Our New Zealand Road Trip: Adventure, Surprises, and Serenity

New Zealand was the end of our long scuba diving trip around Oceania. We flew into Christchurch, the biggest city on the South Island. When we arrived, it was nighttime, and everything was quiet and empty. At first glance, the roads looked perfect, and everything was very clean. My closest point of comparison was Cairns, Australia, or Maryland in the United States, but I had never seen anyplace quite this pristine before.

As we drove from the rental car agency to downtown Christchurch in search of a hotel. We came across the 24seven Inn, which was a welcome break from our usual cheap hotels. It was brand new, smelled clean, had comfortable beds, great heating, and high-speed Internet. We needed to work, so it was a godsend to know we could rely on a stable connection. It was nicer than our apartments in Bangkok, and we almost did not want to leave.

The next day we spent a full day working and did little but explore the area around our hotel. We drove to a nearby supermarket to buy some fresh, microwavable meals. I felt right at home as much of the food I found at the supermarket was British, which I was used to eating as a child. I purchased a shepherd’s pie, one of my favorite dishes, which I brought back to the hotel for dinner. Later in the evening, we returned to the same shopping center and went to a movie. Just like everything else we had seen so far in Christchurch, the theater was brand new and pristine. There were comfy reclining chairs with fold-out trays. We were both quite exhausted due to jet lag, so it was difficult to stay awake for the movie, but we managed to stay awake on adrenaline and excitement.

The next morning, we woke up early and started driving south out of Christchurch. We were a bit sad to be leaving our hotel, but even more excited to be seeing the beauty of the South Island (and beautiful it was). We made our first stop at Lake Tekapo. It caught our eye as we were driving past, and we pulled off the road. Neither of us had ever seen such a naturally blue lake, and the snowcapped mountains that surrounded it made it look even more surreal. It looked almost too vibrant to be real. We walked to the shore and picked up the rounded stones, trying to skip them along the crystal-clear water, but they were too large. I still managed to make them jump a few times. After a quick photo shoot, we continued.

Our second stop was Lake Pukaki, which was somehow an even more vibrant blue. We spent even more time there taking photos of ourselves and the landscape. We got lucky because there were very few locals or tourists, so we had the lakeshore to ourselves. To the few people who were there, we probably looked like idiots walking around in excitement, snapping dozens of photos, and playing with the rocks.

We continued driving until we made our next stop at the town of Cromwell for dinner. Cromwell looked almost like a set from a romance movie, with cute colorful houses and gorgeous mountains in the backdrop. We were in a bit of a rush to make it to Queenstown by dark, so we ate at Subway. I ordered a cranberry and turkey sandwich on ciabatta bread, which was more gourmet than anything I had ever tried at a Subway in any other country. I savored every bite.

We arrived late at our hostel in Queenstown. Queenstown was much more touristy than we had imagined, so the price of accommodations was quite a bit more than in Christchurch. Not only that, but since we were booking at the last minute, many of the hotels had already been booked up. We managed to find a quaint hostel on the outskirts of the city called QBox Campsite. I loved its simplicity and unique vibe. Each room in the hostel was a repurposed shipping container. They were very simple, with nothing more than a sliding glass door on the front, two to three single beds inside, an air conditioner/heater, a small table, and a stand for our luggage. Down the hill there was a shared kitchen with a refrigerator, an industrial stove, and plenty of storage space for everybody staying at the hostel.

In the morning, we got up early and took a short walk along the shore of Lake Wakatipu and checked out some of the stores downtown. Although the nature was beautiful, downtown was not quite as thrilling as we expected. It was overcrowded with tourists, everything was overpriced, and parking was a nightmare.

Our biggest goal for our time in Queenstown was to try bungee jumping, as it claimed to be the “home of bungee.” We drove our car 5 minutes outside the city to AJ Hackett Bunjy and, without hesitation, signed up. I didn’t feel very nervous at all initially. That was, until they started putting on the ropes around my legs. An older employee came over and pointed out that the younger one had done it incorrectly. I lost my faith in his abilities and was quite frightened that my legs were going to slip out of the straps.

I watched other people do their jumps and saw their techniques. There was a young girl just before me who had clearly been bungee jumping many times before, and she did a graceful dive off the platform as though she were an Olympic diver. She was completely unfazed and unbothered. Wanting a nice photo of my experience, I tried my best to mimic her.

I walked to the edge of the platform, cleared my mind, and just jumped – flubbing my graceful dive. As the rope became fully extended, my body recoiled, and I bounced into the air. I was slowly lowered into a boat on the river below. It was a thrilling experience, and if I had had the money, I would have done it a second time.

Our next major biggest objective of the trip was to see the beautiful national parks. After all, the South Island of New Zealand is best known for its nature. Our goal had been to visit Milford Sound, but it ended up being too far out of our way, and we needed to make sure we were back in Christchurch in time for our flight.

We began driving toward Mount Aspiring National Park. As we headed out of Queenstown, we filled up our tank at the last gas station before entering the national park and bought snacks for the road. There wouldn’t be another station for hundreds of kilometers.

As we approached the national park, the landscapes became more and more picturesque. We were in such a remote area that there were almost no other cars on the road, so we stopped alongside the road and took some photos of the lakes and mountains. I couldn’t think of a more idyllic place to live.

Eventually, we came upon a sign for a waterfall. It wasn’t visible from the road, but we saw parked cars, so we pulled over and decided to make the short hike into the woods. It wasn’t as impressive as we had expected, but the blue-green water and copper-colored rocks were truly unique and made a stop worth our time.

After hours of driving, we were getting to be quite hungry, and we were thrilled to see a place that looked like a restaurant on the map. There was no cell signal in the national park, so we had no way to check if it was truly there or not. Our prayers were answered as it turned out to be a restaurant and we were starved. We were so grateful to have a quick meal on our way through the park.

We continued driving north until we finally made it to almost the northern limits of the park. We pulled off to a beach with a lookout tower and climbed to the top. The beach was quite cold and windy but colorful. We walked up and down the coast for a while but couldn’t stay too long because the sun was beginning to set, and we still had a few hundred kilometers to go back to Christchurch. We stopped for gas and dinner in Haast and drove the rest of the way back to Christchurch in the dark.

The next morning, we worked and spent the afternoon exploring the colorful New Regent Street in Christchurch. We managed to pick up some souvenirs for ourselves and our families. We exploring the city a bit before returning to our hotel for an early night before our flights back to Bangkok.