Travel Tales: Hiking New Zealand

A friend of mine and I secured working holiday visas through a program called BUNAC. We were given orientation upon arrival, equipped with important contact information and employment resources and then sent out to fend for ourselves.

The Lonely Planet Tramping in New Zealand guidebook was our bible. Its comprehensive route summaries, maps, trail access details and lodging information for tracks all across the country made it simple to plan and execute hikes that fit our expectations.

Our first legitimate hike was a three-day affair in the Wilkin-Young Valley outside of Wanaka. It began and ended with epic crossings of the rain-swollen Makarora River. It was only after collapsing on the far bank, soaked to the chest from glacial runoff that we learned rivers were a leading cause of death among hikers. We also severely underestimated our appetites, but benefited from the goodwill of two Scotsmen who'd come to climb the North face of Mt. Awful, an imposing spike of jagged rock that loomed above the hut on our first night.

That experience set us up for a successful stretch of hiking that took us to Avalanche Peak, through the Rees-Dart valley, atop the Cascade Saddle, to the summit of Mt. Luxmore, around the Northern Circuit of Steward Island, through Tongariro National Park (also known as Mordor) and up Mt. Taranaki, to name a few of the places we visited.

Between hikes, our time was spent either on the road or beside it. Our not-so-trusty steed was a 1985 Volvo 360 that we bought for $700 from a neighbor in Sumner. The speedometer didn’t work, and neither did the headlights, but with the exception of some sparkplug-related issues early in our travels, it served us extremely well. Each night, we camped on the side of the road, in public parks, on rugby fields, on boardwalks, in parking lots or in the woods. We cooked instant coffee, oatmeal and baked beans on a camping stove, and philosophized in our journals by the glare of flashlights.

Abel Tasman National Park is a paradisal playground just north of Motueka on the South Island. Renowned for its beaches, secluded bays and inlets and striking blue-green water, it's also the site of a popular 3–5 day hike called the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks.” The Abel Tasman was our last hike before permanently departing the South Island. Given our experience, and the track's reputation for being fairly benign in difficulty, we decided to swap our hiking packs for daypacks and our boots for running shoes, and jog the entire track in one day. There was very little time to stop and smell the roses, but we finished in time to catch a jetboat back to the lot where our Volvo was eagerly waiting for us.

The final mountain we hiked was Mt. Egmont, the highest on the North Island at about 8,200 feet. This volcano was famously used as a stand-in for Mt. Fuji in the Tom Cruise blockbuster “The Last Samurai.” The hike up Egmont was characterized by a steep, scree-covered ascent (scree is broken rock that, depending on its size, can give a surface a sandy quality, bringing you back one step for every two you move forward). The defining moment of the Egmont hike occurred three-quarters of the way up, when I turned around to see my friend seated on a boulder, waving me on with the words, "I'm done. I'm sick of it. I'm not taking another step." He eventually did, and we reached the summit at about midday, and enjoyed delightful peanut-butter sandwiches and crystal-clear views for miles.

The Coromandel Peninsula is New Zealand's Riviera: gorgeous beaches, lush foliage, vibrant villages and a vibe that's so laid back it's almost comatose. It was here that we decided to spend our last week. We camped on Hahei beach, which is a short walk from Cathedral Cove, a beach so named for a rock formation resembling a lancet arch. To my delight, Cathedral Cove is featured prominently in the trailer for the new Narnia movie.