Welcome to the fourth and last installment of my recap for my April trip to New Zealand! If you haven’t already, check out my previous post for part 3.
Auckland → Bay of Islands → Auckland →Wellington→ Queenstown →Milford Sound → Aoraki Mount Cook → Christchurch →Auckland →Hobbiton → Auckland
Aoraki/Mount Cook
The bus ride to Aoraki Mount Cook was just under 5 hours, booked as part of my Intercity pass and turned out to be part of a GreatSights New Zealand tour. As far as I could tell, this meant a cushier bus and frequent stops to take photos of the (as always) beautiful scenery. In particular, Lake Pukaki near Mount Cook owes its brilliant blue color to the minerals in the runoff from two nearby glaciers.
We also made a stop at a fruit stand where I got my first taste of a golden kiwifruit – a little bigger than a regular kiwi and minus the fur, and the taste was slightly different and in my opinion, better. I tasted one at the stand and then bought one to eat later.
Plus, since it was part of a tour, I had the option to add a buffet lunch at the Aoraki Hermitage Hotel to the cost of my bus fare, so I didn’t have to worry about finding food when I arrived at Mount Cook around lunchtime.
I dropped my bag at the YHA Aoraki Mt Cook Backpackers hostel – stunningly situated in the middle of Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, surrounded by picturesque mountains, so you get panoramic views no matter which way you look. It’s quiet and peaceful and peaceful, and the hostel itself is more like a large log cabin and fits in perfectly with the surroundings.
After picking one of the eight beds in my shared dorm for the night, I walked over to the Hermitage Hotel to claim what turned out to be quite a good lunch for the price, location, and superb view.
After lunch, it was time for my tour of the Tasman Glacier! This was probably the one thing I was most anticipating before the trip, since I am not a person who thrives in cold weather and therefore had never seen a glacier before.
The tour left from the hotel, where we drove a short distance and commenced a mini hike over to Tasman Lake, formed from the glacial melt of the Tasman Glacier, and from there we got into these absurdly tiny little speedboats to get closer to the glacier itself as well as the icebergs on the water.
My friend who lives in Alaska tells me that Tasman was less than impressive, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then, she gets a sideeye. 😒
The next day, I headed off on the long ride to Christchurch in order to catch my evening flight back to Auckland. Unfortunately, I only had an hour in Christchurch before I needed to get the bus to the airport, but I made the most of that hour and found took advantage of the food vendor offerings in Cathedral Square to grab something to eat while I walked around town.
Christchurch was hit hard by a massive earthquake in 2011 and remnants of the devastation are still visible in places. Christchurch Cathedral was still severely damaged, and it really hurts to see what was obviously a beautiful slice of history looking as it does.
I really liked Christchurch and would love to go back one day to really explore. I was there around sunset, and some of the photos I was able to get were just gorgeous.
Hobbiton
Very few people understand the extent to which I am not a morning person, but for Hobbiton I dragged myself out of my very comfortable bed at the Haka Lodge Auckland sometime in the 5 o’clock hour so that I could shower/get ready, re-pack my stuff, and move it to the storage room before meeting my 6:25 am pickup. In hindsight, I probably should have sprung for a hotel that night, given how much longer than usual it took me to organize myself while precariously climbing down from the top bunk and trying not to wake any of the other 4 people in the room. However, since I didn’t actually make it to the hostel until around midnight and had to be up at 5, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay hotel money for such a short amount of time, so I used a handful of Chase Ultimate Rewards points to cover my hostel bed for my last night before flying back home.
For my last day, I had scheduled the Bush and Beach Hobbiton Express Tour, which was one of my limited options with a schedule guaranteed to get me back to Auckland in a comfortable enough amount of time to make my international flight.
Bush and Beach was actually my third or fourth choice of a tour company due to pricing, but for some reason, the other companies offering similar timelines had this weird chicken and egg scenario going on that threatened to make my somewhat Type A brain completely explode. The companies wouldn’t book me on their tours – actually, one DID book me, and then they refunded my money – because I was traveling solo, was the first to book, and they wouldn’t operate the tour without a minimum number of people (between 2 and 6). Like…what? How do you get to your minimum if you reject your first booking?! My friend Veronica assured me this was a “New Zealand thing” but the American in me just can’t comprehend turning down business.
In any case, Bush and Beach turned out to be the perfect choice. The pickup was on time, the driver was friendly and super knowledgeable about everything we passed through on the way and all things Hobbit. I learned a ton of information about the movie set and how it came to be a permanent tourist attraction, and the tour of the set was an unbeatable experience that I believe would have been equally as enchanting had I not been a fan of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
After an awesome afternoon at the Hobbiton Movie Set, it was time to head back home. This was my first solo trip in a very long time, and it was absolutely perfect. I consider myself so lucky to have been in the position to jump on that United/Air New Zealand sale to make this trip possible in 2018. It was a trip I hadn’t planned on taking for several more years, and even though it was relatively short, I had the most amazing time.
