New Zealand
Trip Start
Feb 25, 2007
1
49
72
Trip End
Aug 25, 2007
Christchurch,
South Island,
New Zealand
Friday, June 27, 2008
The views from the plane as we came into land were incredible, snowy mountains all around. I was sick pretty much immediately afetr we landed, but was fine afetr that.
We had heard New Zealand is one of the easiest and safest ways of hitching, so we thought we would give it a go and save some money, we saw the bus prices to get to Queenstown were pretty high, compared to South American buses we are used to.
We walked out of the airport towards the mainroad and got picked up within about 5 minutes by Phil, a crazy Kiwi lorry driver on his way down to Duneden to pick up some Crayfish. He said he always picked up hitchers to make his journey more interesting and was a hilarious bloke, said it was a shame we were Pommies but that we were the good kind of Pommies. He took us about 150km along the main road and dropped us where he headed off toward the coast. On the way he stopped and bought us a Mcbreakfast, even after we insisted we weren't hungry, he came back to the truck with loads of food and coffee, so we ate and drank. He was a pretty knowledgable guy and gave us a good introduction to New Zealand and south island and told us a lot about all the places we were driving through, the drive is absolutely beautiful, with Mt Hutt and its surrounding range towering over the land. After we got talking about Kiwi beers he decided he would stop at the next bar and buy us one to show us how good they are. so at 10.30am, we had a couple of handles of speights beer, pretty good beer, and then he dropped us off on the road where he turned off, refusing to take any money from us.
It was raining pretty heavily and we waited for about 40 minutes before we got picked up, this time a really cool spanish couple renting a campervan for a couple of weeks, on their way to Mt Cook, we jumped in the back and spent a good couple of hours driving with them, they were very friendly and being tourists too, wanted to stop at the lakes and viewpoints we passed, so we could take pictures and have a little explore. they dropped us next to lake Pukaki, where we almost immediately were picked up by a Kiwi heading down to visit a friend in Wanaka, he was a student in Christchurch and a really nice guy, studying and working in the wine industry here, and had worked in Mendoza in Argentina for a year, so new a bit about South America. He took us to where the road split again and we got picked up by a couple heading a bit further south, to Alexander, who could take us to the Queenstown turning where we might finally find someone heading to Queenstown itself. We passed more stunning scenery, bright blue lakes and rivers and incredible mountains, the main road is actually called 'the scenic route' and it is pretty clear why. They were a nice Kiwi couple who wanted to here all about England and had a lot to say about where we should visit in our short time here.
A woman picked us up and said she would take us to Queenstown as she was heading further south, she had been working in the north all week and said she needed people to keep her awake as she had been driving all day. she dropped us.. 15minutes away from Queenstown, on a round about. Again we were picked up practically immediately after getting out of the previous lift, a lady who lived in Queenstown and her little 2 year old daughter. The woman was really freindly, she owns a restaurant in town and had a lot to recommend to us, eventually, after 6 different rides along some of the most impressive roads I have ever seen, and having spent 10 dollars we were in Queenstown.
