South Island, NZ: A Lord of the Rings Adventure
06/10/2008
Last fall, when I decided to spend my spring semester in Australia, my friend Tom decided that he was going to study abroad in Auckland, New Zealand, which is located on the north island. I’d heard from many people about the beauty of New Zealand, especially the mountainous south island, so Tom and I made (vague) plans to meet up there and do some hiking. Unlike most half-cooked ideas, this one actually happened. Granted, the final plan was not much more well-defined; it only included meeting up at the Christchurch airport, renting a Wicked camper van, and heading wherever the wind took us. Not surprisingly, the weekend turned out to be one of the best vacations I have ever taken.
I met Tom at the international arrivals terminal in Christchurch on a rainy Thursday afternoon in May. I withdrew some Kiwi dollars from the ATM; they are a similar plastic material to the Australian notes, but have more subdued colors and have pictures of wildlife instead of random British people on them. We caught a bus to Christchurch and walked to the Wicked van depot, where I got my first experience with driving on the left side of the road. It couldn’t have been in worse conditions: middle of a city, rainy and foggy, but I managed to pull it off, in no small part to Tom’s handy copilot map-reading skills.
Our first task was to load up on gas and food for the weekend: sandwich materials, cheese, eggs, pancake mix, juice, ginger beer, real beer, and a few other assorted items. The van had a kitchen and stove on it, so we knew that we would be able to cook some of our food. With these essentials accomplished, we decided to drive around searching for a place to park for the night – somewhere secluded, but not sketchy. It also had to be accessible later on during the night, which ruled out parking garages. We found a gravel parking area in the Botanical gardens, situated nicely next to public bathrooms. Score! The van lady had suggested to make up the bed while it was still light and we were still sober, so we heeded her advice (which we were grateful of later), and we were pleasantly surprised to find a fleece blanket and a comforter to keep us warm. As we were about to leave, we saw two men trying to break into the only other car in the lot, which caused us a bit of alarm. We loitered a bit, wondering if we were going to get back later that night and be unhappy with our choice of parking spot. We were pretty sure that they had just locked themselves out, because one of the dudes was quite old, but they were using a crowbar, which gave us cause for concern. Luckily, a locksmith van drove up, and we headed into the city much relieved.
Dinner was at the Bog, a bar that also has an outlet in Auckland which caused Tom to reccommend it. We were also drawn in by the fire near the door, as it was a cold, wet night. My steak was delicious, as was my first New Zealand beer. Filled up and warm, we headed out to see what kind of New Zealand nightlife we could find. Answer: not much. We canvassed the whole city multiple times, mostly finding small, intimate couples bars. We played billiards at a really dodgy place where gangs of teenagers kept walking in and out of the back door. The night took a decidedly upward turn, however, when we found the Grumpy Mole Saloon, an American Old West-style joint with a roaring fire, a talkative female bartender, and delicious lemony-honey beers on tap. We stayed there until the dance club next door got going, then moved over there to get our groove on. Tom loved the dancing, but I dragged him out of there because I wasn’t getting a good vibe from the mostly Kiwi crowd and I wanted to get on the road early the next morning.
Well, that didn’t really happen, but we did end up getting out of Christchurch by midday. We decided to head for Arthur’s Pass, where we hoped to find some good mountains to climb. As soon as we got out of the city, I felt immensely better. I’m sure Christchurch has its good moments, but the previous night was not one of them. Once we got out of the city, we noticed that the trees were changing color, the smell of fall was in the air, and eventually there were mountains on the horizon. Even in the fog, it was a beautiful sight, and we had to stop to take pictures.
