Arriving in Auckland, NZ

Over the past two weeks I’ve been racking my brain over what adventure to start writing about. I’ve decided- although daunting at first- to write about the biggest one of them all: New Zealand. It was daunting because at the time of the adventure I did not foresee writing about it in the future. Thankfully iPhone and Canon images have time stamps and halfway through the trip I decided to plan the rest of the trip out in a notebook. That being said, the dates for events and activities that occurred on the South Island will be the most accurate. The images featured in this post, and all to follow that cover the New Zealand adventure, are the sole property of Jonathan (Jay) Berkun and I (Sarah Marsh) respectively. So that about wraps up the intro, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this step by step walk through of our 3 month long grand adventure around the North and South Islands of New Zealand. We’ll start with a little backstory about why we chose New Zealand and how the adventure became a reality.

The idea for this adventure first floated into Jay’s brain sometime during the summer of 2013, right after he had graduated high school. An Upper Saint Regis Lake family friend of his had long spoken of fishing adventures he’d had in New Zealand and spoke of how beautiful the country was. Jay- having a knack for persuasion- convinced me during the winter of 2016 to be involved in the planning for our own adventure, just about 4 months after we had started dating. At the time it was just a dream. No planning really had occurred yet but because it seemed like a pretty cool place, and I was always up for an adventure, I decided sure, why not. A little over a year before we planned to fly to NZ, the trip really started feeling like it was going to be a reality. It hit me like a tidal wave and knocked me back a bit. Jay had been saving for this trip for a few years and I had NOTHING saved. To be honest I broke down and started freaking out and was at the point of saying that he should just go on his own. It was so overwhelming and the planning just wasn’t there on my end. Thankfully we were able to budget it out to be a total of $5000 US dollars per person. I just barely was able to scrape it up by working as a waitress at the White Face Lodge in Lake Placid for the summer while living at Jay’s family’s Camp Red Pines in the Adirondacks with most expenses paid for. By the end of the summer I was exhausted but ready to travel for just about 3 months!

During the days prior to September 10^th, 2017 we made our way down to Groton, MA and stayed at my father’s family’s house to pack up our gear and purchase any last minute items (L.L. Bean sun hat) for our journey. We didn’t need much because some good friends of ours that had traveled to New Zealand a year or two prior had gifted us an outlet converter, reusable bags, tent lights, and a few other items and had lent us two guide books…. that we still haven’t returned, sorry guys! Most of the gear we planned on using we bought in New Zealand and donated at the end of the adventure. On the 10^th my father drove Jay and I to the airport. Because Auckland, NZ is 16 hours ahead of Boston time we arrived 2 days later on the morning of Sept. 12^th.

After a very long flight and little to no sleep we picked up our luggage and our rental car and the journey began.

In the next post you’ll read about our first week in New Zealand where we check in to our Airbnb with Jeroen and Sara, go shopping for the gear to make our tiny little Toyota Yaris rental home, and start our adventure by traveling north towards the town of Russell in the Northland region.

Thanks for reading!