New Zealand 2009

 

               

 

                

 

Where is New Zealand? (and other facts about the country)

 

After lots of planning and anticipation, our New Zealand trip was finally starting in January 2009!  Steve departed first, on January 3, to complete about 160 miles of overnight “tramping” during the month of January.  “Tramping” is the New Zealand word commonly used for hiking, and what is called a trail in the U.S. is called a “track” in New Zealand.  The tracks generally have “huts” en-route, which are buildings containing at a minimum bunkrooms (with mattresses provided), a kitchen/dining room, and some form of bathroom facilities.  Thus, a tent is not needed, although tent camping is allowed on most tracks.  Steve stayed exclusively in the huts, leaving his tent at home.  He traveled between the tracks using buses and boats, and stayed in hostels between the tracks in order to clean up and resupply with food for the next track.  Hostels are very common in New Zealand, and generally have accommodations ranging from camping, to shared bunkrooms, to private rooms, some with private bathrooms (called “ensuite”).  Steve stayed in single rooms most often, with a few nights in shared bunkrooms.

 

Patty left home on January 31, and arrived in New Zealand on February 2 (one day is lost due to the International Date Line crossing, you get it back on the way home living the same day twice).  We had two nights in Christchurch after her arrival, and then rented a campervan called a “Spaceship” for two weeks in order to loop the south island, including visiting a few places that Steve had already visited (although we didn’t do any overnight tramping).  After turning in the campervan, we flew to Wellington on the north island, which is the country’s capital city.  On the north island, we took the train between our stops, and had only three over the eight days we spent on the north island:  Wellington, Tongariro National Park, and Auckland, the country’s largest city.  We flew home from Auckland on February 26.   We started our adventure, leaving from San Francisco Int'l Airport, and finished our adventure in Los Angeles using Air New Zealand both directions to and from Auckland.  Returning we had another short flight on Southwest Airlines to get us back to Sacramento.  After arriving in New Zealand, Steve had a domestic flight from Auckland to Queenstown on the south island, the closest major airport to the tracks he was doing.  Patty had an Auckland to Christchurch flight after arriving in New Zealand.  Christchurch is the largest city on the south island, and was the city with the campervan rental office where we started and ended our campervan loop.  We flew from Christchurch to Wellington on Pacific Blue Airlines.

 

Since New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, January and February are summer, equivalent to July and August in the northern hemisphere.  The southern south island is roughly equivalent in latitude to Portland, Oregon in the U.S., and Auckland on the north island is equivalent to San Francisco.  Weather on the western side of the south island is wet, with some areas of Fiordland National Park receiving 8 meters (26 feet) of rain per year!  Weather in the eastern and northern areas of the south island are much drier.

 

Here are the links to the pages with the trip details:

January:  Steve’s Tramping Adventures

February:  Patty and Steve’s Adventures

Logistics:  Trip Planning and Gear List

 

To hit all of the pages in sequence, start with the first link above, then follow the closest link to the upper left corner of each page to move to the next page.

 

The overall calendar for the trip appears below, with the color key below it.  Blue text indicates where the night was spent, either a locale or a hut.

Calendar

 

Color key for calendar

 

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