For example: sometimes roads (even highways) will just close down while ranchers herd their stock across in order to graze on another pasture. The thought of doing this in California seems INSANE to me, but was kind of delightful when I encountered it here: even at the end of the closure, I’d be one of just one or two waiting vehicles, so it isn’t like things get madly backed up.
I won’t recap any of the commonly-available info about visiting New Zealand, but here are a few random logistical things I had wondered about ahead of time and confirmed after arrival:
I’d been planning on picking up a SIM card for my stay, but it turns out that my T-Mobile plan worked there. After landing in Auckland and turning on my phone, I got a text message from T-Mobile welcoming me to New Zealand and stating that my plan would give me free unlimited texts, free unlimited 2G data (with an option to purchase faster data), and phone calls at 20 cents per minute. In practice, I was always roaming (with Vodafone) and never had access to data, but that was fine… the whole point of this trip was to unplug! I had my phone turned off for most of the trip, but on the few times I turned it on in town (Queenstown, Te Anau, Tuatapere, Wanaka), I always had coverage.
I splurged on Air New Zealand business class seats, and was super-happy with them. I was able to sleep, which I’ve never been able to do on an airplane before. (You can learn more about this and other tips in my upcoming new book, “Privilege: Life Gets Easier With More Money”.) The crew was friendly and attentive, food and drink excellent. The seat comes with a little comfort bag; on the way over, it included lip balm, skin moisturizer, a small sleep mask, and a toothbrush (but no toothpaste). On the return flight, it swapped out the toothbrush for an ink pen. Business class tickets grant entry to the Air New Zealand lounges. I didn’t use these on my flight over, but did on the return. Surprisingly tasty and generous food and libations in there, along with fast wifi.
One thing I’d been a bit unclear on was the whole card/chip/pin situation. My ATM/Debit card just has a stripe, not a chip, but I was able to use it in an airport ATM without any issues. I took out 200 (New Zealand) dollars, which ended up being way too much… I think there was only one place I went that didn’t accept credit cards (their reader was down), and other than that would have just wanted some coinage for laundry and donation boxes. If I were to do it again, I would have just taken out 50 and broken it early on; as it was, I made an effort to do all my purchases in cash near the end of the trip, and still had a good amount left over for American-style tipping.
Both of my credit cards have chips but not PINs. Almost everyone used the same model of reader to take cards, and it was really straightforward: I would insert the card, press the button that says “CRD” (usually the third option). It would print out a receipt, which the merchant would have me sign. Boom, done! I’m really looking forward to the US converting to the whole chip-plus-PIN system, but in the meantime, it looks like the cards are interfacing fairly smoothly.
A lot of New Zealand operates on the honor system, which is really sweet to see. One small example: while walking down the street of Te Anau, I passed a box lying on the lawn next to the sidewalk. I casually looked in, wondering whether someone had left out some rubbish, and kept on walking. A few seconds later, a delayed message bubbled up in my brain. “Are… are they selling fruit?!” I reversed course and peered into the box. Yup - there was a nice little handwritten sign and neatly-written prices on a variety of jars and ziplock bags. $5 for homemade plum jam, $2 for a good-sized bag of fresh plums. Feeling almost guilty (that was a crazy good price!), I dropped in some gold coins and picked up a bag. They were DELICIOUS, possibly the best fruit I had on the trip, and lasted me for much of my final week: smallish, but wonderfully sweet, with a very slightly tart aftertaste. I was still amazed that the owner would have just left out a box filled with money all day long on a decently-well-traveled street… but I guess the culture there is secure enough to not need to worry overmuch about theft!
The Great Walks huts that I stayed in were all booked in advance, but, as I learned from my last hut warden on the trip, there are a LOT more huts in the country, the vast majority of which are first-come, first-served. The normal process is that people will purchase Hut Tickets in advance, then put them in the “honesty box” at the front of the hut when they arrive. Most huts don’t have wardens, so it’s largely up to the walkers to police each other. As he told it, though, other New Zealanders were the most likely to try and skip on paying for their hut stays… and Australians are the best at calling them out on it. I dunno, I found that amusing.
So, yeah. There were a ton of highlights on the trip, but one unexpected highlight were the nightly chats with the wardens. Everyone who was staying in a hut would gather in the eating area after supper, and, around 7:30-8-ish, the warden would address the group. There were a couple of constants: they would always discuss fire safety and and give an update on the following day’s weather forecast and track conditions. But what impressed me most was just how different each of the talks were. They varied tremendously in length and topic and style, each one very obviously reflecting the passions of the speaker. A quick recap of my experiences:
My very first stay, at the Luxmore Hut, may have been the best overall talk. Our warden was Peter Jackson (!!), a terrific older gentleman who reminded me a little of John Muir. He gave a long and discursive talk that included information on identifying various local birds (with impressive reproductions of their birdsongs with his flute); environmental challenges in the area; human history, and so on. He used a surprising number of props and was very funny, but not at all zany: he had a wonderfully dry, understated sense of humor.
The skies that evening were perfectly clear, and he offered to lead a stargazing session with his laser pointer later that night, which I eagerly joined. Viewing the Southern Hemisphere constellations had been a secondary but still important goal of my trip. As we waited for dusk to fall, I wandered around outside the hut and spotted Peter further up the hill, playing his flute as the sun set. Odd and beautiful. Around ten o’clock, a dozen or so of us laid out on the ground and stared up into the sky as Peter used his laser pointer to indicate areas of interest: constellations, galaxies, nebulae, more. It was cool to finally see the Southern Cross (it looks different than I’d imagined!), and I was surprised to realize that constellations are reversed below the equator - we had a good view of Orion, but he was standing on his head. This talk was also very interesting as well, with commentary about the distance of various bodies, how long it took light from those stars to reach us, and any significance they had held for early navigators or other humans. The eventual, gentle thesis he laid out was that, while the universe is a beautiful place, Earth is really the only planet that we have access to. We need to take care of it, because we can’t just leave and find a home on another star.
The next night, at the Iris Burn hut, our warden was Robbie, a very friendly if slightly harried man who was leading a desperate defense against an onslaught of kea. Every single ranger we met obviously loved birds, but Robbie might have been the most passionate, and the bulk of his talk was describing the specific birds that lived near the hut. (Not particular bird SPECIES - individual, named birds). I grew to really love the rootedness and sense of place with these huts… Peter has been a hut warden at Luxmore for 25 years, and Robbie at Iris Burn for 15, so they don’t just know the areas well, but can also speak to the history of changes in the area.
Robbie’s most compelling anecdotes revolved around those entertaining, exasperating kea. These are alpine parrots, the only ones in the world and only found on the South Island in New Zealand. They are endangered, but are also extremely clever and have totally figured out humans. They have learned how to operate zippers on backpacks, so people who leave their packs unattended might return to discover that they’ve been robbed. Robbie told us about one tramper who was sitting down eating a snack when he saw a kea just a little ways ahead of him. He got out his camera and approached. Kea have figured out that people like taking pictures of them, and this particular one hopped back just a short distance. The man followed, hoping for a better shot, just to have the kea move slightly further out of range. Then, after determining that the man had been led far enough away, the kea flew up and over his head, snatched his bag of nuts, and flew away.
Another time, two people were sitting on a bench near Iris Burn, eating their lunch when they saw a kea doing a little dance for them. They were so enchanted by the jig that they failed to notice the kea’s accomplice sneaking up behind them, stealing their food while they were distracted by its friend.
Kea aren’t just hungry: they’re also mischievous, and will mess with things just for fun. Robbie’s current struggle was a nightly invasion from kea, who would pick up the boots that trampers are required to leave outside the huts and tear them apart, leaving people to walk out in their stockinged feet or sandals the next day. So, we all needed to tie our bootlaces together and hang them from coat hooks on the outside walls. This was apparently effective in thwarting the kea, although the relief might be short-lived: Robbie was distressed to have heard that, on the Milford Track, kea have even learned how to get boots down from those hooks.
I didn’t make this connection at the time, but in retrospect, hearing this ongoing saga of escalating wildlife encounters reminded me of the similar struggle with bears in Yosemite and other California parks. Like kea, bears have learned to view humans as a source of food; for our part, we’ve eventually learned that we need to adapt human behaviors rather than try to control bear behaviors, and have gone through a series of preventative measures (locked containers, suspending food between trees) that bears have eventually overcome (smashing, sending cubs through the canopy), before eventually landing on a solution that seems to work (bear cans). Obviously, bears and parrots are physically very different, but black bears and kea both have intelligence roughly equivalent to a three-year-old human child, which can be quite a lot when they want something you have.
I never did see a kiwi bird on this trip, but greatly enjoyed Robbie’s description of the kiwi who live in the vicinity of the hut. One of them, who he calls “Grandma”, has lived there for many years; she used to have a partner, but, Robbie theorizes, he might have run off with a younger woman. There are also two younger males who live further from the hut but occasionally hunt in the area at night.
The third night at the Moturau hut we heard from Headley. His talk was shorter, since we had all heard the safety spiels from the previous two nights, but it was still really interesting: it focused on Lake Manapouri, the beautiful lake near the hut, which was the flashpoint for massive protests back in the early 1970s. As part of a hydroelectric power scheme, there was a proposal to raise the level of the lake by some thirty meters, which would have covered much of the land we had traveled through. This sparked a significant environmental movement, protesting against the proposal and other perceived threats to New Zealand’s natural beauty. Headley told us that many of the “old-timers” in the Department of Conversation got started as activists back then.
Eventually, a compromise was reached: the lake level still rose, but only by about two meters instead of the proposed ten. The hydroelectric station was built and still provides (clean, renewable) power to much of the country. A lot of the activists became rangers and hut wardens, safeguarding the environment from within the government rather than fighting for its defense from without.
It was an interesting story, and felt particularly resonant to me in light of the blooming protest movement in the US. One thing that occurred to me is that there really hasn’t been any indication of acceptable compromise from either side: both on the policy-making and the protesting side, the situation is always framed in extremely stark terms that don’t allow for the possibility of mutual agreement. I’m not saying that they necessarily SHOULD - I personally don’t feel like women’s rights or freedom of religion are the sort of things that should be negotiated away - but it still struck me as a big difference between the two situations. It did make me wonder whether this is primarily a reflection of the difference between American and Kiwi culture, or a sign of the increasingly polarized global times, or something else. Or nothing else!
The Hump Ridge track was interesting: it’s technically run by a private charitable trust, and not by the Department of Conservation, but mostly lies within Fiordland National Park. Trampers stay at lodges instead of huts, and the lodges were noticeably more comfortable: they even provide pots and pans and other cookware, along with comfy couches and seats in the common areas. There wasn’t an equivalent of the “hut talks” here, but I had much more interaction with the lodge managers than with the hut wardens: they would hang out in the common area for much of the time, chatting with the trampers and answering any questions we had.
At the Lake Mackenzie Hut, Evan gave a great talk, which was also probably the longest of the trip (which he announced in advance, giving people permission to leave after covering the essential safety information). He described himself as the “oldest apprentice” in the park service: he’s been the hut warden at Lake Mackenzie for fifteen years, but his counterpart has served for twenty-five and shows no sign of retiring. Like all the other wardens, Evan was passionate about birds, but he was also spearheading an effort to help save them. He comprehensively described the immense damage that invasive mammalian species have posed to native birds: we’d heard bits of this before, but Evan was particularly detailed and vivid in his description of the threat. He contrasted Captain Cook’s historic description of the symphony of birdsong heard in New Zealand hundreds of years ago with the almost total silence one hears today. After being posted on the Routeburn Track, Evan fought for the introduction of more traps to capture and kill predators: thanks to generous donations from trampers like me, he has been able to expand the program, creating a defensive ring of traps from the treeline down to the river, and has been delighted to notice a small but gradual increase in birdsong in recent years as the population slowly recovers.
It was really cool to hear such a passionate first-person account. I was reminded of a New Yorker article that I’d read years before about New Zealand’s passion for eliminating mammals from their lands. At the time it had put me in mind of the “Whacking Day” episode of The Simpsons. Actually being in New Zealand gave me a newfound appreciation for the immensity of the task, and the benefit it would bring.
The last day, at the Routeburn Falls hut, we had a relatively green hut warden - I don’t remember his name, but he was from Tasmania (officially part of Australia, although he said he felt a greater affinity with New Zealand). He gave a shorter talk that was more focused on the services offered by the DOC and the specific duties of hut wardens (including distressing tasks like retrieving items improperly flushed down the toilet and pumping out waste for extraction and disposal).
The hut facilities themselves were nice and made for a notably different experience compared to the California backpacking that I’ve done previously. The biggest change is just bringing less gear along: you still bring a sleeping bag (and probably a pillow), but can skip the tent, pad, and ground cover. They also have gas burners, so you don’t need to bring a stove, but honestly this didn’t make that big of a difference… modern stoves and isobutane fuel is really compact and lightweight. I actually found the gas burners a bit confusing and frustrating to operate, until some kindly trampers demonstrated the proper technique to me after a few days. There are written instructions in the kitchen, but I thought they were underwritten, so here’s my version.
- Follow the propane pipe from the back of the burner to the wall. Most stoves will include levers here to control the flow of fuel. If there is one, ensure it is turned parallel so it points in the direction of the pipe. When you’re done, you can rotate it 90 degrees to cut off the flow.
- Press in on the knob. Important: Continue holding down the knob through all of the following steps!
- Light your lighter or strike your match.
- Rotate the knob 90 degrees so the dot is pointing left. This puts fuel at the maximum output level. You may or may not hear a slight hissing at this point.
- Move your lighter near the burner so the flame is a couple of inches from the output.
- Wait a few seconds.
- The stove should ignite. Remove the lighter and extinguish it if you want, but do not let go of the knob yet!
- Continue holding in the knob. 10 seconds seems like a good interval.
- Release the knob. Hopefully the flame will remain. If it goes out, restart from step 2, but keep holding it in even longer.
- If you continue having problems, just move to another burner - some don’t seem to work as well.
- Adjust the intensity of the flame by making minute adjustments to the knob. The flame will go out well before you turn it all the way down, so be careful. I think the ideal is to adjust the flame radius so it’s just slightly smaller than the base of the pot you’re using.
- (Etiquette): Once you’re done, check if there’s anyone else in the vicinity who seems like they might be preparing to cook, and offer to transfer your lit burner to them - this is always appreciated! Also, if you’ve been boiling water and don’t need all of it, you can offer it to neighbors. Otherwise, turn off the flame by turning the knob back up to the 12 o’clock position, and optionally cut off the fuel by turning the lever.
The above instructions are for the most common type of burner I encountered. A few huts will have some newer burners, with larger knobs on the side of the range instead of at the front. These are self-lighting! You can turn the knob all the way to the end, which will start audibly clicking as it tries to light (almost exactly like lighting the burner on a gas stove). I really like these burners and used them whenever available; the one slight problem is that it isn’t very clear which knob corresponds with which burner, but it’s easy enough to move a pot.
One hut had larger and more old-fashioned-looking burners, with dark black ridges to support pots instead of the more common aluminum grills. These have larger knobs below the burners. These mostly work like the standard gas burners, but will actually produce two “rings” of flame. When lighting, you want to ignite the “outer” ring, closer to the edge of the burner; if you only ignite the inner ring, near the center, it will go out after releasing the knob, no longer how long it burns.
Okay! That was a ridiculous number of words to spend on “how to make food hot”, but if it helps even one tramper fill their belly with a nourishing meal at the end of a long day of walking, I’ll consider it worthwhile.
As long as I'm covering boring hut stuff, though: this is probably old news to people who have spent a lot of time in hostels or backpacker cabins before, but since it was a new experience for me, I quickly developed and refined an unpacking and packing system. The goal was to minimize annoyance to fellow travelers and optimize the ease of getting to sleep at night and up in the morning. Here's the system that I ended up with:
- Claim a bunk as soon as you arrive. You don't need to sign up right away, just dump something on it to show that you've taken it. But in practice, I usually go ahead and set everything up right away, so I won't need to worry about it later.
- Dump everything out of my pack. This is essential, since my sleeping bag is on the bottom. I usually found it easiest to dump everything onto the mattress, but when sleeping on the top bunk with limited overhead space, it might be more convenient to do it on the floor in front of the bed.
- Roll out the sleeping bag onto the mattress. I would also fashion my pillow, which I do with a lightweight pillowcase and various items like dirty clothes and a bunched-up camp towel.
- Sort all items into three sections: items for tonight, items for the morning, and everything else.
- Things in the "everything else" category can just go straight back into the back. They'll need to be dumped out again in the morning (because of putting the sleeping bag back in the bottom), so I don't spend any time or thought in their position.
- My personal "Tonight" gear includes a mouth guard, sleep mask, and earplugs. I started off with these in a plastic bag, but later transferred them to a drawstring bag since it was a lot quieter to open and close. I also lay out my toiletries, which I keep in a ziplock bag that includes toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant.
- When I get the opportunity, I'll swap out my hiking briefs for sleeping boxers and my hiking long-sleeve for a sleeping short-sleeve. Even the colder huts get very warm when 30+ people are sleeping inside, so lightweight is good. I would typically change right in the room - people are super-relaxed about changing, even in a coed sleeping situation. I'll continue wearing my hiking pants and possibly my fleece, but this way I can easily just strip off those outer garments and crawl right into my sleeping bag at any time.
- Food supplies deserve a special mention. Most of the Great Huts kitchens have a significant amount of shelf space available (often under the burners); if so, I preferred keeping my pots and food in there. That didn't just save me from carrying things back and forth, but also prevented the inevitable clanking of pots when fumbling around at night or in the morning while others are trying to sleep. In a few huts, there was little enough space in the kitchen that I didn't want to take it up, in which case I would lay out the dining gear below my bunk.
- "Morning" items include the next day's clothes (underwear, shirt). Possibly also oatmeal (if I'm not storing that in the kitchen).
- All of the above are sorted in a place where I can easily remember and locate them in the dark. For example, evening might be under the bunk near my pillow and morning midway down the bunk. The pack can go anywhere.
- That's it! It will now take just about 5-10 seconds to get into bed at night, and about 30 seconds to get up in the morning, without any peering through items or rustling around. By the time I've finished breakfast and my morning ablutions, enough other people will have stirred that I can commence repacking.
- Repacking is, well, just the same as how you packed in the first place. Again, I find it helpful to dump everything on the mattress and put everything in the pack, building up from the bottom to the top.
This was an awesome trip, and I still can’t claim to “know” New Zealand. I basically spent the entire vacation inside or near two national parks (Fiordland and Mount Aspiring), really just seeing the southwest corner of the South Island. And during that time I mostly encountered other tourists, with just a few native Kiwis encountered. That said, I did really enjoy getting to know folks and getting a better ear for their outlook and language. They use many of the Britishisms with which I am familiar, but I also picked up on a couple of phrases that seem fairly unique to them.
Right Around (“Right ‘round”): Frequently used while giving directions, describing a movement from Point A to Point B. Often but does not always includes a turn.
Friendly (“Frindly”): Same meaning as in American English, but heard much more frequently. Always used in a positive sense.
And FINALLY, here are the pictures! As long as this post is, the photos are the real heart of the trip documentation, covering the best elements of my journey. Quite a few have captions, but even more stand securely on their own.
Asterisks indicate my favorite sections. I think they're all good, but I'm biased!
Bonus: A couple of videos for true 360 views from two of my favorite peaks.
Conical Hill on the Routeburn Track. WARNING: Mute your sound before playing! It was very windy up there, which apparently drove my camera microphone insane!
Mount Alpha near Wanaka.
