New Zealand – South to North [Final Leg]
- matthewphillis
- May 26
- 14 min read
If we do not face challenges in life, we cannot grow stronger
We woke up to a magnificent sunrise over the lake from our freedom camping site. The only thing that would have made this better would have been a freshly brewed coffee in my hand while sitting on the little beach. One can dream. Breakfast would have to wait until we go into town, and that town was Queenstown – yes, we’d come all the way back. As we cruised in, all the runners and crowds had dispersed, apart from the usual tourists that come to see New Zealand’s most scenic towns. It had been a big drive yesterday, so we were looking forward to a bit more of a chilled day today, walking around the seeing Queenstown, and just relaxing. Of course, being on a road trip meant a lot of driving, but there should be time to slow down occasionally. We found some parking and walked into the centre. The day was absolutely stunning - we couldn’t have asked for better weather. The blue of Lake Wakatipu was deep and still, the sun was warm overhead, and there were just enough cloud clouds to make the sky more interesting without ruining the mood. With the backdrop of The Remarkables, mountains that soar over the lake and town, Queenstown must be one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand – and the man-made structures enhanced that beauty.
We walked along the shore, watching people take selfies, feed the ducks, and generally enjoying life on a sunny day. Queenstown is known for its adventure sports, whether it be summer or winter, with jet skis, kayaks, and even parasailing, but there was something new on the water today. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was, but then we got closer and saw it was some sort of shark-like submarine. I watched in wonder as a person clambered over the pier and into a small, bullet-shaped craft sitting just above the waterline, jumping into what looked like a jetfighter’s cockpit, before zooming off. I continued to watch this, as the ‘boat’ looked more like a submarine, skimming the water like the Nautilus from Jules Verne’s imagination, with just a snorkel sticking up. All of a sudden, the tiger-striped sub broke the surface and shot 90 degrees straight up, before plunging down with a splash. This is the Hydro Attack, the latest fad in Queenstown, costing a pretty penny at $1000 for 12 mins in the shark. I think I’d rather watch, thank you. Queenstown has plenty of other things to offer, not all of which are adventure sports; there are steamboat trips, walking or hiking, and no matter what season, the view from the top of the ski lift is amazing. Everyone I have ever talked to that has been here were never disappointed in any way – no matter what season. Sure, the accommodation can be a bit pricey, but where isn’t it? Queenstown - an airport for convenience, with an abundance of nature on your doorstep.
We walked around the shore, taking in all the old ski resort style buildings, imagining what it must be like here during the evenings with all the bars and restaurants. It was already We stopped to have some packed lunch, taking photos and generally enjoying the place before heading back to the van. Unfortunately, as with any road trip, we had limited time and a lot of distance to cover before getting home. Today was day 10 of our 2-week trip, and we needed to get all the way back up to the ferry to cross to the North Island, then all the way back to Auckland. Our next stop on the way up, and again, not a full-day’s stop either, was Wanaka. The main attraction of this town, which you have probably seen on social media, is ’that Wanaka tree’ that sits in a lake with a mountain backdrop. I was intrigued by this, and was thinking that it was fake, photoshopped somewhat, or just not as good as it looks on your mobile screen – you just never know with Instagram vs reality.
The drive up to Wanaka was stunning – which comes as no surprise and hard to measure against the next stunning place in this country, which is always just around the next corner in the road. Wanaka sits on Lake Wanaka and although there is nothing special about the town, no great tourist attractions, the area is beautiful and pure New Zealand – lakes, mountains and long white clouds. We walked along the pebble beach of the volcanic lake, and although some people were swimming, I felt it was still a little too windy for me. The sun was out though, and the place was picturesque. We found the tree, right at the other end of the lake, and there were a handful of people taking pictures of That Wanaka Tree. Growing out of the water, this willow tree has its own hashtag (#thatWanakaTree), and is described as New Zealand’s most famous tree, and also possibly NZ’s most photographed tree. In 2014 a local Kiwi photographer won the New Zealand Geographic photo of the year for this tree. Sadly my photos were not Nat Geo standards (although I have had one feature before!), but I took some as best I could without a tripod, and even got one of us together, as another guy with a camera offered. With not much else to do in town, we headed back to our ride to hit the next place. We drove North, up along Wanaka Lake and looking out towards Minaret Peaks and the rugged West Coast, stopping briefly for some photos. We pulled up at the Blue Pools and then walked for about 15 minutes through a jungle-like forest, sweating a little from the humidity and heat of the sun burning overhead. We thought it would be a good stop to get out of the car for a bit, have a walk, and maybe even go for a swim. As we got to the bridge over the water, the colours struck us – the deepest blue, yet still transparent enough to see all the rocks on the riverbed. A few people were standing on a second swing bridge, getting undressed and preparing for a dive, go pros out. To give them credit, they both jumped from about 7 metres of so, straight into icy waters. I knew the water was freezing because I had just taken a dip myself, and while I was only in for less than 2 minutes, it was so cold that I thought my limbs would stop moving and I’d just sink. I made it out ok, my heart still beating thankfully, so I dried myself off and got dressed.
This was when things started to turn bad. While getting dressed, a million little sand flies had come out of nowhere, getting their feeding frenzy on as fresh meat was probably not that readily available (apart from the silly tourists who decide to go swimming). I got back to the van in one piece, the effects of the cool dip having faded away by the sweaty walk back to the parking lot, but I was followed by these biting bugs. The van took off, hoping to leave the biters behind, but then a noise came from the wheel that made my heart sink. It was a loud scratching sound, like metal griding on metal. It surrounded horrible, but I thought I knew what it was as it had happened on this trip before – a loose bit of bitumen from fresh roads had kicked up into the front disc brakes. Last time this happened, a few quick taps of the breaks and it had come lose. Not this time, however. I couldn’t keep driving with this noise, and I was also worried that damage was being done, so I pulled over to get a better look. I couldn’t see anything with the wheel still attached, nor could I feel anything, so I had to jack to car up and pull it off to get a better view. This wasn’t fun, as it had started to sprinkle, and I was also on the side of a single lane road with no shoulder to speak of, hoping that my hazards and (very) brightly coloured van was enough to give warning to passing cars.
Unfortunately, the jack that was in the van didn’t work properly and wasn’t lifting up enough to get the wheel off. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, when a car pulled up the driver offered a hand. With two jacks, the wheel was high enough to come off, and I managed to dislodge a bit of bitumen that had gotten stuck in the disc brake. We were back on the road soon after thanking the good Samaritan, ready to get to our next destination. We’d done a lot today, and so there wasn’t much driving to go, which was good as the sun was setting. We drove through the mountain pass, and along the Haast River, which was a wild stretch of water in between soaring cliffs. This part of New Zealand reminded me a little of the Inca Valley, and the walk from Agua Caliente to Machu Picchu. We arrived in Haast at around 7:30, with just enough light to setup for the night. The camp was a big open field, which was lovely, so we picked a spot right at the edge. It also had toilets, showers, and kitchen facilities, and while basic, they were in a big red aircraft hangar, which added something. There was no town, just some scattered farms (I guessed), so we didn’t go anywhere, just eating in front of our van and then crashing for the night. The weather wasn’t looking good for the next few days, and I feared that we wouldn’t be able to see any glaciers, which were on tomorrow’s itinerary.
Just as I’d feared, the rain has set in – out lucky run of New Zealand’s Spring weather had ended. We drove the whole day, stopping off at both glaciers to see if the rain would relent enough for us to get out of the van and walk a bit. Sadly, the rain continued, unaware of our plight – time was running out to get back home. There was more bad news – while having breakfast in a café that morning, I decided to check my emails (as there was Wi-Fi), and I’m glad that I did, because there was one saying that out ferry had been cancelled. This left us stuck on the South Island, while our van return depot and flight were both on the North Island. This left us thinking of what to do, stuck as we were. Thankfully, we still had a few days before we needed to go home, and the ferry company was offering a free rebooking or a refund. As we drove through the dreary drizzly rain, past some of the great glaciers of the world that we didn’t see, we figured out a plan on how to make things work.
Although this was bad news, I don’t see this as ‘luck’ or lack of it, but more of a challenge that you face from time to time while travelling. I’ve had many such challenges over the years – missing a train in Shanghai to Beijing and not being able to get another for a week, traffic jam in Bangkok making me miss my connecting flight to Europe, and a whole load of others, including even a wisdom tooth needing to come out urgently while I was in the jungle in northern Colombia. All of the times, along with many others, the ‘plan’ hadn’t worked, or something got in the way, and everything changed. It is during these times that you quickly go into damage control and find another way. I made it to Beijing eventually (going the long way round and having an awesome time, maybe even better than the original plan), haggled for a flight in Bangkok and made it to Europe (starting my time living in Spain), and that tooth came out ok (after a jeep ride to town nursing ice in my mouth) – and I was stronger and better for these things. If we do not face challenges in life, we cannot grow stronger. Sometimes you need help, that’s true, but asking for help is also a learning process that we shouldn’t be afraid of either. So, we drove past Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers, taking the good with the bad of this trip (we’d seen and done a lot already and had beautiful weather for the most part too), and drove all the way to a town call Greymouth and stayed at a Top 10 campsite. We spoke to someone in the tourist office, and they managed to get us booked on a ferry for the same day, but with the other ferry company Interislander. This just shows that nothing is really a disaster, just a challenge you have to face and come out the other end of, hopefully stronger.
Waking up on Day 12 of about 15 day tour of NZ, we found it was still raining and very grey. We still had some driving to do, so set off early and got to Nelson after a long drive. Although this wasn’t where the ferry was, I thought it would be a nice place to see, right at the top of the South Island. Sadly, I was wrong. There was nothing special about this place, just a standard town with the same shops, too much traffic, concrete and glass buildings, and a lot of boarded up shopfronts (post-Covid damage I think). There was one street with some cool cafes and pubs, with wooden verandas and places to sit on the street, but we didn’t have time for that. We grabbed something quick to eat, looked at a map and worked out how to get to Picton and our ferry, and set off. Unfortunately (I’m saying that a lot lately!), there was some pretty major roadworks along the way, and we had to take a detour which added about 2 hours to our trip – we had to drive south for an hour, then back north to Picton, when the drive between the two towns should have been relatively quick. Most of the day was spent in the car, and I was tired. We stopped for the night and found a campsite in Blenheim, a 10-minute drive from Picton. The following morning, we arrived in Picton with plenty of time for the ferry, so wandered around a little, had a look at the port and the boats, before queuing for the ferry that we were so happy to see! The crossing was smooth, and the damn sun had come out now, but the glaciers were too far behind us to even regret not seeing them – nothing we could do but move forward now.
The ship was a little different to our first one, and we could actually stand right at the bow of the ship and enjoy the view from the front, rather than the back like last time. Got off in Wellington and headed straight out of the city, in a little bit of a hurry to be honest, and headed towards New Plymouth for the night, hopefully to see the volcano, but also to spend the last night in the van before getting to Auckland the next day. Another day with mostly driving, but we arrived in New Plymouth before sundown and even got a glimpse of the volcano. The drive was very windy, and I had to really hang onto the wheel with both hands, and the whole day was spent driving the 350 odd kilometres from Wellington to New Plymouth. Mount Taranaki (Māori: Taranaki Maunga) is dormant stratovolcano (cone shaped), and is 2,518 metres tall, it is the second highest mountain in the North Island, after Mount Ruapehu. Sadly, not the same view of the volcano you see on Instagram, but it was still something – big and pointy, sticking up from flat farmland, but covered in clouds. Volcanoes aren’t known for their cooperation we’d expected this. We walked around town for a bit, enjoyed the sunset and the fresh costal breeze, then crashed for the night after dinner and some wine. Tomorrow we’d be dropping off the van and heading into Auckland for our last night before the flight.
We dropped the van back on day 14 and around 1:30pm, which was pretty much bang on time. We’d done almost 2 weeks of driving and sightseeing, beaches, towns, cities, mountains, volcanoes, lakes, stinky mud pits… you know it, we’d seen it! We had done a tick under 4,400kms, the van had carried us through, providing transport, shelter from the weather, as well as our accommodation. Dropping it off and walking away with just a backpack and wheelie suitcase felt weird, light, and I almost missed the van already. We grabbed an rideshare back to Auckland, heading to out hotel for the night. I say hotel, but it was a private room in a backpackers, which was slightly better than what we had before, and it was also very central. Spending $100 for accommodation in Auckland got you a dirty room, shared bathroom, a busy kitchen, and not much else. It was one night and we weren’t going to spend any other time here apart from sleeping. Changed and ready to go, we went out for a walk and dinner – out last night in New Zealand! We walked around and found ourselves back at the first place we went to when we first arrived – the Shakespeare Hotel on Albert Street in central Auckland. We had a good feed, a couple of decently priced drinks, and crashed for the night. Our last day, day 15, had arrived, and planned on using it to the max before flying out. We did plenty of walking around the city, as we’d had no time for anything but breakfast on our first day. We started the day with breakfast at the same place as when we’d first arrived, to kind of finish things off where they started.
The café was across the road from our favourite pub; it was quiet, well-priced, had Wi-Fi, and was right in the centre. We started off by going up to the Auckland War Memorial, as it was in a big park and close to our starting point. Although we didn’t go in (no time), we admired the building and its location – a huge round building with a glass ceiling, columns at the entrance like a museum in London, and of course the Lest We Forget message out the front with names of people that served and sacrificed for their country. From the grounds we had a good view of Sky Tower, which soars above Auckland’s glass skyscrapers, but we knew the view was going to get better as we headed uphill to the Auckland Lookout on Mount Eden / Maungawhau. Although not that hard to climb, the walk was steady, this lookout was very high and commanded the best view of the city, for at least 180 degrees. The hill is actually a volcanic peak, and was one of the biggest fortified settlements in the area, being inhabited by 1000 people around 1200AD. With a big hole the in middle, the edges were higher, and there was a wooden platform / walkway all around. Although very windy, there were quite a few people here doing the same as we were. We walked back down, past the old Symonds Street Cemetery and into Aotea Square, where old buildings meet new architecture and art. We walked around the centre, taking pictures, walking along the waterfront, before having a glass of wine at a bar at the water. Although nice, the city reminded us a little of a smaller Sydney without the major landmarks (Sky Tower could be a smaller version of Sydney Tower though). There were a lot of cars and traffic, and a whole load of brand stores and fast food outlets, with the occasion photo-worthy building, but not much else.
We had a nice drink to celebrate the end of our road trip of New Zealand, North and South Island, then had some lunch before heading to the airport. We were satisfied that we’d seen as much as we could in the time we had, even though we’d missed out on so much – this is always the case though. We flew home without any dramas, happily landing back in Sydney. We jumped in an Uber, and during the short trip home, ordered some pizza so that it would be ready to pick up immediately. As much as I love travelling and seeing new places, sometimes there is nothing like being at home on your couch watching your TV.
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MyUncleTravellingMatt. November 2022.
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