New Zealand: Western Otago Region

I’d like to start this post by extending a gratitude to all those who have voted today. I find it very important to vote, no matter what party you support. Thank you for making your voices heard and tomorrow we will have an idea of what direction this country will be taking next. Now onto the post.

This was my favorite region of this trip. I had plenty of memorable and insanely fun experiences otherwise, but this area was the most visually striking and beautiful, and I had a lot of fun exploring it. This area is also very memorable to Jay because of a specific experience he had, but more on that later. Below you’ll read about the few days we spent around Lake Wanaka, our night at a hostel in Queenstown, our failed attempt at doing the Routeburn Track Great Walk, and a few camping nights we spent around Queenstown before heading off to the next leg of our adventure!

After sight seeing on our way down to Lake Wanaka we set up our tent at the Albert Town Campground where we’d spend the next four nights. We found this campground on the CamperMate app, an app we used quite a bit to find campgrounds during this trip. The campground was more of a camping area because it was very basic with no designated spots, so people would just set up their tents or drive in with vans and leave a good distance between each other. Since we were right on the Clutha River, or known in Maori as Mata-Au, we spent the first night taking MANY photos of the sunset over the river.

The next morning we set out to explore the town of Wanaka. The weather was fantastic and let us have wonderful views of the mountains and lake so we decided to do a partial walk around the lake. Our first stop was The Hand that Nurtures sculpture by Llew Summers near the main beach on the lake right next to town.

If you follow the beach and a path clockwise from town around the lake you eventually come to the famous Wanaka Tree. The tree is an iconic natural feature in New Zealand and primarily became so because of social media. No matter social medias part in its fame, it is still quite amazing to see a tree growing when its surrounded by water and the backdrop to it is quite beautiful with the Southern Alps. During the pandemic however someone took it upon themselves to vandalize this tree and cut off the large branch that often touches the water. It is beyond me why someone would do such a thing, plus the effort to get out there in the first place would not be worth it, but hopefully with all the strength this tree has had to survive in water and the elements on its own, it will survive this too.

After our walk there was still quite a bit of daylight to do something else in the area, so on a whim, Jay decided to learn how to fly a plane. I will say this wasn’t completely random. When we were staying at a campground just north of Napier on the North Island there were a few guys that we met that were going to learn how to fly nearby the next morning. The whole time we stayed at this campground we watched small planes circling above us and it got Jay curious, plus when we got to Wanaka and saw that it was an option, what better place was there to learn? So now he has some time to put towards eventually getting a pilots license if he so chooses, and we got to see Lake Wanaka from high up, which was pretty darn cool.

The next day we decided to go mountain biking. There is a network of trails throughout the area and portions of the trail offer great views of Lake Wanaka and the surrounding mountains. This mountain biking experience didn’t compare to our mountain biking experience in Rotorua. The views were way more amazing around Lake Wanaka but the trails themselves weren’t nearly as well maintained and exciting as in Rotorua. We enjoyed ourselves nevertheless, but if we were to choose one place over the other, Rotorua would have our vote.

The next morning we packed up our gear and made our way down to Queenstown. Because snow wasn’t too much of an issue around this time, we took the Cordrona Valley Rd. that heads you through the mountains versus around. The views were spectacular, so as we made our descent down to Queenstown we stopped many times to take in the views.

Once we arrived in Queenstown we made our way to the hostel we’d be staying in for the night, Black Sheep Backpackers. We decided to stay in a hostel because the next morning we’d be starting the Routeburn Track Great Walk and wanted to be able to up and go without having to pack up all the camping gear. We had a pleasant stay at Black Sheep Backpackers. The next morning we grabbed our gear and took a shuttle to the trailhead. It began raining soon after we started hiking and a little while in we were pretty soaked. While hiking we passed another hiker that warned us that it was snowing higher up and that they may be closing the trail above the hut we’d be staying at that night. Once we reached the Routeburn Falls Hut we were told the same news. We still decided to stay the night and enjoy our surroundings, and even better we got to experience a winter wonderland in the mountains.

In the morning we made our way back down the trail and got another beautiful mountain view with snowcaps. Once we arrived at the trailhead we waited for the shuttle to pick us up, got our car, and made our way to the Moke Lake Campground.

The Moke Lake Campground is surrounded by mountains with the lake right there. It was a tad cold to swim but we enjoyed a beautiful sunset…and one of those sunset photos I photobombed. The next day we headed back into Queenstown and wandered around running errands. Even though it was about 70 degrees during the day, that night it was suppose to get super cold so we decided to put our gear in the tent and just sleep in the car. The next morning we awoke to the tent caved in from snow, snowcapped mountains, snow covered ground, and a snow covered car.

After dealing with our broken tent we decided it’d be nice to stay in another hostel so we packed up our broken tent and wet gear and made our way to the Southern Laughter Hostel. We were somewhat sad to leave this beautiful area the next morning but were excited to finally get to do a backpacking trip that wouldn’t end up getting cancelled due to snow. We made our way to a campground a little ways from the Hollyford Track Trailhead where we’d pack up our gear for a 6 night backpacking trip.

Next week I’ll cover our 6 night backpacking trip on the Hollyford Track and our experience on a ferry in the Milford Sound! As always thank you for reading my post. Hope you have a wonderful week and hopefully tomorrow we’ll have different leaders for this country. See you next week!

Mahalo and Kia Ora!