New Zealand 2025
If you’re here just for Natasha and my Lord of the Rings photos, click here. (editor (aka Natasha) note: the recreation shots in this album might be my crowning achievement in life)
OR if you want an abbreviated picture album of our trip, click here.
Honeymoon!
After spending a lovely Christmas holiday in North Texas baking sfogliatelle with my family and drinking too much soju at karaoke with our friends in Dallas, it was finally time for our belated honeymoon!
Since we went to India after our wedding to see Natasha’s family, we didn’t have the free time to take a full honeymoon. Plus, it’s tough to call it a honeymoon if your Mom and your in-laws are there 😜.
Travel DFW -> AKL
Since we were in Dallas for the holidays we took the direct flight from DFW to Auckland on an American Airlines 787. The flight was ~13 hours, but fortunately we both got some sleep. Unfortunately, I had to use a DuoLingo streak freeze (editor note: it’s the small things in life that really matter lol) because we crossed the international dateline and simply skipped a day 🤦♂.
We landed in the morning and hit the ground running. Cool New Zealand travel fact: you assume the time differential is bad, but for us west coasters, New Zealand only feels like a three hour difference because it’s 21 hours ahead (which is essentially just three hours behind and then add a day). Maybe if I start working for a west coast company in the future, I’ll spend some winter time in New Zealand!
Auckland
We caught an Uber from the airport to the city and dropped our bags at our slightly less-than-welcoming accommodations. We generally spend our vacation money on food and excursions and get the bare necessities at our hotels/AirBNBs. We may have gone a bit too low on this one. It was….fine. No reception desk, small beds, an even smaller shower that leaked, and one outlet (lol). It was the hotel you get when you are staying for one night before your 3am flight departure. Alas, we were soon out exploring Auckland.
Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand, with a little under half the population living there. It’s a pretty run-of-the-mill “big-ish” city. We walked through some of the parks and down through the modern waterfront. We took a few pictures of the Sky Tower. We grabbed some sandwiches at a Jewish Deli run by an ex-pat Chicagoan. And then we went to the Zoo!
Auckland Zoo
From reading online it was pretty clear that Auckland wasn’t going to be a the gem of our trip. However it has a great zoo, showcasing animals literally from the other side of the world for us. Here’s some of our highlights:
Also seen but not pictured: lions, rhinos, monkeys with mustaches, emu, wetas (nightmare fuel), and the famous kiwi bird.
That night we tried to flex our “it’s our honeymoon give us free stuff” muscles. We received exactly one free scoop of sorbet from the nice Japanese restaurant we visited. Honestly this trick didn’t work super well for us because we came to learn that about 10% of New Zealand’s population at any given time is honeymooning Americans.
We got some beauty rest that evening to make up for our limited plane sleep.
Waiheke Island
Our next day was spent on Auckland’s “Wine Island”. Waiheke Island is a barrier island east of Auckland that is reachable by a short ferry ride.
We got up and grabbed bagels at our now favorite spot: Best Ugly Bagels. I think it’s owned by the same gentleman that owned the Jewish deli. We ate there three times on the trip 😆. Then we hopped on the ferry with all the revelers.
Yes, revelers…because it was new year’s eve 2024! And the ferry was full of twenty-somethings planning to pregame at the wineries before heading to a big music festival on the beach. We had previously decided to be a bit more toned-down and respectable (harrumph harrumph) than that. This was not exclusively because we were still a little sleep deprived from the plane…possibly because we are no longer twenty-somethings. But it was great people watching!
After taking in the views of Auckland’s harbor we arrived and began walking to the town center near Oneroa beach. Along the way Natasha tapped me on the arm and said “is that Kristina?” And alas we then said hello to our college friend and her husband (more honeymooners!). Small world!
At Oneroa beach we parted ways and wished each other happy honeymoons. Natasha and I had some time before our winery tasting so we explored the local beach and grabbed some lunch.
Natasha isn’t really that into wine. So even though it’s a great pastime in Seattle, we rarely do wine tasting by ourselves. For that reason (and a reluctance to accidentally getting smashed) we only went to one winery on Waiheke. Our choice, Batch Winery, had a wonderful view of the island from up on top of a hill.
After our tasting we hung out on their terrace/hill eating snacks and drinking more wine from their wine food truck. We also got to enjoy a fair amount of wind…which would become recurring nuisance during the trip. Luckily none of my oysters were defenestrated by the gale, and we greatly enjoyed our afternoon windswept leisure.
One small side quest I should mention is that getting a cab on Waiheke is tough. We almost missed our wine tasting trying to get Uber to work (it doesn’t on Waiheke) and then trying the local app (need a NZ phone) and then trying to hail one (tough on new years eve.) When we did finally manage to flag one down, we scheduled him to come back and get us at an exact time. To and from the winery he regaled us with stories and commentary that were …shall we say… a bit much.
We headed back to Auckland to celebrate the New Year.
New Year’s Eve!
Like respectable thirty-somethings we welcomed the new year with a kebab, a nap, and then a drowsy walk outside our hotel room to watch the countdown and fireworks. We enjoyed being the first amongst our friends to celebrate 2025.
Rotorua
The next morning we got another bagel and picked up our rental car, a brand new Subaru Outback sporting very strange headrests.
I spent the next couple of hours remembering how to drive on the left side of the road. This was my second time doing so, after driving my family around Ireland for a week. It starts feeling normal surprisingly fast.
Our next port of call was Rotorua, a town built on the shores of a lake that is actually the caldera of a volcano. Thus the town is known for all of it’s geysers, hot springs, and other cool thermal stuff. Our accommodations this time were much nicer. We rented a super modern tiny house atop a hill with beautiful views overlooking the lake.
Te Puia
While in Rotorua we spent a day at a Maori cultural center and geothermal area called Te Puia. The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand, who arrived in the early to mid 1300s via several waves of canoe armadas from other islands in the Pacific. Many folks outside of New Zealand are familiar with the ceremonial Maori war dance/preparation called the haka (see video below). You may have seen it in New Zealand Parliamant, the All Blacks rugby team, or The Fate of the Furious.
Our visit to the cultural center was fascinating. The mission of the place is to preserve the Maori culture, which has seemingly been preserved far better than many indigenous cultures who had early encounters with European colonists.
During the tour we explored the geyser and geothermal area, learned about their kiwi bird breeding program, and watched Maori artists practice traditional crafts like wood carving and weaving.
Note: if you’ve never seen a kiwi before (I hadn’t), they are these cute little nocturnal birds that are super endangered. All the zoos/exhibits are dark on the inside during the day so that the bird is active while people are visiting, then they turn the lights at night. It made it tough to take pictures though, so check out this video.
After this, we ate a dinner of hāngī, or pit oven cooked meats and vegetables and watched a demonstration of traditional Maori dances (including the haka).
Hot Springs
The following was a big day. We got up relatively early to enjoy another geothermal attraction of Rotorua: hot springs. The spa we went to pipes in the water from underground and patrons may swim in the mineral pools or do like we did and book a private hot spring overlooking the lake.
Wairere Falls
Once we’d soaked up all the natural minerals and stuff that are supposed to be super good for you because…you know…minerals are good for you or something, we drove to the trailhead of our hike for Wairere falls.
Everyone asks us how much we hiked during our trip to New Zealand and the honest truth is not that much. There’s so many amazing things to see in the country and a ton of them are super accessible to just drive up to. When we go back, we’d like to do some of the longer tracks (trails), but on a first trip there was just too much to see to stay in one area for a four day trek.
Wairere Falls was our longest hike of the trip and still only took a couple hours. It was beautiful though, meandering through the forest along the stream coming from the base of the waterfall.
We hiked all the way to the top where the wind hitting the cliff was actually making a lot of the water “fall upward” and it seemed like it was sprinkling rain, even a few hundred meters back from the edge.
Link to our video of the upside down waterfall effect.
Next up for the day, we headed for our first [of many] Lord of the Rings destination…Hobbiton!
Hobbiton
For some background, all of the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in New Zealand. It makes total sense because of the vastly differing (and very beautiful) vistas you can find in a relatively small country. Hobbiton is one of the iconic sets that was built for the Lord of the Rings films on a sheep farm between Auckland and Rotorua. Due to the massive success of the film, when the director, Peter Jackson, decided to make The Hobbit, a prequel series, the land owner agreed to let them use the land again if they made the set permanent so it could be a tourist attraction. Today it receives a huge number of visitors per year.
Natasha and I are both big fans of the series so it was magical walking around the world we’ve been watching virtually since 2001.
The tour was also enhanced by our very enthusiastic 18-year-old tour guide who entertained us with trivia tidbits and taught us to do the may pole dance.
One of the best parts was getting to tour a fully furnished hobbit hole. They did a wonderful job with it down to the tiniest detail.
At the end of the tour we drank a pint at the Green Dragon like good hobbits at the end of a long day tending our gardens.
Upon getting back to Rotorua it was pretty late, and we’d had a big day. Natasha decided we should grab something quick. In our home country, which is adjacent to Mexico, Taco Bell isn’t really like Mexican food. It is even more dissimilar in a country that is 8,000 miles from Mexico. We do not advocate for New Zealand’s Taco Bell branches. (editor note: they didn’t have a chalupa!!!! the disgrace)
Wellington
We had one of our best breakfasts of the trip in Rotorua that morning before getting on the road for Wellington, the capital of New Zealand and our last stop on the north island.
Tongariro National Park
We made a day of our drive, traversing Tongariro National Park. The park houses at least three big volcanoes (one of which is Mt. Doom!) which you can hike around.
We had previously decided not to do a big day hike, but we stopped by a few Lord of the Rings sights around the area including the two areas they used to shoot Gollum catching fish at his pool and being captured by the men of Gondor.
I think that even if we had decided to hike we would have had to turn around because the clouds rolled in and being up on the mountain would have been a bad time. We did drive up the mountain road to the ski area (remember it was summer so no snow) and got some views of the surrounding area before continuing on. The weather did NOT get better.
In fact it got much worse. A steady rain stayed on us for much of the day except for a brief window where we randomly got some Thai food in a small town in the cow country of New Zealand. As the name may suggest, Bulls, New Zealand loooooves cows and had about 50 of these sculptures strewn about town.
We continued to drive and the rain and wind got torrential. I was driving on the left side of the road on the biggest highway in New Zealand and just getting absolutely pelted by rain for the last hour of the trip. It was less than ideal.
Eventually though we made it and battled the wind and rain one last time on foot en route to the AirBnB. I didn’t learn until later that Wellington, by many measures, is the windiest city on Earth.
That night we treated ourselves to some survival cocktails and toasted to better weather in the following days. Our wish was granted!
Weta Workshop & Exploring Wellington
The following day was our only full day in Wellington. The morning was cloudy and a bit windy, but it cleared up and calmed down a bit later in the day. We popped by a lookout of Wellington before grabbing breakfast and saying saying goodbye to our Subaru Outback. Then we were off to Weta Workshop.
We walked the half hour from the airport to Weta Workshop for our tour. We knew we were in the right place when we saw a massive troll.
Weta started as a husband and wife team making movie props for horror movies. Then they got tapped to do the Lord of the Rings trilogy and became quite big. If you were wondering about the name, a weta is a harmless but quite horrifying bug in New Zealand. It was described by our tour guide as part lobster, part killer alien. So since the workshop is often making scary props, they thought it would be a great mascot.
The tour was a fascinating mix of art school and engineering. There was 3D printing, blacksmithing, makeup, prosthetics, robotics and a lot more. We were able to handle props from the LotR and many many other movies. Many of the technologies had some overlap with what I work on in my little workshop, so it was great to see how the professionals do it. Unfortunately you couldn’t take pictures in some of the best rooms, but here are a few cool items:
That evening we walked through the Mt. Victoria Town Belt that runs through Wellington. More LotR scenes were filmed here so we found all the relevant spots and took our recreation pictures.
That evening we had a nice dinner (and hilariously mediocre service) at a nice restaurant on the waterfront before heading back to the house to prep for our early flight the next morning. It was time for the South Island!
Christchurch
Our early morning flight to Christchurch allowed for an interesting observation of domestic flight travel in New Zealand: you don’t actually need an ID. They literally just checked our tickets and popped us on the plane. An hour later we were on the ground in Chirstchurch, picking up our new wheels (and sometimes home) for the next week.
The Jucy “Crib”
One of the most common ways to tour New Zealand is to rent a camper van. In the past, their government was super lax about simply parking anywhere and camping for the night. Now you need to have a “self contained” camper van (i.e. with a built in toilet) in order to do this. We decided to split the difference and get a Jucy “Crib” which is an ancient Toyota minivan that has been converted to have a bed and a kitchen and a horrendous paint job. It is NOT self contained, so for the couple of nights we stayed in it, we had to stay at campgrounds with bathrooms and such.
Our experience with Jucy was a solid three of five stars. Pickup was a bit slow because it seemed the two people working at the counter had gotten thrown under the big green bus by their boss, who had overbooked their campers and simply wasn’t answering his phone.
Luckily this didn’t affect us since most of the problem seemed to be with the bigger vans (seen in the background of the above pic). The van was ancient, rattled a fair amount, and had ~350k km on the odometer, but it was pretty reliable. Plus they had installed Apple CarPlay for directions.
The bed was as comfortable as you might expect, the kitchen worked in the limited times we used it, and they didn’t make any fusses when we turned it in. The color scheme and paint job was quite loud, but it made other Jucy drivers wave [maybe too] enthusiastically at you on the road.
All in all, a proud three of five stars.
A Brief Stay in Christchurch
Once we were in our Kermit-mobile, we stopped by the Cardboard Cathedral, our only real noted site in Christchurch. We hadn’t really done our research on this one, because we were expecting more of the outside to be cardboard. In fact it seems more of the furniture inside was cardboard. Swing and a miss. So we grabbed a sausage roll at a local bakery and got on our way. Bye bye, Christchurch.
Mt. Sunday and Edoras
From Christchurch we drove to Mt. Sunday, a beautiful hill set in a valley with mountains on all sides. For you fans, it’s where Edoras, the capital city of the horse lords of Rohan was created in the movies. This was our first introduction to the south island’s beauty…
I think the photos speak for themselves here, but it was clear very early on that the South Island was going to be incredible. We continued our drive through the countryside seeing many sheep and cows on our way to Lake Tekapo.
Tekapo
Our first night on the South Island was our first night sleeping in the van. We checked into our campsite and set up on the beautiful banks of Lake Tekapo.
Once camp was setup, we hung out and drank some tea while we waited for it to get dark. Eventually it was time to go stargazing!
Dark Sky Project
The area around Lake Tekapo became the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve in 2012 and is the largest dark sky reserve in the southern hemisphere. At 10pm that night we met at the Dark Sky Project office to catch our bus out to the craters near the town where they had some high powered telescopes set up. We had a super clear night with a waxing crescent moon, so it was great for stargazing. Sadly our pictures don’t do the stars justice, but was an incredible experience. We were able to see:
- Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus
- The Magellanic Clouds ❗️
- Jewel Box Star Cluster
- Southern Cross
- And many of the same constellations you can see in the Northern Hemisphere, just flipped!
Lake Pukaki and Aoraki/Mt. Cook
The next morning we got breakfast in Tekapo and got our last glimpses of the lake before getting on the road again. Our next stop was to be Lake Pukaki with views of the high point of New Zealand: Aoraki/Mt. Cook.
Lake Pukaki was insanely blue. Again the pictures don’t do it justice. We stopped at multiple roadside parks to take it all in.
We continued to drive closer to the Base of Aoraki and did some small hikes to see the glacial moraine and some alpine lakes. Many were milky white with all the fine ground rock from the glacial activity.
While the mountains are still beautiful, it’s tough seeing the pictures from these same lookouts in living memory and seeing just how far the glaciers have receded in such a short amount of time. Many of the ones we saw in New Zealand are expected to be gone soon. Note: Skeptical still? Consider doing some intro research either with NYT or NASA or Exxon.
Anyway, back to the vacation…
We continued to explore the valley around Aoraki which is (of course) the area where they filmed more LotR scenes. In this case we were able to see the area where they CGIed both Minas Tirith and Helm’s Deep into existence. Link to our LOTR album.
More Friends!
Our final task for the day was to drive to Wanaka, which has been described to me as the Boulder, Colorado of New Zealand. But along the way, we learned that Natasha’s high school friend Naba and her husband Nate were on the same highway as us, driving the opposite direction. They were also on their honeymoon (we went to their lovely wedding earlier in 2024). So we coordinated a stop at a roadside park. Serendipity!
Wanaka
We got into Wanaka in the later evening so we didn’t do much besides dinner and enjoying some ice cream on the lakefront. It sounds like it’s a really popular spot for hiking with nice views of the the lake and surrounding mountains from many of the small mountains near town.
Wild Wire (Via Ferrata)
We had a lovely breakfast breakfast at Scroggin Coffee and Eatery (highly recommend) the next morning before getting our compulsory pictures of #ThatWanakaTree.
Then it was off to our main attraction for the day: Wildwire Wanaka, a via ferrata that runs up a series of waterfalls in the area. A via ferrata (or iron path in Italian) is a climbing route up mountains that takes minimal technical skill to use. It’s a series of metal rungs that are pounded into the rock. They were used extensively in WW1 to move troops efficiently through the Dolomites without having to train them in roped travel. The idea is that you have two “lobster claw” carabiners attached to you, as well as a safety line (also with a carabiner). You can move from rung to rung with your lobster claws, moving your safety clip along the safety line such that you always have at least two points of contact and are thus safely attached to the wall at all times.
We met our guides and did our safety briefing and then we were on the wall. Though we’ve been climbing many times, neither of us had climbed a via ferrata route before. It was great! It had a lot of movement that I love about climbing without all the technical overhead of working with ropes. In about four hours we’d climbed over 1,000 vertical feet.
The via ferrata was an absolute blast, and I’m excited to search a few more out both in the US and maybe on a trip to the Dolomites (hopefully this becomes a hyperlink soon!).
Cardrona Hotel
We got on the road again and began making our way toward Queenstown. Along the way while Natasha was dozing and I was listening to an audiobook, I saw the Cardona Hotel on the side of the road. Someone we had spoken to mentioned it as a great place to stop and check out so I whipped a U-ey in the Green Machine.
It turned out to be a great little spot to stop for a snack. It’s been around for 150 years and had really great rustic charm. We’ll try to stay there when we go back next time!
Queenstown (part 1)
We finished our drive from Wanaka to Arrowtown (near Queenstown) where we checked into our AirBnB. The weather was a little cloudy/rainy but we still had some daylight left so we dropped our bags and continued on to Queenstown.
On the way to Queenstown you pass through a pretty crazy mountain pass with beautiful views of the mountains and city.
As we somewhat expected, Queenstown turned out to be a really fun place. It was definitely crowded with tourists, but like most of New Zealand, it never felt too crowded.
The town is built on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. We made our way to a nice restaurant on the Steamer Wharf area of the lakefront. We watched the boats go in and out while we enjoyed our dinner.
We did not partake, but you can take a ride on the TSS Earnslaw, a super old steam ship, out into lake Wakatipu. During our days in Queenstown we saw it come in and out of the harbor a few times.
Arrowtown
The next morning we again had a great breakfast (they really do breakfast well in New Zealand) before visiting the Arrowtown Chinese Settlement. There we could see restored huts and read the history of the Chinese workers who moved to New Zealand in the Otago Gold Rush of the 1860s.
More LotR Set Hunting
Our schedule had us driving to Te Anau (pronounced TEE-anne-oww) that evening, but we of course had to go search for Oliphaunts and the like along the way.
Again, if you want to see our Lord of the Rings photos, here’s the link.
After a LOT of driving, we arrived in Te Anau. It was time to go see some glow worms!
Te Anau
Te Anau itself isn’t very impressive. It’s primarily a staging ground for trips into the Fjordlands National Park and to see the glow worms of the South Island. It was another van night for us, so we parked in the campground, got dinner, and then headed to the lakefront to catch out boat.
Glowworm Caves
The Te Anau glowworm caves are across the lake from the town so we boarded a ferry to make our way across. We had a late tour so we got to see some pretty sunset views along the way.
We met our very enthusiastic guide upon getting off the boat, and she led us into the caves. You had to duck for the first 100 feet or so but then it opened up to high ceilings. We were walking on grates above a running underground stream. She explained that the caves, geologically speaking, were quite young, only about 10,000 years old. She showed us one of the bigger stalactites they have, which was only a couple inches long.
We saw our first glowworms while walking. They looked like little blue dots on the ceiling. You can’t really see the worms themselves very well. Only their glowing butts.
The main event was when we boarded some small boats in the cave and our guide pulled us through a loop in the cave via a chain on the ceiling. It was super dark so phones weren’t permitted as they would ruin it for everyone. It was really quiet except for the sound of the running water, and all around us we could see constellations of blue lights. It was pretty incredible. Because it was so dark and there were so many glow worms, you couldn’t really tell how close or far they were from you. It was quite beautiful.
After we made our way back to the exterior of the cave, the guides gave us a rundown of the [disgusting] biology of the worms. As you might imagine, they are a lot prettier in the dark when all you can see is their glowing butts.
Of all my travels, this was a singular excursion.
Queenstown (Part 2)
After our second and final van night, we made our way back to Queenstown where we had a few more excursions planned. This section of the itinerary was a little back-and-forth-y due to some logistical unknowns regarding the trip to Milford Sound which I will discuss later.
Deer Park Heights
One of the best attractions of Queenstown is definitely Deer Park Heights. It’s a scenic drive through a very topographically vertical farm/ranch where you can see and feed animals (and look at LotR filming locations).
Note for Travelers: If you’re worried about their new (in January 2025) license plate entry gate, you can indeed book your reservation with a placeholder license plate number and then change your license plate number in the system before arriving once you actually have your rental car.
We saw kunekune pigs, lamas, alapacas, miniature horses, sheep, goats, red deer, highland cattle, American bison, and many other animals. Furthermore, it was also the setting for the many of the Rohan scenes in the LotR movies. Thus Natasha was either cooing or squealing with delight the whole time.
While here I should note that we took about an hour trying to recreate a very specific shot from the movies. The reason it took so long despite having the exact coordinates of the shot was due to Peter Jackson actually mirroring the shot, so all of the mountains in the background were flipped. Not expecting this shot to take as long as it did, I got my only sunburn of the trip :(
An Evening of Food!
We had a very fancy lunch on the waterfront again after Deer Park Heights where I had a crayfish with my New Zeland Sauv Blanc. This was on my to-try list while in New Zealand (good shout, Doug).
We checked into our hotel and walked around the town for the evening preparing for our dinner reservation at a local small-seating sushi place. We rounded out the evening with drinks at the cocktail bar in steamer wharf.
Milford Sound
Our next day’s excursion to Milford Sound was probably the one I was most excited by coming into the trip. Milford Sound (which should really be Milford Fjord) is a fjord on the southwest of New Zealand’s South Island. I think it’s a must see part of New Zealand, though I’ve heard that Doubtful Sound is similarly beautiful.
Though it’s quite close to Queenstown as the crow (or small plane) flies, it’s very far by car. Furthermore, much of the literature online says the drive is sketch. The drive was reported to be beautiful though, so when we were planning the excursion, we decided to take the 4.5 hour bus ride there so that I could actually see and not have to concentrate on driving. Then we would take our boat tour before flying back in a small plane.
Looking back, I think that I think we would have much preferred to drive ourselves and take a scenic flight out of Milford Sound airport. The drive was only sketchy in that it was in the mountains on windy roads, often in the rain. This was par for the course for us. Furthermore our bus driver was a great driver, but a crummy tour guide. He kept starting a sentence, then trailing off to drive, then forgetting that he started the sentence 😆. So, when we were done with the bus portion of the excursion, the day went from mediocre to amazing.
As stated above, the drive in was okay, but once we got into the Fjordlands National Park, the views started getting pretty wonderful. We had a clear day, so the waterfalls weren’t going nuts like they often are in photos of the area, but the vertical relief was pretty stunning.
Once we arrived at the fjord, we hopped off the bus and onto our tour boat which took us on an out-and-back tour of the fjord. The Aussie captain continuously made disparaging comments the Australians aboard (usually about them being at or near the bar) which added a comedic backdrop to the stunning visuals. We were able to see the iconic Mitre Peak along with fur seals and many waterfalls (more pictures here) while trying to keep our hats on in the wind.
Before leaving for New Zealand I convinced Natasha to bouge out with me and spring for the small plane flight back from Milford Sound to Queenstown. This may have been my crowning logistical achievement of the trip. Not only did it keep us from having to endure another 4.5 hours on the bus, but we also got absolutely beautiful views of Fjordland National Park.
Here’s a short video from my side of plane. Natasha definitely got the better side though once we’d left the initial fjord. The plane was quite small, only holding about 8 people including the pilot, so it bounced around a little bit on takeoff and descent, but overall a smooth and stunning ride.
It took us about 45 minutes to return to Queenstown where we landed at the main airport, on a small crossing runway. If you’re doing a Milford Sound trip, definitely consider flying there or back!
Queenstown Part 3
After arriving back in Queenstown we spent our evening wandering around on the lakefront eating street food. I had a dozen oysters from a lady who worked at the oyster fishery north of Auckland. You wouldn’t normally think of oysters as a street meat but chowing down on them while watching the sunset on our last Queenstown night was lovely.
Auckland
Our final full day in New Zealand started with saying goodbye to our lime-colored not-quite-lemon of a vehicle and a flight back to Auckland. Do to some logistics tom-foolery, we had a long sit-around in the airport between vehicle turn in and our flight so by the time we got back into Auckland proper, there was only time for a bit of souvenir shopping before dinner.
And what a dinner it was!
Natasha set us up with the tasting menu at restaurant called The Grove (highly recommend). The meal had many courses, all of which were beautiful and incredibly tasty. A few highlights really stand out though.
First, a contextually important detail: most of the restaurant staff was French which apparently is due to seasonal work programs. After sitting down we ordered cocktails and were asked if we wanted to start the evening with a caviar “bump.”
Not knowing what the exact usage of this word in this context meant, I yolo’d it and gave an enthusiast affirmation. A few minutes later a tall skinny French man with a pencil mustache wheeled out a gilded cart with a small container of caviar (kavieeaaahhh) nestled under a protective crystal dome.
In a very thick French accent he asks me if I have any scented moisturizers on my hand. I say no. Then, after describing the caviar I will be trying, he uses a small golden spoon to place a small lump of black caviar on the back of my hand, between my thumb and forefinger. He kindly instructs me to eat it in one go and keep it in my mouth to experience all the depths of flavor. Then he adds a dab more to my hand and says “okay eat it now before my manager sees.” before quickly wheeling the cart away while I have my first “bump” of caviar.
Next was the food itself. There was a sorbet course topped with freeze dried flowers that we freeze dried and crushed for ourselves with liquid nitrogen at the table. A venison steak with matcha powder that we cooked on Japanese charcoal at the table. And many other courses that were lovely.
And the last anecdote involved me asking for a glass of wine for the later courses that had a more old-world/French palate. Our waiter says he has just the thing…pours it…and I like it. I ask where it is from. Answer? Columbia Valley of Washington in the United States of America :)
The meeting concluded and we rolled ourselves down the hill to a speakeasy style cocktail bar where we befriended the nice Scottish bartender. We had a final drink to toast our successful honeymoon to a close and another final drink to toast to many more years of happiness.
Closing Thoughts
New Zealand was a wonderful combination of foreign and familiar. Other than driving on the left side, there were few differences to navigate.
The whole country had a friendly, laid-back attitude geared toward slowing down and adventuring within the breathtaking landscapes. This was a great change of pace from the hustle culture we are used to in the U.S. Plus with the deceptively small time change, I could totally see spending some winter months there if life allows in the future.
At the time of writing this, Nat and I have been together for 11 year and have traveled all over the world together. I’m not sure we could have picked a place more fitting of our personalities and interests for our honeymoon. It was worth the wait. Sweet as.
