Off Season Adventures: New Zealand Pt. I

After Sydney I flew to New Zealand to spend 15 days on the South Island, so I’m breaking up this leg of travel into a two-partner. Since I was roaming New Zealand solo, I didn’t want to rent a camper and drive by myself so I did some research and found that most lone travelers opt for a bus tour option. I don’t like to over-plan when I travel, as it removes the excitement and spontaneous-ness that the flexibility of solo travel is so great for, so I was nervous about being trapped on a bus where every moment was scheduled. However, I found a bunch of bus companies that were backpacker mentality friendly, where you buy a loop path and then you can jump on and off the bus in any of the cities along the way and stay in those cities for as long as you want, then just hop back on. While you’re on the bus, they help you identify and book activities and hostels at the next city stop. This seemingly great concept was just what I was looking for, so I booked myself on the Southern Pass of the Kiwi Experience. We’ll circle back to this, but just wanted to set the stage for a later discovery.

I mean, is this not the greenest bus you've seen?!

I flew directly into Christchurch and grabbed a cab to Jailhouse Accommodation, an actual prison from 1874-1999 that has since been converted into a hostel. It was definitely a unique experience but not without its flaws. I recommend it for a night and preferably in the summer months. The rooms are old prison cells, so the heating is minimal in the winter and the wifi signal does not travel through the thick concrete walls. However, the people there were super nice and helpful.

My own personal cold, cold cell/room

After getting settled I started walking toward downtown through South Hagley Park, which is pretty well sized with lots of bike paths and sports fields. Once you make it through the southern portion, it leads into the Christchurch Botanical Gardens, which were my favorite gardens of the trip.

My mom would be so proud of all these flower photos

They know what kind of plants will flourish in the climate and in the autumn a lot of the sub-gardens featured plants that pop with beautiful fall colors.

So this is what autumn looks like outside of SF....

Next gardens is the Canterbury Museum, which is free so I took a quick walk around those exhibits. There’s also the Peacock Fountain, which is fun for taking pictures.

Free activities are good activities

After that, I went to the urban downtown area which was possibly one of the most eerie metropolis areas I’ve ever been in. An earthquake that was 6.3 on the Richter scale decimated the city, killing 185 people. While they’re working on rebuilding, the after-effects are still everywhere, as a lot of the crumbled buildings have not been removed. They’ve come up with clever ideas, like if the front façade of a building is still mostly intact they’ll build up shipping containers that the doors and windows open up to.

There's also a shit ton of awesome street graffiti

There’s also a whole mall area on Cashel Street made completely out of shipping containers that they’ve made into cute boutique shops and cafes.

I'd take this over Mall of America any day!

I was also there on the Queen’s birthday so everyone had the day off and the area was empty. I walked to the 185 chairs memorial, which was beautiful and sad. For each person that died in the earthquake, their loved ones picked out a white chair to represent the individual.

One of the most thoughtful memorials I've ever seen

It’s near the church with cardboard rafters, which was closed so I didn’t get a good look. I walked back to the hostel area for dinner and went to Pedal Pusher, which had good food, TVs, trivia, and wifi.

The next morning I boarded the gigantic lime green Kiwi Experience bus at 7am.

Where's my bus?? Oh wait, it's the giant green one.

There was a quick breakfast stop, saw some seals, and then we made our way to the main city stop, Kaikoura. Kaikoura is a quaint coastal town that is big for marine wildlife due to sea trenches deep under the water, which mix regional currents that cause food sources to rise for seals, whales, and other animals that stay more toward the top.

Town view from above - at least it's sunny today!

We went and saw some seals and I signed up for a dolphin swim which was supposed to be with hundreds of dolphins.

Fat but dangerous

Unfortunately there was a stormy wind so dolphins got cancelled so I went on a whale watching tour instead, which was a pretty awesome backup. They put a sonar sensor in the water off the edge of the boat and listen for whale sounds. As soon as they sense one the boat takes off and tracks them down, as whales only stay on top of the water breathing anywhere from two to ten minutes typically.

Just hanging out

The tour usually sees about 2-3 whales but it was the height of the season so we saw four! You watch the whales (all sperm whales in the region) breath water out their blowholes. The whale guides could tell when the whale was preparing to go back under so they’d yell to get your cameras ready so you could get the perfect tail shot before they disappeared back under.

Whale tail. Ha.

That evening we stayed in the Lazy Shag Backpacker, a cute and affordable hostel run by this really great woman.

Cute and cozy redefined!

I walked the stretch of road the hostel was on and found this cool black rock beach to catch the sunset on.

Gratuitous sunset photo

Seafood is obviously the popular protein choice in this area, so I found a simple yet legit place to get fish and chips. It came wrapped in paper like street food in England and even though the fish was fried you could tell it was super fresh. To-date it’s the best I’ve had, but I had to eat it while burrowed in bed wearing multiple layers of fleece. New Zealand winters are no joke.

The next morning we departed from Kaikoura fairly early and made a quick stop at the Oahu stream walk to see the baby seal colony.

The cuteness is palpable

There are adorable seal pups all over the place that are super playful and splashing around. At the top of the stream there’s a pool under a waterfall that was completely filled with the little guys. 

Everything that looks like a rock is actually a frolicking seal pup!

After that we headed to the ferry stop at the tip of the South Island to pick up bus travelers coming from the North Island. 

Big ass ferry in the bay

This is where I learned that the Kiwi Experience is known as the “college fuck bus” and 18 year olds make up about 80% of the passenger load. The other 20% are mostly in their younger to mid-twenties, so ignore that part of the Kiwi Experience site that says most of their riders are between 20 to 35 and be prepared to hear a lot of screaming, drama, Jason Derulo, and hungover pukers. In talking to other travelers a couple of the hostel stops, anyone in their 30s should look to book Stray. So after accepting that this would be my fate for the next week and a half, we made our way to a river bridge that is in one of the scenes from "The Hobbit" movie. I haven't seen it, but it was a nice river.

Does this look familiar to any LOTR fans?

We got to the town of Kateriteri after dark and stayed at the Kateriteri Lodge, which was nice but felt much more like a hostel than the last place. They did put on a trivia night at the pub next door which was pretty fun.

Kateriteri might be a fun stop in the summer since it’s right on the water, but in the winter there’s not much to do so we left right away in the morning. We drove to Nelson Lake to have a picnic lunch. This is where there’s a scenic pier that lots of people take pictures jumping off of. Unfortunately we were there on a super foggy and cold day, so there wasn’t too much to see. A couple of riders braved the water for the jump photo but they said it was freezing and there were eels.

Just like San Francisco, feels like home!

After a windy, long, but scenic drive we rolled into the town of Westport. Even though it’s a town with a rough population of four thousand, it still felt like more of a city than the last few stops we made.

Real buildings!

We stayed at Bazil’s Surf Hostel, which they said was the top rated Kiwi Experience hostel of the trip. It was funky and had a cool outdoor area that is probably awesome during the summer. Unfortunately in the winter it just smells of mildew and the guy working was super standoffish.

Can't you see this being way better with some sun?!

I went running down the main strip of town and found some good Indian food for dinner. The other upside to the hostel was it does allow lodgers to hang out and drink in the public areas until 9:30ish, so at least it was a little more social than some of the other places.

The next morning we stopped at a nearby seal colony that’s usually pretty populous but it was cold and rainy so most of us stayed in the bus. We started out drive down “The Coast Road,” which is New Zealand’s version of the Great Ocean Road.

By no means ugly! I'm just saying compared to Great Ocean Road...

While it includes some cool limestone cliffs, I would say it didn’t compare much. The best stop was the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes, which are named that way because the stacks look like pancake layers of limestone stacked up.

This doesn't make me crave IHOP though

There’s a quick 15-20 minute walking loop you can do that has a couple good vantage points. 

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The Coast Road ends in Greymouth, which is the largest city on the West Coast (Queenstown is more inland) but even our driver acknowledged that it was one of the uglier cities. Apparently there was going to be a costume party and contest at the hostel that night, so we went to a local store to get supplies. Since it was still rainy, our activity for the day was going on a tour of Monteith’s Brewery. I am not a beer drinker so I passed on the tour, but I sat by the fireplace and drank their cider which was incredibly clear and delicious. It was so good I’m looking into where I can find it in the US. After that, we went to the Lake Mahinapua Hostel, which is pretty remote and only had cabin options, so I braved my first bunk bed experience in many years.

Looks odd but the cute cabins are behind it.

The owners and staff there were super friendly and excited to have us. They run a fully operational bar on-site since the location is so remote.

Plenty of fun activities to be had

They served us a giant family style dinner and then we hung out in the bar area all night for the costume party. The local police showed up but it didn’t seem to faze anyone, as apparently that’s a pretty normal occurrence since it tends to get a bit rowdy. Again, this is a great hostel experience for someone a bit younger.

The next morning they also served us family style breakfast and then we went into town to watch the rugby match of the two little boys who lived at the hostel and had been helping us out. 

Not the town, just a photo out of the bus window that finally worked!

After that it was a quick drive to our next major stop, Franz Joseph. I was planning to go skydiving but after mustering up the courage it got cancelled due to weather. While a little relieved, I was also a little disappointed as it’s rated one of the most scenic skydives in the world. We check into our hostel, The Rainforest, which was my favorite so far due to ambiance and amenities. The single room felt just like a hotel room but much more affordable.

If you look closely you can spot reception!

Even though it was raining I went for a trail run to see if I could get close to the glacier. After you get through town, there are a trails through a Jurassic Park feeling forest that are a couple kilometers long.

I'm fully expecting a T-Rex to jump out at any point.

It actually was farther than expected to even get to the car park where then the glacier specific trails start, so I just did a short one that was steps up a hill that lead to an outlook where you could see multiple waterfalls.

Cue the TLC

I took trails back on the other side of the road and happened across a cool suspension bridge.

Dangerous and slippery when wet

It started to pour so I started sprinting back, feeling like a bad ass in a Nike commercial, until I got a side ache. That night there was a big rugby match (New Zealand vs. Wales), so I went to watch it and have dinner at The Landing, which had great food, sizable portions, and a solid list of local beers and wines.