New Zealand: K's Top 3

I had a hard time figuring out how best to quantify my experience in New Zealand. Ken and I (and Ron after he joined us) did so much and saw so many things, I feel like I could write a book! After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to write about my three favorite things about New Zealand.

Rees-Dart Track

The trip from Reno to New Zealand was long. Although the flight from Reno to San Francisco was quick, we had a four-hour layover before we hopped our 13-hour plane ride to Auckland, followed by another five-hour layover, and we finally ended up in Queenstown two hours after that. (Read the Queenstown entry on Wikipedia to see on a map where it is located and to learn a little bit about the area.)

We spent two nights in Queenstown. Our first night we were mostly concerned with showering, eating, and sleeping. The next day, we grabbed our jetlag by the horns and hiked up Ben Lomond, the mountain right behind Queenstown. The weather was spectacular and we had views down into town and Lake Wakatipu and across the mountains.

Ken enjoying his first full day in NZ!

Looking over Lake Wakatipu (pic by Ken)

But we didn’t come to New Zealand to do day hikes. On the recommendation of a friend, we made transportation arrangements to go do the Rees-Dart Track, a four-day three night tramp up the Rees River Valley, over Rees Saddle, and down the Dart River Valley. My friend promised me spectacular views and a challenging hike. He was spot on. If you click here, you can pull up a map of the tramp posted by Ozhiker.com.

It was fantastic. The shuttle bus dropped us of a bit before the actual start of the hike because the gravel road had flooded in a few places. We started walking up the Rees River Valley, following a trail that was sometimes lost in the high grass of the valley floor and sometimes covered incredibly steep up and down bits as it snaked up the hillside away from the river.

About five hours into our walk up the valley, we finally reached the furthest place cars could drive to. I was slightly annoyed that I had taken five hours to do what a four-wheel-drive vehicle could cover in, maybe, 45 minutes, but what could I do? (If you can read the topo map, people could drive up to where the wide riverbed ends…two squares above the 56:10000 blue line.) After a few more hours of hiking, Ken and I kept waiting to come across the camping area that was supposed to be about 30-minutes before the hut. We eventually came upon it, which was perfect because I was tired and hungry and ready to stop. Due mainly to denseness of vegetation, we spotted no other camping sites.

A brief note about hiking in New Zealand: Kiwis don’t call it ‘hiking’, they call it ‘tramping’. Instead of ‘trails’, New Zealand has ‘tracks’. Many trails have huts. The huts we stayed in had bunkrooms with mattresses, a large room with counters for cooking and tables for eating, and flush toilets out back. Flush toilets!

The second day our tramp took us up and over the Rees Saddle. As Ken and I were approaching the end of the Rees Valley, we kept looking for likely places the track would go over the mountain to take us into the Dart Valley. We were nearly out of valley when we spotted the orange trail markers leading us up an incredibly steep and rocky pass. It took us about 30 minutes to get up and over, and we stopped periodically to look behind us and repeatedly say how relieved we were that we were going up that section and not down it (especially me!).
We stopped up at the top, took a few photos, and made our way down to the Dart Hut.

Glad to be at the top!

Ken crossing the swing bridge right before the Dart Hut

We decided to spend the night in the hut because it had started to rain and I didn’t want to have to deal with trying to get the tent dry. From the Dart Hut, there is another trail you can take over to the Cascade Saddle which is supposed to have spectacular views. However, when we woke up the next morning, the weather forecast was for rain and snow at higher elevations. We figured we wouldn’t be able to see anything from the Cascade Saddle, so we continued our tramp down to the Daley’s Flat Hut.

It rained on us pretty hard that day. I had on my rain jacket, rain pants, and gaiters and my feet were still sopping wet when we arrived at the hut. We had several calf-deep creek crossings to make, and although the gaiters did help keep me drier, ultimately they were no match for the water.

Enjoying the wet view (pic by Ken)

The evening was colder than the previous nights and we had to leave our wet gear on the porch outside. Nothing got any wetter, but certainly nothing dried any either. I put off putting on my cold wet boots as long as possible the next morning. It wasn’t really that bad once I got moving, though. It was cloudy and threatening rain again when we left. I piled all of my still-wet rain gear on and we were off. It sprinkled on us at first then the skies cleared and it was beautiful. Of course, I had packed my clothes in the bottom of my backpack and I only had on my long underwear beneath my rain pants so the best I could do to enjoy the sun was to try not to get too hot underneath the Gortex!

We made it out to the end of the trail where we had a 90-minute wait before the shuttle bus came back to pick us up. We had to keep moving the whole time because the sandflies were horrendous (they pack a wicked bite that lasts, on me at least, 7-10 days, but at least the darned things don’t chase you around the way mosquitos do). After the fact, we decided it would have been just as easy to hitchhike back into Glenorchy (the town nearest the track’s start), but had we done that no one likely would have pointed out the filming of the second Narnia movie that was taking place alongside the road.

We spent the night in Glenorchy. No hotel rooms were available due to the movie shooting, but we stayed in a teeny bungalow with not bathroom at the campground. We could have gone back to Queenstown, but I wanted to spend the night because people have said that Glenorchy is like Hyder’s sister town, and I can see why. The mountains are disconcertingly similar and the town has that same small-town vibe to it.

Our original plan was to take a day’s rest, buy more food, and head off on another tramping trip. However, while we were in Glenorchy, the snow creeped down the mountains far enough that we decided to rent a car and drive around the South Island instead.

Creeping snow

Ken & I enjoying a rainy moment

Meat Pies

We headed back to the Queenstown airport to pick up the car I had reserved online for us from Glenorchy that morning. We piled our bags into the little Toyota Corolla hatchback and were off. We didn’t really know where we wanted to go, though. We had three days before we needed to be back in Queenstown to pick up Ken’s brother from the airport and head off for the Milford Track. We ended up driving east to the coastal city of Dunedin (didn’t stop but the coastline driving into the city was spectacular), down to the southernmost town of Bluff, and through Invercargill and to the museum that had an interesting display about Burt Munro and the making of The World’s Fastest Indian.

Driving into Dunedin

The best thing, though, about our little road trip, was my introduction to the meat pie. It’s pretty much exactly as it sounds: a hand-held pie (top and bottom crust) with meat in it. Deceptively simple, horrendously bad for you, but incredibly tasty. I tried chicken and veggie pies, chicken satay pies, mince meat pies, but my favorite is the steak and pepper pie. That’s all that goes inside: steak and black pepper. Sigh. They were perfect, also, because they were so cheap, usually $3 or $4 apiece. I also fell in love with flat whites: similar to lattes but without all that annoying foam. It was impossible to get a plain cup of coffee, but every little restaurant had an espresso machine and for me, flat whites were the way to go. We did see a few Starbucks, but the coffees other places had were so good we didn’t need to go into one (but maybe we could have gotten regular coffee there).

My only meat pie picture

Hapuku Lodge

After Ken’s brother arrived, we took a shuttle bus over to Te Anau in preperation for starting the Milford Track the next day. They say it’s “the finest walk in the world” and it was pretty darned fine (even though it was cloudy the entire time, we didn’t see any mountain tops, and the sky opened up and poured on us the last day), I enjoyed the Rees-Dart track more. We spent a few days doing that and then went back to Queenstown airport to rent a car. This time we had a red Rav4 that we packed full with all of our backpacks and luggage. Also, we had more of a plan than Ken and I had with the Corolla.

First we drove up to Lake Wanaka and spent the night. Ken had made arrangements for us to check out one of the sheep farms from where Patagonia sources its wool. The owner of the farm picked us up at the airport in his plane and flew us out to his farm, showed us around, talked about his sheep and the wool, took us into his house and gave us tea and fed us the best shortbread I have ever had (made by his wife who wasn’t able to be there that day), and flew us back to Wanaka. We spent the entire morning with him, and if it weren’t for those pesky meat pies, flying out to the sheep farm would have been squarely in my top three New Zealand experiences.

Our ride to Dingleburn

All the sheep were up in the mountains

After returning, we spent the next few days driving west to the coast, up to Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier, northeast to Punakaiki, and down to Kaikoura. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough time to hit the Abel Tasman National Park. I had hoped to get in some hiking and kayaking, but we just ran out of time.

Sheep in the road at Fox Glacier

Warning at Franz Josef Glacier

I don't just pet dogs (pic by Ken)

Our end goal for our trip was to get over to Kaikoura and the Hapuku Lodge. There had been some discussion about cutting this portion of our trip out so that we could spend some time in Abel Tasman, but I am sooooooo glad we decided not to do that.

The Hapuku Lodge is one of those places I dream about staying in. We spent the night in a two-storey tree house with an upstairs king-size bed, Jacuzzi tub, shower with one of those rain-shower shower heads, and a sitting room with a fire place. There was another bedroom downstairs with a small porch and full bathroom. The bed in that upstairs room was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on. But not only was the bed beyond comfortable, there was a Kirsten-sized lap blanket at the end of the bed that was as soft as cashmere but I think was a possum fur, wool, and silk blend.

Our treehouse is second from left

Enjoying the view with a cup of tea (pic by Ken)

From our tree house we could see the ocean on one side and mountains on the other. We could sit and watch deer graze. I heard cows and I heard silence. I indulged in the Jacuzzi bath. That evening we dined at the lodge. This was my best overall eating experience in New Zealand. Meat pies are individual, but this was total gastronomic enjoyment. The room was lit entirely by candles and a fire was going in the fireplace. I don’t think Ken and Ron were quite as excited as I was by the menu, but they indulged me nonetheless.

After spending some time on the menu, I finally settled on prawns & poached chicken for my entrée, salmon with lemongrass and chilli-coconut emulsion for my main, and fresh seasonal berries for dessert. Our very first course was the chef’s appetiser, and I can’t quite remember what that was. Something like a slice of venison (or was it beef?) on a mini mound of greens (or was it sprouts?). I asked the waiter if I could keep the menu, and I’ve brought it home with me for future drooling.

Dinner was really nice. The salmon was cooked perfectly, still slightly pink on the inside, which is a difficult thing to find in restaurants. Usually salmon is overcooked and overloaded with butter or oil to conceal it. Dessert was also lovely. My plate was piled with blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries and served with a small scoop of ice cream that was poppingly full of vanilla flavor. Sigh. It was all quite delicious.

After dinner we popped by the reception desk and grabbed The World’s Fastest Indian DVD and retired back to the tree house where the three of us learned about Burt Munro and his obsession with speed. In the morning, Ken and I watched the accompanying documentary on him, something I wish we had seen before we had gone to the museum in Invercargill.

Unfortunately, in the morning, we had to start making our way back to Queenstown to catch our flight back to the US. Earlier in our trip I had checked into changing our flights from Queenstown to Christchurch, which was only a two-hour drive from the lodge and not the ten-hour drive back to Queenstown, but it would cost us $400 USD (although I could have purchased new tickets on Air New Zealand for the Christchurch-Auckland portion for about $250). I would have loved to spend another day at the lodge just laying in the bed!

The drive back was fairly uneventful (except that at one point I was tired and hungry and unhappy, but that shouldn’t cloud a whole day!). We spent the night in a two-bedroom bungalow at one of the campground (it had its own bathroom which was one of my stipulations) and were back in Queenstown for lunch the next day and to the airport for our flight out.

All-in-all, our trip went way beyond the incredibly high expectations I had set for it. Three weeks was not enough and I can’t wait to go back!

Apologies for the funky spacing on some of the pictures/text. It may be time to jump ship from blogger to another site because this is a recurring problem. If anyone has suggestions for other hosting sites I'd be happy to know them. Thanks!