New Zealand

My connection to New Zealand

I lived in New Zealand for about 3 1/2 years while I was doing my PhD at the University of Otago in Dunedin. During this time I had the opportunity to meet many New Zealanders, who call themselfs “Kiwis” and see a good portion of this marvellous country. In this area of my homepage I would like to try and bring some of those experiences across to the people who have never been there.

The Country

The country is a fascinating mixture of beautiful wild life, friendly people, ancient tradition of the indigenous Maori people and the spirit of a western society with its social and cultural characteristics. New Zealand is also a country of the extremes. You can stand on a glacier and just an hour later you can go for a swim in the sea. You can stand on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere, yet your car is parked barely two hours walking away. You can enjoy a breathtaking undisturbed sunset in the Southern Alps, yet be back at the steakhouse for dinner. For everyone who enjoys wildlife, mountains, surfing, the sea, nature in short, New Zealand is an absolute must. I’m already planning my next trip for an extended holiday there for 2005/2006.

A trip to New Zealand

A trip to New Zealand has to be planned carefully before even ordering the first flight tickets. It’s quite a long trip from Europe and you can expect an average trip time (one way) of 1.5 to two full days. In my opinion the best time of the year to travel there is from mid January until mid April. This is the late summer to autumn in the southern hemisphere and the weather tends to be reasonably stable. During winter and spring there can be extended periods of rain (there is rainforest on the west coast, after all!) and unless you are a hardy outdoors person and don’t mind the rain there could be little opportunity for outdoors activities like hiking, canoing etc. Avoid also holiday times if you can, because the quiet littel country tends to be relatively crowded at these times. This applies mainly to the summer holidays between November and mid January. Especially around Christmas it can be a nightmare to walk the popolar tracks, like the Able Tasman Track, because there are so many people out. Also, the fares for the flight tickets tend to just about double during the holiday season! If you want peace and quiet just avoid the holidays.

Of course it depends on your lifestyle and your ecxpextations of accomodation and food, the plane trip to New Zealand will be the most expensive part of your journey. Once Down Under, you can stay at backpackers hostels for as little as 5 EUR a night. In the more rural areas this may well already include a breakfast of freshly baked bread, cerials, fresh milk and eggs or jam and honey. In the cities you should expect to pay a little more for backpackers hotels or youth hostels, but certainly not more than 20 EUR a night. If you don’t travel during the holidays you usually don’t need to make reservations in advance, especially if you travel by car and can easily get to the next hostel. Even during holiday season I only made reservations for the youth hostels in the larger cities or near touris attractions.

Getting around

Getting around in New Zealand can be a bit more tricky if you decide not to hire a car. The country is relatively sparsely populated and some of the attractions are in remote corners of New Zealand. There are bus lines that connect the main tourist attractions. Tickets allow you to get on and off the bus for a certain time at any place you wish. Transportation to the starting points of the hiking tracks can usually be arranged on short notice once you arrive at the backpackers or youth hostel. In most cases there also is a pickup service from the end point of the track at a time and date that has to be negotiated with the driver or tourist business. I still found the easiest and most independent way of getting around a rental car. Prices are comparable to the prices in Germany or a little lower, the longer you hire the car the cheaper the daily rent becomes.

What to take on the trip

What should you take with you when you go to New Zealand? One common mistake is to assume that New Zealand is very far in the South and thus it must be a fairly warm country. Well, this may apply to the northern end of New Zealand, it certainly is not true fro the south. Once you cross the equator it starts getting colder again! In the very north of the country you will find sub-tropical climate with palm trees and bananas growing outside. Most of the rest of the country is quite harsh sea climate: wet, cold, windy. In the mountains there is alpine and sub-alpine climate. In the heart of the islands you wil find the weather cold and dry in the winter, hot and dry in the summer. It’s continental climate.

The things that you want to do in Down Under will therefore determine what things you have to take along with you. I’m more of an outdoors person, so the recommendations that you will find here are for people who like hiking and other outdoors activities. If you just want to stay in a hotel and have a look at the beautiful nature from behind the windows of a coach, then your requirements may be somewhat different.

A definite must in New Zealand is rain gear, no matter wether you want to go on extended hiking trips or not! It rains A LOT! Take GoreTex jacket and pants + a pair of good quality hiking boots. Break them in well in ADVANCE of your trip, or you will end up on a track with huge blisters still having to walk in the same boots for several more days. This can be a real pain.....no.... in your FEET. Thick socks are highly recommended. Also take warm stuff like polypropylene underwear, a warm jersey, a woollen hat and warm gloves. If you go hiking in the mountains, there may be snow in the middle of summer and blistering cold winds. Take also T-Shirts, short pants and other light clothes. It’s best to “dress like an onion” as we say in Germany. Layer upon layer of clothing will keep you warn in the cold and as the temperatures rise (this may happen within just a few hours!) you can peel the layers off and be comfortable throughaout the entire trip.

Camping

For camping and hiking the normal camping gear can be used, just be sure to have a good sleeping bag and that your tent is waterproof. For camping cookers with gas cartridges refill cartridges are available just about everywhere and they are compatible with the ones from Germany. This also applies to batteries and fuel for gasoline cookers.

Hiking

At this point I would like to make a few very important remarks regarding hiking in New Zealand. Hiking in New Zealand is quite different from hiking in Germany or other central european countries. Due to its low population density you may walk for days and weeks without ever coming close to a human settlement. Therefore, EVERYTHING you want to have on your hiking trip you will have to carry with you. There will be no hut warden that cooks dumplings and pork leg in the evening for you. There will be no vending machine where to buy snacks or drinks. If you are lucky, the huts will have running water from a well nearby or there are rain collectors. Otherwise there will be only beds to sleep and a roof over your head. And jillions of little blood sucking sand flies, a particularly nasty kind of mosquito. Once you enter a hiking track you will have to go through, or to return.

If you run out of water while in between huts you will have to drink water from rivers or streams. High up in the mountains, running water is usually drinkable, but in the lower regions where there is cattle, sheep or deer farming the warter will almost certainly be tainted with E. coli bacteria or giardia, a nasty little parasite. Both will give you explosive diarrhea. Giardia may even mean the end of your entire holiday and you may have to be hospitalized for a longer time due to dehydration. To make river water drinkable you should always carry special pills containing a substance that liberates iodine when dissolved in water. This kills the parasites within about 30 minutes. The disgusting iodinde taste can be neutralized with other pills that contain ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Or just put a little vitamin C powder in the water after 30 minutes. An alternative to chemical treatment is to boil the water for a few minutes. This also kills the parasites.

Well, for now these are the most important things that I wanted to say to someone who plans a trip to this beautiful country. Maybe I will post more as time goes on, but first I want to finish the other sections of my homepage.

When hiking there are two mottos that I live by and that I would like to ask the reader of these pages to adopt as well are the following:

1. Pack it in - Pack it out! Everything that you take on a hiking trip and that you don’t eat should be taken out again. Plastic bags, tin cans and glass will stay intact for many, many years and litter the environment. Also they pose a danger to the native animals and may cause fire. Make sure that everyone that comes after you will be able to enjoy the same unspoiled wildlife that you saw. If you see garbage thrown away by inconsiderate hikers, please pick it up and take it to a garbage can. I felt that many more hikers in New Zealand than in Germany live by this rule and the tracks are a lot cleaner than in out forests in Germany.

2. Take only pictures - leave only footprints! Much the same as the first guideline. Don’t take plants or animals out of the forest. The mosses, ferns and lichens look very pretty but outside of the rainforest environment they will wither and die very quickly. There are some plants and seeds that you can get at flower shops and that stem from botanical gardens and nurseries. The balance of the wildlife is very delicate and too much damage has already been done by careleseness and the introduction of foreign species. If you want to take plants, then buy a package of seeds at a flower shop. The seeds of Kaka beak and Kowhai for instance germinate very slowly but once they sprout they grow quite quickly.

With this I wish you a very enjoyable stay in a country that I have fallen in love with.

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