New Zealand Adventure: Making the most of miserable weather

In the past thirteen days, I’ve seen the sun three times. Considering that in the rest of my trip combined it’s only rained on a handful of days, I really don’t have much to complain about. In fact, I should be happy for all the farmers who’ve been in near-drought mode all summer. But the transition into autumn has meant cold, cloudy days and adjusted plans.

When I left Nelson, I took a bus to Picton, which is in the heart of the Marlborough sounds. It was a quiet town of hotels, restaurants and tourist shops that seemed to just be waking up when I got there at 11am. I wandered around for a few hours and got some delicious greasy fish and chips before getting on a ferry to cross the Cook Strait.

Lunch spot in Picton

I’ve heard some horror stories about rough conditions on this crossing, but luckily the seas were calm for me. The first hour was through the sounds, where green islands rose straight up out of the water and jellyfish filled the black water below us. Then we had an hour of crossing the strait and another hour of entering into Wellington Harbor.

Sailboats in the sounds

Posing on the boat

The last rocks on the south island

Arriving in Wellington was a bit of a shock to the system. It is a city! Technically, its population is actually smaller than Christchurch, but it was bustling with activity whereas Christchurch had a ghosttown sort of feel to it. It is the busiest place I’ve been through in two months. I think I might have hyperventilated for my entire trip across the city for fear of getting run over by a car or making a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood. But in the end, it is still New Zealand, and I arrived no worse for wear at Nikki’s apartment, who I’d met through Amanda when I first arrived in January.

Nikki is studying in a clinical psychology program in Wellington, and she had a pretty social weekend planned. One of the disadvantages of HelpX is that I’m spending the majority of my time people over the age of 60. They’ve all been great people, but the prospect of a weekend spent with a bunch of people my own age was excellent. On Friday night we went to a potluck with her friends from the program, and on Saturday she was having a flatwarming party with the six other people in her apartment.

Saturday was one of my beautiful sunny days, and we went on a long walk through Wellington, down the iconic Cuba St, through Courtenay Place (where the city planners obviously made a typo, but oh well), and then down to the waterfront. We watched some people sailing and paddleboarding in the calm harbor, and then went into the Te Papa Tongarewa museum, the national museum of New Zealand. It started with geology, then animal life, then a bit of Maori culture and finally the last 150 years of European settlement and development. We went through it kind of quickly, but it was nice to see all the information in one place.

It's my place!

Wellington waterfront

Kiwis in Te Papa

On Sunday I thought about going to a wildlife reserve, but that’s when the rain started, and I realized that I hadn’t been able to stay in my pajamas and lounge around for two months, so I took advantage of that opportunity. We did make a quick trip to a nearby beach in the afternoon when it looked like things were clearing up, but took refuge in a café soon after arriving. The drive there took us through the neighborhood of Miramar, where the studios for Lord of the Rings are.

Driving past "Wellywood"

Mural at the beach cafe

On Monday I got up early to take a bus to Raetihi, where I’d planned a five-day HelpX with volcano views. Unfortunately I didn’t check the weather before I went, so I only saw the volcano once in five days. It would have been a great access point for hiking the Tongariro Crossing, but with the clouds and rain, none of the shuttle services were operating.

View the majority of the time

View for about three hours one morning

Luckily it was a pretty nice setup. Chris and Tania were a young couple who run a guesthouse for skiers (who ski on the volcano!) and live in the apartment next door. Since it’s their off season, I lived in the massive guesthouse and cooked my own food and did about three hours of work per day. When it wasn’t raining I weeded their garden, and the rest of the time I watched their two-year old son. He’s going through a massive dinosaur phase, and I think I got pretend eaten by a dinosaur about 150 times over those few days. It definitely kept me active!

Dinosaurs on display

On Friday I took the bus to Taupo for another short HelpX and another chance of hiking the crossing. I was staying with Debbie and Marty, but the work was just with Marty, which I decided I preferred after a day or two. I haven’t decided yet how I’ll review this experience on the HelpX website, but overall I wasn’t very comfortable there. Debbie complained about past helpers to me, particularly about their eating habits. According to her, helpers were getting too expensive to feed, so we’re no longer allowed juice, fruit, alcohol, or any snacks. Breakfast options were limited to white bread or cornflakes. There were a number of other very particular expectations on a list given to me when I arrived, which led me to question whether the helper-host relationship is as equal as I had been thinking. All their previous reviews were quite good, so maybe I’m just sensitive or something, but I’m still working out my overall feelings on them.

Aside from that mini-rant, the working with Marty was quite good. I sold eggs at a farmer’s market while he was selling microgreen kits. We weeded around the house, I seeded a bunch of microgreens for next week, I dug compost, and we landscaped around his hydroponics tent. I was able to take a walk up to Huka Falls, which looks like a horizontal waterfall, and I borrowed a bike one evening for a short ride along the lake.

Free range eggs

Little boxes of future lettuces

Huka falls

Steaming lake!

After much debate, I decided to “go for it” on what the forecast said would be the nicest day of the week and walk the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This is another of New Zealand’s Great Walks, so I was able to take a shuttle from the end of the road to the trailhead. We practically drove into the clouds on the way there, and I set off straight into the fog. Right as I got going, though, the clouds lifted a bit and I was able to see most of Mt Ngauruhoe, which was used as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. At one point in the hike I got a bit off track and was accidentally climbing up it for a while, but I set myself right and continued up into the clouds.

Ngauruhoe is the big cone shaped one

Soda springs

Almost seeing the sun

The midsection of the track was truly alpine territory. In parts, the trail itself was barely distinguishable except for where there wasn't as much moss and tiny flowers on the rocks. The mountains that I was hiking around were all actually volcanoes, so the rocks I was walking on were multicolored from past eruptions. The views weren't as nice as they would have been without clouds, but I was still glad to see what I could.