Kia ora dear readers! I have put off writing about my New Zealand adventures in 2017 (I’ll try to get those down in the next few months), but now I am back down here with Ben and Hannah and more adventures I will write about while fresh.
Ben and Hannah Ferguson got married just 5 months after I returned from NZ 3 years ago, but they have spent the time since planning an epic honeymoon; a thru-hike the length of New Zealand on Te Araroa (“The Long Pathway” in Māori)! They visited me in Hawai’i in their way down in October, and have been hiking for 139 days over 2940km (~1827mi). Check out their awesome blog at gargoyle14.wordpress.com for a full record of their trip.
I asked them if I could crash part of their honeymoon and they approved, so I went ahead and made plans to go down to hike the last week of the trail with them and a week afterwards to road trip around the country. I had been meaning to get a new pair of light hikers and a tent anyway, so I kept them in brand new condition so as to eliminate any bio-security threat when going through customs in Auckland (Ben and Hannah with their slightly used tent had to sign a waiver that said it would be destroyed if it were judged to have enough dirt to be deemed a possible threat!). Above all I didn’t want to bring any spores of Ceradacystic lukuohia or huliohia, which cause the Rapid ‘Ōhi‘a Death disease in Hawai’i’s ‘ōhi‘a trees (Metrosideros polymorpha, M. spp.) and have been found to be similarly lethal to the abundant New Zealand pohutukawa (M. excelsa). Therefor, for all the gear I couldn’t bring brand new and had been in locations with potential ROD I thoroughly washed and decontaminated with alcohol spray. As the trip grew closer, and we could pin down the finish date at the 21st, I was able to make a pile of hostel and bus and rental car and plane reservations for the following days we would spend on the South Island.
Having made all these plans, it was a shock when I heard on Friday (HST) that the government of New Zealand had declared that, in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, all international arrivals (bar a few small Pacific nations) would be mandated to go into self-quarantine for two weeks after their arrival, starting Sunday at midnight (NZT). That would mean my entire trip! It was an immense relief when I got to Honolulu and saw the Air New Zealand plane that was still on schedule and would set me down in Auckland a mere 6.5 hours before the restrictions were put in place!
Actually seeing my plane!
The plane ended up being emptier than I imagined, with 50 no-shows that the flight attendants speculated got stuck on the neighbor islands. My neighbor moved over to an empty row, so I has a full exit row to myself! Between re-watching ‘Lord of the Rings’ and seeing on patches from hikes my last trip, the time flew by and I was soon touching down in Auckland. The line as customs was long, but I was waved right through the scanners when I could assure them that my boots and tent were both brand new (I had quickly chugged my water in the line just in case that was also a contraband import even if it wasn’t from a lake like they probably meant). Only a slight moment of panic about making my connection before I remembered to turn my watch back an hour (forward 23?) from HST to NZT, and I was on the plane to Invercargill. Stepping off the plane into the cold drizzle I was glad Ben and Hannah had warned me to bring extra layers. My hostel was easy enough to find, my roommate was about to finish his epic trip of bicycling the length of the country, and the next tricky bit would be to actually get to Ben and Hannah on the trail the following day.
Monday did not dawn as bright and early as I thought, Invercargill being at 46.4°S and still on DST for 3 weeks, but I could eventually see enough to repack my luggage into a duffel to stay at the hostel and my frame pack to carry with me. Exchanging money, getting a NZ sim, and buying food and stove fuel for the next four days took up most of the morning, but eventually I started plodding north out of Invercargill with my thumb out. My first ride was a car already full of hikers who had just finished the TA, and they were able to give me a lift for a few kilometers to a major junction before they continued on to Queenstown. My next ride was with a pair of Canadians in a camper-van to the next town. After trudging along the now much smaller and lightly-travelled road in the drizzle for a good while, a kiwi took pity on me and gave me a ride not only over to her town but an extra 8km up to the trail crossing. A couple of Canadian hikers trying to hitchhike down into town were then able to catch a ride back with her, and I started up the trail. No sooner had I seen the hut and two familiar faces than Hannah came running toward me cheering. Whatever came next, I had made it!
