31 years in and at least I’ve gotten to understand myself a tiny bit—it’s good I didn’t promise another update from New Zealand, because I’m in Australia now! We’ll get to that at the end of the post, but first I’ll wrap up the end of my time in New Zealand.

I ended up staying a few days around Mt Cook and did two very cool hikes. I also made a friend! Good for me! We ended up hanging out and traveling together for the rest of my time in New Zealand, so that was lovely. After Mt Cook we headed to Arthur’s Pass, just west of Christchurch, for another few hikes, and then spent a few days hanging around Christchurch and the beautiful Banks Peninsula to get everything lined up to sell my van and head to Australia.

And now, everyone’s favorite part: hike descriptions! Videos for this post are here.

Mueller Hut

This is one of the most popular hikes in all of New Zealand, a steep, medium length ascent to a hut with incredible views of Mt Cook (the tallest mountain in New Zealand) and the surrounding mountains. On the way up I ran into two shockingly under-equipped Brazilian brothers, so I got to practice Portuguese on the climb and then gave them some water when we got to the top. It was fairly overcast when we got there, but lingering for a while turned out to be the right move, as the clouds moved off and the views got clearer and clearer.

Ball Hut

After Mueller Hut, my new friend Becca and I hiked to Ball hut. I didn’t have very high expectations for this hike—rather than ascending to a summit, this trail just goes up the valley a few over from the Mt Cook campsite, and I figured the views wouldn’t really be any better. Boy was I wrong!

The beginning of the trail is just on an old logging road, next to a glacier-fed lake. After about 4km things get more interesting. In 2019 a landslide took out a huge chunk of the road, so you have to make your way several hundred meters up the side of the valley and then scramble through a hastily carved trail around the huge gash created by the landslide. From there you cross several more big rock/scree fields from other landslides. Eventually you reach the end of the lake and are walking right along the glacier (but one or two hundred meters above it), and can hear it “working”—cracking and groaning and just doing what glaciers do. The views from this point are tremendous, since this valley has an angle on several huge snow-capped peaks. The hut is a tiny, adorable structure with just 3 beds at the end of the valley. From there you can scramble up to the ridge and get an unbelievable view of the mountains on the other side, and of the 3 glacier-filled valleys that funnel down into the glacier you’ve been walking alongside all day. It’s a really tremendous hike!

Our day at Ball hut turned out to be quite a bit longer and more tiring than expected, so the following day we had a rest, ate some underwhelming but still satisfying food from the cafe, and took a much needed shower. I was debating doing some other hikes around Mt Cook but decided to move on, so we set course for Arthur’s Pass. The drive there was tremendous, going along the bright blue glacier-fed Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo. I stopped for a refreshing swim and snapped a handful of photos.

Avalanche Peak

Avalanche peak is, you guessed it, the most popular hike at Arthur’s Pass National Park. It’s a steep climb that ends up with panoramic views, but for whatever reason it didn’t quite grab me (which just goes to show how bonkers all the landscapes in New Zealand are). On the way back to the campground we detoured to Devil’s Punchbowl, a gorgeous 131m (!!!) waterfall on the other side of the valley. Arthur’s Pass is also known for having a fair few resident Kea, the mountain parrot that is only found in New Zealand. They’re beautiful, curious, intelligent, and love tearing up people’s stuff, so I snapped some pictures of them doing their thing on the roof of the hostel while waiting to take a shower.

Bealey Spur

With rain in the weather forecast we decided to move our second hike a bit farther to the dry side of the island. New Zealand’s weather comes from the west, and with a spine of mountains running down the middle of the south island, the general pattern is that the west side is wet and the east side is dry. Arthur’s Pass is right in the center, and the delineation was very clear, with dark clouds to the west and blue skies to the east. The Bealey Spur track was a lovely climb situated a bit east of Arthur’s Pass, and ended up giving us beautiful views on a lovely, clear day, without requiring a herculean effort.

At this point it was time to head to Christchurch to rendezvous with my van’s buyer for him to look it over and make his final decision. That all went well, so then I had a few days to just hang out, clean the van, pack my bags, and get ready to go. We spent a couple of nights around Christchurch before heading out to the Banks peninsula, which was just gorgeous. It’s an oval peninsula with a winding coastline and one huge inlet through the middle, so there are tons of bays everywhere with beautiful clear water and hills rising in between. We went for a lovely hike to Stoney Bay Peak and then spent the night at a gorgeous beach campsite on the more remote northern side of the island. I also ate an absolutely inadvisable amount of fried seafood that night, notably some huge mussels and New Zealand’s rightfully famous blue cod.

And suddenly that was that for New Zealand! My 3 months really flew by and I had just a tremendous time. I was ready to be a bit disappointed in New Zealand, since everyone I’ve ever met had sung its praises, and expectations are a tricky thing. But I’m here to add my voice to that chorus—it’s incredible! The people are friendly, the culture is relaxed, the tourism industry is well developed (for both high end and low end tourism), and the nature is just out of this world. In particular, I found the density of different landscapes just incredible. New Zealand is a very small place (especially if you’ve recently road-tripped around the US), and basically anywhere on the south island two hours of driving can take you through probably three totally different, absolutely magical landscapes. The coasts, the mountains, the glaciers, the TREE FERNS, the flightless birds, the fjords, it just goes on and on. I can’t recommend it highly enough, I really see why people visit and end up staying, and I can’t wait to go back.

But now I’m on to the next adventure, and I am tremendously excited about it! I’m currently doing what I do best and abusing good people’s hospitality, in this case the Moss clan outpost here in Sydney. I remember Mike and Cathy visiting us in Paris almost 25 years ago, and it’s been awesome to get to know them and their whole family here as an adult. They’ve been taking unbelievably good care of me, and it feels great to be surrounded by family (plus some delightfully friendly pets). Mike’s already taken me to a couple of beaches, including a great snorkel spot, and also let me tag along to try playing padel with his Wednesday night group (I’m hooked). I’m stoked to explore the city and to have Josh, Aaron, Ben, and Emily show me what the fun things are for younger people to do as well. Mike’s an inveterate host and an expert documentarian—all these photos are credit to him.

Things are still up in the air, as they always are, but my rough idea is to hang around Sydney for a couple of months to kick off the year here. I should mention that I’m on a working holiday visa, which means I’m allowed to stay in the country for a year, and am authorized to work (though I don’t have to—truly my ideal setup). I’m excited to get back to some ocean activities here and am planning to do a ton of freediving and surfing. I’ve got a couple of connections to freediving instructors here, so the hope is to assistant teach freediving around Sydney for a couple of months, and maybe also eventually get my instructor certification and start teaching courses myself. During that time I’ll familiarize myself with life here and find a vehicle to live in and tour around the country (just can’t get enough!). From there the plan is to buy a surfboard and drive up the coast, camping and surfing along the miles and miles and miles of Aussie coastline, diving the reefs, learning to spearfish, and maybe stopping to tend bar or wait tables someplace if it strikes my fancy. Needless to say, this is a lifestyle I am overwhelmingly excited about.