Queenstown – Auckland: In a driving hostel

After two weeks of traveling together through New Zealand with Chris, our visit to Queenstown could be the icing on the cake. The town is very popular because of the many daredevil activities you can do and the great festivals that take place there. Where many bars and restaurants offer discounts, a bar in Queenstown does not have to because the city sells itself. You make sure that your day is filled with adrenalin, by making a bungee jump or skydive, so you can party until the morning on your adrenaline trip.

Chris and I arrived in Queenstown during Winterfest, a two-week festival to celebrate the start of the winter season. For the weekend all hostels were booked out weeks in advance, therefore we had no place to sleep at the first night. No problem, because it seemed like a nice experience to spend a night on the street and play cards with the homeless. That night we had a lot of fun in the nightclubs,  like there was nothing to worry about. Until it suddenly was five o’clock. All the clubs closed their doors and we there we stood in the street in the freezing cold. Two experienced homeless people that were going to build their home with a sleeping bag and a bag of clothes under the roof of the McDonald's. But this was  not the case, we were two lost guys who had no idea what to do. We aimlessly walked three laps around the deserted city center, where the best place I could find to sleep was a park bench. We saw no other homeless people and had no Internet to view the documentary "Step into the shoes of a homeless'. After an hour wandering in the cold I still had no idea where to sleep without waking up frozen, so we decided to stop the challenge and sleep on the couch in our hostel of the next day.

Three hours later we woke up on the couch in the living room of a large, fully booked hostel. As Chris said it well 'we felt like a truck had driven over our body'. We were well prepared for the Jucy-Run, an obstacle-run of 500 meters on the beach in a Jucy boxer. The winner received $ 250 and a free Jucy camper for a week, so everyone involved went for the win and not just to participate. The competition attracted a large audience, people who were wondering how 40 frozen bodies would work through the course.
The starting signal sounded and my body seemed already frozen. I started at last, ran through the water and could thereby luckily overtake some people. I was halfway through 6th, but I got stuck when I had to crawl through a net. Eventually I stumbled even over my own feet and I came in 7th on the finish. Not enough for a final place. In the women race there was a participant so affected by the cold, that she ran in the wrong direction. I was unsure if her breasts were real, but this act gave me the answer.


After three days in Queenstown we really had to get out of here, to ensure that I would not do pub crawls in my remaining two weeks in New Zealand. However, we found our own prize; a free car for 12 days to drive to Auckland. Chris extended his stay in New Zealand by two weeks so that we together could visit the places that we had missed hitchhiking.


The first stop of our smooth driving Toyota Yaris was Milford Sound, also known as the 8th wonder of the world. Five companies offering the same tour were fighting for the most customers. We chose the Jucy Cruise, a large boat with a capacity for 180 people that had more staff than tourist on board on our tour. My questions got answered by three people so I was soon talking with many people. I was talking about hockey with an Indian man with a German girl about the position of the moon. Bare essentials talks as you go through the 8th wonder of the world cruising would say. Yet I can recall more of these talks than of Milford Sound, a group of mountains at the waterfront. The mountains were great, the area untouched and it was impressive that a large group of mountains came out from the water. Still, I had seen similar nature creations in New Zealand, maybe I become a little spoiled with astonishing views.
That feeling was reinforced when I saw in the afternoon, after a walk of 2,5 hours. Lake Marian is a crystal clear lake surrounded by mountains with a beautiful relief, various colors and snow at the top. The details of Lake Marian impression me more than the colossal Milford Sound.
 

If you drive by car through New Zealand you realize how unpopulated some parts of New Zealand are. Places indicated on the road at 200km distance turn out to be as big as a street and while you are enjoying your drive on the winding roads you can suddenly become stressed because your tank becomes empty and the next fuel station is 150km further. To save money, Chris and I slept regularly in the car, but only after we had some fun. In the most desolate places we were looking for the only bar that was open and spent our evenings with local fatties, Maoris we could not understand and a barmaid who was looking for weed buddies.
One of us drove and hummed along with our playlist of 30 songs, the other slept and filled the battery. When it was time to see something we hardly hit the brakes to wake up the other, grabbed our camera, made a short walk and looked around, and drove to the next place. It was a while since I had traveled so comfortable and slept so much. Despite the beauty of the country, I missed the excitement of the lifts or the feeling of riding a motorbike. This is not the way I like to travel, but at this time it was functional.
 

We visited the artistic Napier, student town Dunedin with a charming main street but no students and the historic settlement Omarau. The last village we met by accident and I was surprised by its old center and numerous artfully places. Omarau is characterized by a swing which is formed by the large front wheel of an old bicycle, a basketball backboard that looks like a gear and trees in which different animals have been drawn. Ordinary things have gotten a twist that gives you a different perspective. In museum Steampunk HQ I saw futuristic humans and machines, which are in a pre-war state. A man of metal, a man with the face of a wolf and a motor so big that it occupies six driving lanes has to be the future, but are so corroded that they seem to come from the dinosaur era. After seeing villages with many similarities Omarau is a nice change.
 

During hitchhiking I missed two areas that I have wanted to visit; Abel Tasman National Park and Coromandel. These two points gave our journey to the north some direction, but were ultimately bad benchmarks for our trip back to Auckland. The Abel Tasman National Park can only be visited on foot and you have to enter the park with a canoe or water taxi. To see the best part of the park you need at least two days, time we did not have. Coromandel, where you can create your own thermal pool on the beach through the thermal activity, was not accessible by car, because the road was flooded
 

Luckily Rotorua was a reliable replacement. For the first time in my life went rafting. Encased in a dry suite, a life jacket and a helmet, I could barely move. During the rafting, the guide told us a few commands that only got followed up properly by a few guys. Nevertheless, we went through the first rapids easily and were confident for a jump of 7 meters down a waterfall. The guides made a few jokes and made me feel that the jump could not go wrong. We made the jump and three seconds later everyone was in the water and the raft laid upside down. A guide quickly jumped on the raft and screamed to everyone where to swim to. The boat was reversed and everyone could sit back in his massage chair and spend the rest of the trip eating peanuts and popcorn. I found the rafting a great experience and would like to do this more often.
 

My trip in New Zealand ended where it began, in Auckland. The last five weeks I have seen some amazing things. Bright green, sulfate-rich lakes, drinking water, clean lakes surrounded by mountains and hilly landscapes with grasslands, autumn colored trees, mossy rocks and turquoise waters. I also saw a penguin couple moving into their house on the rocks, a colony of seals and three sea lions that made a sprint to the sea. It does not matter where you look and what you like, you will see things you've never seen before and that give you a ‘’wow-feeling’’. In many countries, it depends on your age, travel experience, interests, etc. whether it is a suitable country for you to visit, but New Zealand is so diverse and easily approached that I can highly recommend it to everyone.