Hiking, driving, camping. There you go, that about sums up the majority of my first week in New Zealand. It flew by, and I’m already wishing I had more time here. New Zealand is the closest I’ve felt to home in nearly four months. Spending so much time outside has been relaxing, even with some long days on the feet. This is week one of New Zealand, and I have a strong feeling the weeks here will continue getting better. Let’s get into it.
LOCATIONS
- Auckland, New Zealand (Jan 30 – Jan 31)
- Waitomo, New Zealand (Jan 31 – Feb 1)
- New Plymouth, New Zealand (Feb 1 – Feb 2)
- Wellington, New Zealand (Feb 2 – Feb 4)
- Tongariro National Park, New Zealand (Feb 4 – Feb 5)
ACTIVITIES
Pouakai Circuit – Mt Taranaki
It was foggy as I drove into New Plymouth. I knew Mt Taranaki was near, but all but the base was covered by the fog. I had some time to kill before I could check into my stay for the night, so I went to the coast on the edge of town and went for an out and back run. As I was running out, the skies were clearing and it was perfect for my run. Halfway through, I turned around, and Taranaki was fully unveiled in the sunshine. A single, perfect volcano shooting up into the sky. After three and a half long months, I could finally say “the mountain is out” again.
The next day I did a day hike nearby the mountain called the Pouakai circuit. I started through rainforest, climbed up to some lower “peaks”, went across a marshy valley and worked my way towards Taranaki over 15 miles. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky with the weather for my hike. Out of the six hours I spent out, Taranki was once again mostly shrouded in clouds for all but about 15 minutes. Frankly, I was pretty disappointed. It was an early morning and a long day that just didn’t end up being nearly as cool as I’d hoped. It had so much potential and I had very high expectations. On a different day with clear skies, it would have been absolutely incredible.
Disappointed as I was, I enjoyed my 15 minutes of mountain visibility as much as I could. All in all, it’s still hard to complain about getting some good miles under the feet in a new area. You can’t win them all, and there are many more hikes to come.
You can enjoy the best 15 minutes of the hike and skip the rest through the pictures.
Wētā Workshop Tour
I walked in the gate and saw a ten foot tall cave troll from the hobbit movies. My lips immediately started to turn upwards. As I walked through the entrance to the gift shop where my tour began, my eyes were bouncing all over the walls looking from Lord of the Rings figurines, to a wide assortment of Tolkien books, to maps of Middle Earth, and finally to the wall of swords. At this point my eyes were wide and my lips had formed the full excited smile of a kid in a candy store.
Wētā Workshop is the studio that did the vast majority of costume and prop design for the Lord of the Rings films. They’ve worked on a host of other movies as well, including Avatar, The Chronicles of Narnia, and King Kong to name a few. They offer a guided tour through their studio in Wellington that gives you the chance to see many of the costumes and swords from various films, some open windows into their team members actively working on creating new items, and how they go about making prosthetics for characters.
I haven’t gotten the chance to really nerd out on anything in a while, and boy oh boy was my inner child happy. I’ve also never learned much in the past about what the process of costume and prop design is like, and it was fascinating. Six years were spent working on the tens of thousands of pieces they made for the Lord of the Rings set. Inspecting the costumes and weapons up close really gives perspective on how much painstaking detail is put into each and every piece that’s made. It was very impressive. One of my favorite parts was getting to see their master swordsmaker (yes, that is his official title) working on sanding details into a new sword.
If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan and ever find yourself in New Zealand, I’d highly recommend this one. A lot of the pieces are owned by the films rather than Wētā, so photography opportunities were limited, but I was able to get a few in some allowed areas.
Tongariro Northern Circuit
(this week’s cover photo – Oturere hut and Mt Ngauruhoe at sunrise)
The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is well known as the best day hiking track on the North island. It takes you between Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe (which also happens to be Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings films) up to the Red Crater of the mountain, and across lava fields passing by alpine lakes and sulfur vents.
There’s a circuit variation in the same area that loops 28 miles all the way around Mt Ngauruhoe, and intersects with the best parts of the alpine crossing day hike. With several huts along the way, you can split the trip into 2, 3, or 4 days. I opted to do it in two days with a single overnight stop at Oturere hut.
These were by far the best days of hiking I’ve done since leaving home. Up there with some of my favorites I’ve ever had. The weather redeemed itself from my Taranaki hike with beautiful sunny bluebird skies. No clouds obstructed any of the best viewpoints, and I even got lucky with both a cool sunset and sunrise from the hut.
Circling an active volcano means that different valleys look vastly different as you cross from ridge to ridge, all due to where debris from old eruptions has concentrated. The first day went from lush grassy shrubs, to creek crossings, to forests, and ended across a barren wasteland of a lava field that felt like another planet. Day two consisted of a lot more lava fields early on in the day, passing by the Emerald and Blue lakes on the way up to the peak of the hike at the Red Crater. From that point on, it was a long descent through another massive lava field and back into the brush I began in. I would have loved to summit, but many of the mountains in the national park have significant cultural and ancestral importance to the Māori people. Out of respect for those traditions, is it asked that people don’t climb to the top of these mountains.
Even so, it was epic being able to smile in awe at Mt Ngauruhoe for hours on end. My body was beat by the end of each day, but I couldn’t have been more content. My mind was quiet (a rarity) and I was utterly captivated just looking around. Hard to beat a few days like that. It’s got me stoked for more hiking to come on the South Island.
I took a lot of pictures over my two days. I’ve narrowed down my favorites to give different perspectives of the hike. If you want to see a larger spread, you can find them here.
REFLECTIONS
Immersion in Nature
On both my hikes this week I brought headphones to help pass the solo miles. Out of my 18 hours hiking over three days, I used them a grand total of zero. Most of the time I’d completely forgotten I even had them. There’s something captivating about sitting in slightly more remote places of nature. It’s a form of entertainment in itself, and there’s so much to take in walking along. Sounds of rivers running, cicadas chirping, rustles in the bushes, even the breeze through the trees. Birds flying overhead, lakes so still they form a mirror, forests, lava fields, and bush all in your field of view in a single moment. I find that just as my legs and my eyes are free to move as they desire, so is my mind. There’s no objective, just roaming.
This week I’ve been thinking about how much time I spend in nature at home as well as how much the collective “we” spend. I think many of us, including myself, are nature deficient in our day to day lives. Instead of spending six hours hiking in a day, we spend even more than that looking out a window from our desks. My commute most days was from my bedroom, to my office, to my kitchen, not even needing to step foot outside if I didn’t care to. Bike rides often fill this gap for me, but my primary focus when I am riding is training rather than relaxing in the scenery around me which creates a slightly different experience of being outside.
Now, I’m not advocating everyone should go walk around outside six hours a day every day. That’s clearly unrealistic, and probably undesirable for many. My focus here is also not on exercise (although that is probably equally as important). I am advocating for building a regular rhythm of being outside for at least 15-30 minutes multiple times a week with no agenda or entertainment other than letting both the feet and the mind wander.
Research has demonstrated numerous health benefits from time outside including improved stress management, memory, focus, and overall happiness. In addition to these, I have tangibly noticed several other changes in myself. I find my energy levels are higher. I process my days and experiences much more actively, which leads me to being more present and emotionally regulated. I am noticeably more content. My mind moves slower and more methodically.
My encouragement is to spend some additional intentional time outside over the next few weeks (yes, even if it’s cold. You can put more clothes on). Just observe. Observe what you hear. Observe what you see. Observe what you smell and what you feel. Observe your own body and mind and let them lead you where they want to. And finally, observe what changes you notice in yourself as you go. Let me know what you find.
NEXT UP
Amy and Becca are also traveling New Zealand, having now been joined by Becca’s boyfriend Ted and his best friend Travis. We’re taking different routes along the way, but the last few days happened to be one of the spots we were in the same spot at the same time.
We spent the last two days poking around Rotorua together. It’s a smelly little town known for its loads of geothermal activity (hence the frequent strong whiffs of sulfuric scents), and its own redwoods forest that has loads of mountain biking and hiking trails throughout its nearly 14000 acres.
My time on the North Island has quickly come to a close. Outside of a Hobbiton tour, it’s shaped up to be a mellow remainder of the week. It’s given me a chance to recover a bit from the last one chock full of movement and driving before I start running quick again down South.
Much more hiking and crazy views to come. Stay tuned.
As always, if you know anyone that you think would be interested in anything I’m writing about, I’d ask that you consider sharing this with them.
Thanks for being here. Talk to you next week.
– Trevor