New Zealand Backpack and Van Tour

Trip Description: (February 9-19, 1998)
Enjoy relief from our winter chill in the southern hemisphere's early fall climate. Maps show New Zealand as a slender, slanted outline close to the bottom of the world; dwarfed by the vast Australian sub-continent. In shape, New Zealand resembles the state of California. In area, it equals the state of Colorado. From north to south, it is nearly a thousand miles long, yet no point is more than seventy miles from the sea. New Zealand's majestic mountains, deep glacial valleys, and unspoilt golden beaches await us.
Our group will van tour the larger South Island, which the Kiwis refer to as the 'Mainland', focusing our explorations in the Southern Alps and Tasman Bay. Traveling by van will allow us to see the most in the limited time available to us. New Zealand has an excellent National Park system, with many of the best located on the South Island. We will visit Mt. Cook, Mt. Aspiring, and Westland plus backpack through the magnificent coastal park, Abel Tasman. We'll camp each evening under the Southern Cross. Trip is rated leisurely to moderate (L/M).
Originates @ Christchurch, NZ.

Milford Sound

Abel Tasman Trek

Trip Reports:

New Zealand Backpack & Van: (February 9 - 19, 1998)

New Zealand Van: (November 16 - 26, 1990)

Flying to Auckland, it occurred to us that driving a rental car on the opposite side of the road might take a little time to master. We didn't realize that shifting would be done with the left hand, the turn signals and windshield wipers would be reversed, and many rules of the road would be substantially different. The first few days, it seemed as if our windshield wipers went on every time we prepared to make a turn. An even bigger problem, especially for the pedestrian tourists, is looking the correct direction for on-coming traffic before attempting a street crossing. We barely managed to escape the Auckland without a mishap that first day.

We left town immediately, driving north to the famous Kauri forests hoping to find solitude. These massive trees are as magnificent as our Sequoias. There are not many of the extremely large ones left as heavy lumbering early this century decimated most of the mature forests of New Zealand. We were fortunate to arrive the day after the re-opening of the reserve's hiking trails. Forest managers recently decided that New Zealand desperately needs a possum eradication program and they are bombing large areas of forest with possum poison pellets. The Australian possums, originally introduced in hopes of developing a fur trade, strip bark from trees, sometimes killing the trees in the process.

We headed next for the Bay of Islands on the east coast. This beautiful coast line reminded us somewhat of British Columbia. A highlight of our North Island visit was the Waitomo Glow Worm Cave. We have been into a number of limestone caverns on the North American continent but never one with glow worms. There are glow worm caves on both of New Zealand's islands and we highly recommend a visit to one if you are in the area. We continued south to Lake Taupo via Mt. Tongariro. Our motor camp fee at Lake Taupo included access to hot springs. There were three large pools of varying temperatures and twelve private pools which ranged from very hot to lukewarm. The Craters of the Moon, near Lake Taupo, were worth a hike around. This geothermal area stretching from Lake Taupo through Rotoroa to the Bay of Plenty is extensively developed for power generation. By the time we reached Rotoroa, the weather had cooled significantly and we had our first day of rain. The geysers were extremely benign, apparently due to the cold rain. The rain continued and we finally gave up and spent our last day on the North Island in the Auckland Museum, which was excellent.

We flew into Christchurch and spent three days organizing for the group trip. The group took a couple of days to drive north to Abel Tasman National Park and then down the west coast by way of the Buller Gorge. The Buller area was famous for gold mining in past years but more recently has become a whitewater rafting center. We checked out the rugged coastline and blowholes at Pancake Rocks, continuing south to Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Fox Glacier was our favorite as we were able to get right out on it. Franz Josef was also spectacular.

We almost had a bungee jumper or two in our group when we reached Queenstown. A North Island bungee operation was being sued for neglecting to connect the bungees to the bridge. The jumper cratered and that story was being carried in the local newspapers. After a night of reflection and discussion, our two candidates decided they might cherish a few more years of life. Since this was a survey trip we did not have the time to backpack any of New Zealand's famous tracks: Milford, Routeburn, Hollyford, Caples, etc. We did take the boat ride out into Milford Sound and were lucky enough to see a yellow crested penguin on the way back. He, or she, was a shy little thing and quickly waddled into the bush before anyone could get a good picture.

We had seen glow worms on the North Island so we skipped the TeAnau Caves. However, the rest of our group enjoyed them immensely. We spent two nights at the base of Mt. Cook in its perpetual rain shadow. We were never fortunate enough to see the top, as clouds shrouded it every day. The variety and beauty of the Lupine in this area and a spectacular never-ending rainbow almost made up for it. Apparently clear views of Mt. Cook are best in the winter. Upon our return to Christchurch most of us had a chance to visit their excellent botanical gardens and museum. Afternoon entertainment in the downtown square consisted of daily two hour oratories by the Christchurch Wizard (a local curiosity) and continuous challenge chess games with waist high pieces. Christchurch, a city of 300,000, is one of the most comfortable, friendly places we've ever visited.

After our group split up we drove up to Kaiteriteri on the north side of the Island. The next morning we caught a boat along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park to the Abel Tasman Track's start. We spent three days hiking back to where we had left our car. Abel Tasman National Park was sunny while we were there, with beautiful beaches and a myriad of exotic birds. The group trip covered fifteen hundred miles and we travelled an equal number of miles by ourselves. That much driving in thirty days can be grueling at times, but we now have an excellent idea of what New Zealand has to offer. We'll be back to hike the South Island Alps and further explore the far northern regions of the North Island.