We left at 8pm from Houston and arrived in Auckland around 5 am two days later. The International Date Line is a jerk. We went through security (make absolutely sure you declare any and all foods, you will get an on the spot $400 fine – we didn’t get one but people do). We tried to be good kids and cleaned off all our shoes and hiking boots so we didn’t bring in any invasive plants on our shoes. Many seeds can be smaller than a speck of pepper and NZ has over 80,000 native land-based species, 80% of which can only be found in NZ.

Rather than drive south we made the decision after we booked our international flight to fly from Auckland to Queenstown. In hindsight we could’ve, should’ve, would’ve just booked it as a connecting flight. But we didn’t. So we booked a flexi-fare and were able to change the flight to an earlier one the day-of which was awesome. From Auckland we flew over NZ along the western coast which as an awesome way to see many of the places we were going to be going to later (Taupo Lake, Marlborough Wine country, Western Coast). New Zealand is also known as Aotearoa, a Māori word meaning “land of the long white cloud”. The mountains we flew over looked like bowls holding long white clouds. It was hard to tell how deep mountains were as most were clouded in, well, clouds.

As we descended into Queenstown the pilot said we were flying over the bungee bridge and we were able to see the beautiful Kawaru gorge (where we would later bungee jump).

Queenstown is the adventure capitol of New Zealand (sorry to anyone who thinks it’s Rotorua). At any given moment you can look up and see orange parachutes in the sky as paragliders float down to earth. Sky diving vans and bungee courtesy busses whip around the downtown area. The downtown area itself is 1/3rd restaurants, 1/3rd booking shops for adventures sports and 1/3rd tourist shops. Looking out over lake you’ll see the jet boats making hockey-stops and taking fast turns to delight tourists. Bob’s Peak, just over the city, has bobsledding and one of the steepest zip lines in the world. There’s still time to slow down, though. And this is how we started our day after we dropped off our luggage at our hostel (private room at Reaver’s Lodge, three nights set us back $278USD if you’re wondering).

We spent most of our first day just walking around in the sunshine. We didn’t really sleep on the 14 hour flight so we were pretty knackered but the only way to really get over jetlag is to sleep and eat when you’re supposed to (in-country eating and sleeping times). So we pushed through the first full day. We didn’t bring any toiletries so we walked around grocery stores and pharmacies on a hunt for these. We also generally enjoy looking at all the things we have in common or the things we do differently.

The big goal we had (besides stay up until bedtime) was to have a pie and a flat white.

New Zealand pies are typically meat suspended in gravy with a flaky (almost phyllo dough) crust all in a handheld little pie. I think we probably had 19 pies in the 19 days we were in NZ, likely more. They’re cheap (around $6 New Zealand which is like $3.50) and are a little meal in a paper bag. Historically, they can be traced back to English settlers who brought the idea of pie and then someone was like, “what if this was smaller and had cheese in it?” Every bakery and gas station has a section of 3-10 different flavors with the most common ones we saw being: steak (and cheese), mincemeat (and cheese), steak and mushroom, steak and kidney, butter (curry) chicken. But there were also more unique options like chicken cranberry and brie; mint and lamb; venison; chicken satay; vegetarian and ocean based ones like mussels or oysters.

Another very obvious NZ thing is a flat white. This is probably the most common coffee drink, along with a long black. A long black is 2 shots of espresso poured over hot water to maintain the creamy top (not to be confused with an Americano which is an espresso watered down to mimic drip coffee). A flat white is like a cappuccino in that it is a double shot of espresso topped with silky, steamed milk. It allegedly started with a barista not foaming the cream for a cappuccino properly hence it being a flat-white. A large flat white just has more milk in it, not extra shots of espresso.

So our first day was spent shopping, drinking flat whites and eating pies.

The next day in Queenstown we decided to go hiking. We were between a few different hikes but chose to go up Queenstown Hill around 5K or 3.2 miles. When we had been planning our trip to NZ we weren’t 100% sure what to expect with the flora and fauna. We didn’t really picture anything when we thought of New Zealand. Turns out it is an extraordinarily lush place, a deep jungle. It’s so lush that moss and lichen was growing off trees which were growing its own ferns and vines off the side of a cliff. Growth upon growth, green upon green. For two kids from the desert this was fascinating, I swear I have around 30 photos of just plants.

As we walked on our hike, though, it suddenly looked closer to Colorado where there were pine trees (?!). This was unexepcted.

It turns out these trees are so invasive they’re threatening to cover 20% of New Zealand if they aren’t controlled and are considered NZ’s worst environmental disaster. Consider this quote: “introduced predators kill an estimated 25 million native birds each year and we have one of the highest proportions of native species at risk of extinction in the world” [source]” Saying the pine trees are the worst is really saying something.

Different places said the were were introduced for different reasons – for fun, as an experiment, to feel like home with familiar trees, to get in the Christmas spirit, to stop erosion (Queenstown), it was so windy nothing native could grow (Wellington). There are 10 different types of trees – all evergreens and are are just lumped together as “wildling trees” [source]. There were interpretive signs all over the trail talking about how awful they are and even asked the hikers to go ahead and pull any if they were up for it. Something we learned quickly from biosecurity and the signs is that it’s hard to be an island nation. Going into Japan we often walked over sticky pads like what laboratory cleanrooms to get any seeds off your shoes. Once it’s here, good luck. New Zealand is just so lush that anything grows here. So if you have a seed or plant you bring in accidentally it’s probably going to grow. They even introduced California Redwoods up north that are doing great.

It was very blustery but beautiful at the top of the hill, we walked around more but the light rain was turning sideways so we headed down. Like I said, we’re desert kids so we aren’t sure about this whole water-coming-from-the-sky-thing.

For the rest of the day we walked around downtown and got dinner at a Korean restaurant. A supermoon/total lunar eclipse was supposed to happen and NZ would have the best view of it. Our plan to see this was thwarted by the fact we would have to stay up late and couldn’t even make it to the sunset. We snapped this picture and went back to the hotel.