New Zealand

The New Zealand sun is blistering. 

Sitting in the kitchen of the hostel, I could feel it putting up its best fight against the aircon as it radiated through the glass windows. The aircon, thank god, was winning, but I knew that if I didn't get my feet onto the trail soon, I would end up with a sunburn regardless of how much sunscreen I slapped onto my chest and shoulders.

The Sealy Tarns hiking trail was back up the short road to an adjacent campground. I found a parking space and stepped onto the gravelly path that wound toward a snow-capped peak that looked blue and icy at the top. My route would be toward a lower peak to its left.

Said route, as I had read online, was comprised of over 2,000 wooden steps built haphazardly into the mountainside. For those of you who are Lord of the Rings fans (the films were shot here), I'd compare it to the secret stairs (Cirith Ungol for the superfans) that lead to Shelob - the giant spider’s- lair. And I'm barely exaggerating here, it was steep.

The trail that led to the stairs was serene—twisting through brush and short, gnarled trees with glimpses of the mountain between them. After 10 minutes or so, I reached the steps and looked straight up. I couldn't see how high they went, they disappeared into the mountainside. I couldn't see any people either, so I had no idea what sort of elevation change I was in for. I took a deep breath, looked humbly at the first stair, and began my ascent.

After the first hundred or so steps, I paused, breathing hard. I laughed at how exhausted I was, at how difficult this hike was going to be. Already, I had a sweeping view of the mountains and the valley I'd driven through to get there. From this point I tried to check out mentally, to think about the pain in my legs as little as humanly possible. One step at a time. Left, right, left, right. If a flight of stairs was particularly long, I would use my hands too, climbing like a little kid. Every time I paused for a break, I was rewarded with an even more beautiful view. I could see more of the valley, the glacial runoff, the suspension bridges on the Hooker Valley Track.

I passed a few slower hikers on the way up: first, a couple that I used as a marker of my own pace. Don't let them pass, don't let them pass, I made a secret competition out of it solely to keep my feet moving. I passed a group of three girls—one of whom looked like it would've been easy for her to run the whole way up, she was so fit. Her friends moved slower and she stayed with them. We shared a moment of mutual pain and suffering as we wondered how much longer this could possibly go aloud to one another. The hikers coming down usually had a combined look of smugness and pity at our suffering.

At home, my parents have this joke when they're hiking: when they pass someone they'll ask, "Am I close to the Starbucks? It's at the top, right?" I think it's the funniest thing in the world and I've adopted it. To my dismay, when I said my line to the first people I saw coming down, the couple it was directed towards responded in French, having absolutely no idea what I'd said.

As I approached it, I couldn’t say exactly how long it took to get to the top. All sense of time was lost in that level of exertion. Nothing mattered but my feet and my water bottle, which was emptying much faster than I'd anticipated.

After what felt like five hours (which I discovered was actually less than two), I made it to Sealy Tarns. The trail continued upward but I didn't care, didn't consider extending the hike for a second. In front of me was a dark pond with the top of a snowy mountain rising behind it. The sigh was, as every other sight in New Zealand had been, unreal.

There was a picnic bench at the top full of sweaty hikers—some eating snacks, some waiting for friends who wanted to hike farther (there's a hut way up at the top and then more trail). I chatted with one of those awaiting hikers and looked enviously at her newly-cracked Gatorade. After a 20-minute break, I invited her to walk with me (her boyfriend said he'd meet her at the bottom) and we began the descent.

I'm not gonna say the descent was worse, but it wasn't better either. About a quarter of the way down, my thighs started shaking uncontrollably. Ten minutes later, my calves started quivering too. It was a different kind of suffering, and by the time I had collapsed into my car, I felt that I had thoroughly earned that breathtaking view at the top.

My next stop was a town called Wanaka on—surprise!—Lake Wanaka. The drive was spectacular with more of those golden, rolling hills. As it turns out, in New Zealand, every route is a scenic route. I made it into town and grabbed a late lunch in a cafe. I soaked up a little Wifi and charged my iPad to continue a Lord of the Rings Movie Marathon that night. Soon after, I drove to the budget campground I would park in for the night. It ran along a clear-blue glacial river bend and was full of huge pine trees. There were a couple of more permanent-looking households (one tiny house and one bus-turned-RV with grass and weeds growing into its flat tires. There were families everywhere and kids shrieking for joy while jumping off of a low bridge into the slow-moving river below. Oh, and there was also a 200-year-old settler's cemetery in the middle of it.

A dark plaque explained that early European Settlers had made a village in the area and buried their dead there. Some of the bodies had been washed out by the river, others excavated, and a couple dozen left in a small gated area. Campers surrounded it, hanging their laundry on the gate. I was a bit spooked but not enough to pass up on the low $10 camping fee.

I found a spot squeezed between two massive pine trees and slung my hammock between them to sit in and read as the sun set. A dark-haired boy with the scraggly beard of a much older man was camping out of his van nearby and walked to my site to invite me over for hot chocolate. I accepted and as it turns out, he's Israeli, had just finished his mandatory stint in the IDF, and was on his own adventure before starting at university. We were also the same age. We sat on two folding chairs outside of the van and chit-chatted about Israel and America and New Zealand and the differences between our lives and the similarities. He'd spent some of his military time in serious hot zones like Gaza, the West Bank, and the Syrian Border and I can't imagine what this guy had seen. I didn't dare ask. When it came down to it though, he was just like most guys I know, loving video games more than anything else and wanting to better himself with a degree.

We went our separate ways and I had a surprisingly easy time falling asleep. At three in the morning though, I woke up with a full bladder. I looked outside where it was dark and silent. I doubted anyone else in the campground was awake. The only light was coming from the stars and I could vaguely see the gate of the cemetery about 20 yards away. I got panicky all of a sudden. I have never seen a ghost and I'm in a weird grey zone between belief and disbelief in them, but I realized right then and there that I had no desire to find out if that campground was haunted on the 100-or-so-foot-walk to the bathroom. In a hazy half-awake panic, I made the horrific decision to pee in a cup. I lined one of the hand-me-down plastic cups I had received with a plastic bag, peed, tied it off, and put it in the front seat cupholder. I'm not ashamed of it, and the thought of what I looked like peeing into my cup in the back seat of my rental Fiat was absolutely hilarious.

My next destination was the Blue Pools. It wasn't very far from Wanaka physically, but the drive was mostly on a winding two-lane road that ran along the lake and I got stuck behind a truck carrying live bee hives, so it took well over an hour to get to the trailhead.

The lake scenery turned to thick wooded scenery and I eventually came upon a stretch full of parked cars. This was it, of course. I knew it would be packed, but that was alright. I narrowly parallel-parked and walked to the path that went into the forest and toward a river. The trail was well-groomed and wide and the forest was completely serene. The dark trees were covered in moss of every shade and the whole forest seemed to glow green with it.

It was a very short walk before I reached a suspension bridge over a turquoise river. It looked icy from above as a man swam against the mild current and a woman asked him to retrieve the cell phone at the bottom that she had dropped from the bridge while taking a picture. I continued past it and through some more forest-lined trails on the other side of the river. Not much farther, there was another, stronger suspension bridge maybe 30 feet above the blue pools. They were the most pigmented deep turquoise I have ever seen in nature. I couldn't fathom how they could be such a rich color while being so clear- you could see the bottom of the pools and they must've been another 20 feet deep.

A few daring boys stripped to their underwear and took turns climbing precariously over the railing and stepping out into nothingness for the plunge. I thought about some of my best friends from home and smiled knowing that if they'd been with me I would've been convinced to jump too. I also smiled at the fact that they were not present because I was not in the mood to be submerged in glacial runoff. I made my way down a rocky shore and put my feet in the freezing water.

I watched the jumpers for a bit and admired the pools. After 45 minutes, I made the short trek back to the car and headed back to Wanaka where I got dinner and ate ice cream lakeside while watching the other tourists. I stayed at the cemetery another night, this time parking as close to the bathrooms as humanly possible. The next day, I drove through town toward my next hike: the Rob Roy Glacier track. There's also the Rob Roy Peak track, but I'd seen enough sweeping views and was looking for something a little bit different. I was not disappointed.

I did pass the Rob Roy Peak parking lot on the way and I was worried at how packed it was. I hoped that the glacier trail wouldn't be as crowded as I drove down the road. After another 10 minutes of driving, the road turned to dirt and I realized immediately that the Glacier track wouldn't be crowded because getting there required 35 kilometers of driving down this rough, dusty road. I could hear the rocks shooting up into the bottom of my car and winced at every loud pang. If I wasn't going fast enough, the car would start vibrating violently over every tiny little bump, but if I went too fast I could lose control on the dirt, so I found my middle zone and tried to stick to it. The drive also went over 6 or 7 little Fjords where streams were rushing toward a river leading back to Lake Wanaka, so I did some serious off-roading in that rental. I patted myself on the back for buying the most expensive insurance.

After almost 2 nail-bitingly rough hours of driving, I made it to the car park. In my stress over the road, I hadn't really noticed how incredible the valley I'd been driving through was. On my right was farmland (the road went straight through private property), often covered in fluffy white sheep, with the blue river rushing beyond it and lush, green mountains rising into the sky beyond that. On my left was a steep golden hillside with dark, sharp peaks looming over the valley.

I parked my car and packed my bag—the hike was 10 kilometers (Sealy Tarns had been 5.8) so this time I had plenty of water and a lunch that I would enjoy at the halfway point of the hike.

The trail began in more private farmland; I guess the farmers don't mind the hikers. A herd of cattle grazed along the path and a few of its members laid under the shade of some low trees. They were beautiful animals with deep, velvety black, copper-toned, and chocolate brown-and-white-dotted hides. A flock of recently-sheared sheep looked a bit more disgruntled as I passed.

The trail ran next to the river until it reached a huge suspension bridge. I don't know why Kiwis like these bridges so much, but I will say that it's exciting when they bounce and rock under your feet. The river was a faded aquamarine, moving quickly over large rocks. The dirt path continued on the other side and followed another arm of the river cut into the mountains. The trees were mossy, like at the blue pools, but this felt much more remote and calm. It was the type of forest that makes you wonder for just a second if fairies really are nothing more than fantasy.

It was probably the most beautiful hike of my life and I don't know how to do it justice in words. The woods felt like a single, conscious entity that not only knew that I was there but actually welcomed my presence. A mild breeze teased the back of my neck in the direction I was headed as if encouraging me forward. At an opening in the trees about a mile in, I caught a glimpse of a massive waterfall in the distance. The glacier must've been somewhere above it, as it was pumping from hundreds of feet above the tree line.

Where time moved like molasses on the Sealy Tarns hike, it moved like wind on this one. I lost track of it because I was too busy reveling in my surroundings to take notice of how much had passed. At the end of the trail was a spectacular view of the glacier; there were 12 more huge waterfalls coming off the icy peaks that I couldn't see from that first viewpoint. I pulled out my lunch (a can of chili and salt and vinegar chips) and enjoyed one of the best meals of my life- the combination of hunger from the hike made the food infinitely more delicious than it would have been anywhere else and views like that can't be topped.

I got back quickly as the return trip was a gradual downhill slope. I was thrilled with the hike by the time I got back to the car but I was also a bit sad that it was over. I would've camped there, but without a self-contained RV, I wasn't allowed, so I bounced and slid back down the road, through Wanaka, and once again to the cemetery campground. The only place to shower was the icy river, so I found a calm spot and dove in. The cold bit my skin like needles and constricted my lungs; I came up gasping and jumping in the waist-deep water. I washed myself as quickly as I could and wrapped myself in a towel, thankful that the air was still warm. I got dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant (the Cod was excellent) and settled into my Fiat camping nest for the final installment of Lord of the Rings.

The next stop was Fiordland national park where I had planned to do part of what's considered one of the greatest hikes on the planet. I drove past Queenstown while it drizzled outside, singing to my music in the meantime. I stayed at a luxury campground that had kitchens, living rooms, dining rooms, a laundry room, and Wifi.

Unfortunately, those bumps I had gotten on my legs hadn't gone away; a few itchy little spots would pop up every evening. That night in the campground, they reappeared and I was admittedly freaked out. Were there bugs in my car? And to make matters worse, my mattress pad/ pool toy popped, forcing me to sleep with my upper body on the folded-down seats and my lower body curled into the trunk with a level change of maybe 3 inches in between. It was so uncomfortable that I folded the seats back up and curled into a ball in the back seat.

The next day, I had a meltdown. I hadn't slept and at this point I was convinced I had bedbugs. All I could think about was sanitizing all of my stuff in a hot dryer, which is how you get rid of them. I couldn't do that at the campground because if they were in the car, they'd just get back into my stuff. At this point in the trip, I was satisfied with the hikes I'd done and the things I'd seen and I knew I'd come back to New Zealand one day to do the multi-day hike through Fiordlands anyway so in my panic, I went back to Queenstown.

Before I could do anything else, I had to find a place to sleep that night. It was high season and Queenstown is a huge tourist destination so every hotel going into town had a NO VACANCY sign lit up. I found a bed at what was apparently voted the best hostel in the Southern Hemisphere because of a miracle cancellation, then found a bed at another hostel for the next two nights I would spend in town before leaving the country.

After finding my accommodation, I took the car to a place the hostel staff told me to park overnight and cleared the whole thing out. I threw away everything I could-the sleeping bag, mattress pad, blankets, food, anything that couldn't be washed. I felt awful about the waste but relieved that I was taking action. I went to the local laundromat and spent the entire day washing all of my clothes in a high-heat industrial washing machine and throwing my bags and shoes into a massive dryer for over an hour. I went through all of my toiletries and electronics with sanitizing wipes. I threw away my book, which was devastating. At the end of the day, I put a clean sweatshirt on, took everything to the hostel, put all of the clothes I was wearing into a plastic bag to be washed the next day, and took a scalding hot shower. The next morning, I took the car back to the rental place 2 days early, thinking it would be contaminated and wanting nothing to do with it. I took a cab back and I had the hostel wash my last clothes on high heat and it was all over. I felt so accomplished, so relieved. After wandering around the country for a couple of weeks, I had a real, solid goal and I achieved it.

The next night, though, the itchy bumps came back. I was livid. I marched to the local pharmacy to ask for help. I walked up to a kind-looking brunette woman in a lab coat and told her that I think I had bedbugs and that I need something to take the itch away.

She gave the bumps a look, raised her eyes to mine, and said, "Oh honey, these aren't bedbugs, you're just having an allergic reaction to something. Here's an antihistamine." She handed me the box and walked off. I was in shock. And I was pissed that I had wasted so much time, energy, and useful stuff on this damn allergic reaction. The antihistamine worked almost instantaneously.

I spent my last two days enjoying Queenstown, which is the adrenaline capital of the world. It's like the people who built the town looked at the mountains around them thinking, "What should we do with all of these cliffs and stuff," until someone else said, "Let's jump off of them in as many ways as possible." Bungee jumping, skydiving, base jumping, hang gliding, you name it, Queenstown has it. I need to go back with a thicker wallet to try it all.

The town itself is quaint and the area reminded me vaguely of the Pacific Northwest. The streets were small and full of restaurants and shops; there was an ice cream store called Patagonia Chocolates and I had 2 scoops a day. I made a couple of friends in the hostel and we all walked around and sipped hot chocolate in the evening. At one point, it was me, a Brit, an Aussie, and a Canadian, so we spent some time laughing about the idiosyncrasies of our English dialects.

The final day came and I hailed a cab. The airport was small and Jet Star gutted me with the baggage fee I got for not doing pre-check-in. My flight was delayed so I ordered a pastry and coffee and watched the planes come in and fly out. The flight to Sydney went quickly and my final stretch of travel began.