New Zealand Wrap Up

Finishing out our time in New Zealand :( ...Our last 3 days in the van were quite full of adventure. As mentioned in the previous post, our boat tour of the Fiordlands got rescheduled due to weather. Well, it ended up being a beautiful day for it and we enjoyed our private tour with Peter, a Te Anau local. He told us about the lake, how the fiords were created, showed us waterfalls, took us on a hike to a hidden lake, and then made us coffee and blueberry muffins. It was such a pleasant excursion and it allowed us to explore deeper into the Fiordlands, which we wouldn’t have been able to do on foot or by car.

We even got a shout out on the facebook page...

We had our last “longer drive” of the trip and headed back up to Queenstown in preparation for an early morning. The next day was SKI DAY! If you know us, you know how much we love to ski so we were excited to explore a new mountain in an entirely new country.

We woke up the next day and drove about 30 mins into town to get our rental ski equipment. We got skis, boots and also rented ski clothes since we didn’t have space for ours in our two carryons. Can’t say it was the nicest stuff, but it got the job done. We bought bus tickets up to the mountain because we weren't allowed to take our van up to the base. Sure glad we did because the road up to the base was insane, every corner felt like a hairpin turn, it was very steep, and to top it off, it was snowing so even our big bus (or truck rather) had to put on chains. We made it up to the top after about a 45 min ride. The ski resort is called The Remarkables and it is at the top of the Remarkables mountain range. It was quite different from any North American ski resort with only one building at the base, no lodging, and 4 lifts. You definitely have to put effort into your ski day or it won’t happen. Luckily, our Ikon passes included 7 days at 3 NZ resorts, one of which was the Remarkables, so we got to save money with our lift passes being covered. The first half of the day the visibility was low and we stayed on the main runs while learning the mountain. The snow brought some fresh powder and in the second half of the day we had a lot of fun playing in that. It was a great day and we’re glad we put in the effort to experience it.

Returned our gear and parked at our last campsite by the lake! We made a soup with all of our leftover food and did laundry in preparation for our travel day. We both slept great for our last night in the van and then we packed up/cleaned and dropped it off. They calculated that we drove about 1800km all around the South Island. Fun fact- after 10 days, I was the sole driver of the van. We discovered it was a good dynamic for us- I like being behind the wheel and Will doesn't, plus he's a great navigator!

This pic below is a close depiction of our path- it's impossible to see it all, but we gave it a darn good try :)

The bus company shuttled us to the airport. We were pretty early and the check in for our flight hadn’t opened yet so Will had a bright idea to go golf! There was a 9 hole par 3 course that was right next to the airport runway- seriously it took us 10 minutes to walk to. It was nice to be outside before a long travel day and it was one of the more scenic golf courses Will had played.

(also this mountain range in the background is the Remarkables- the ski resort is at the top!)

After we were done, we walked back to the airport, checked in, and went through security. Apparently Will angered the travel gods because he had quite the day- at first he was told he would have to pay about $100 USD to check his bag because it was too big (luckily the Virgin Australia man was nice and let him go), then both of his bags were extensively searched by NZ's version of TSA, then he was randomly selected by customs to do a swab test- the first test coming back positive for explosives. Of course, when it was retested, it came back that it was clean but whattttt? When we went to board the plane, he had issues with his Indonesian visa which was apparently not correctly tied to his ticket and to top it all off we were delayed about an hour for the only flight we had a connection for. It ended up being alright- the flight was easy, we made it through Australian customs, security, and customs again and got on our 6hr flight to Bali. (next blog coming soon!) Still can't believe we had the privilege to explore New Zealand and see/do bucket list items. What a special place that we now have a special tie to! We will be back!

All pictures can be found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SMbDGrT99FZHxZgFA