New Zealand: A Best Kept Secret

 

The Southern Alps in New Zealand

New Zealand: A Best Kept Secret

travel memoir by Gregory E. Larson

          Have you ever been to a place that felt like you were on another planet? . . . a place with exotic flowers, plants and mountains? . . . a place with glaciers, rain forests and arid plains? Some of you may have traveled there, to New Zealand. On my recent adventure, I learned their agriculture economy and is gradually becoming a tourist economy. For so many decades the destination has been a best kept secret, but that is changing.

          After my arrival in Christchurch on the South Island, I spent two days acclimating to the summer and to the time change. Having spent more than three days travel to get there, I wandered out into the giant botanical garden full of sunshine, huge lawns and giant trees. I dropped the day pack onto the ground and lay down in the grass to stretch out. I thought, “I’m out of the plane and I made it all in one piece!”

The Christchurch Botanical Garden was the best antidote after the long trip.

Entrance Fountain at the Christchurch Botanical Garden

          Once acclimated, I began the Classic South Island Tour with Active Adventures, Inc., with fourteen people and two guides. It was a trip to places of unrivaled beauty and ruggedness. From 400 ft. waterfalls to rainforests and mountain valleys, every day was truly an adventure, including several days of rugged hikes, an additional day of biking and a day of kayaking. Complimenting the exercise were a bush-pilot flight to a remote valley, a wild and crazy jet boat ride, a gondola ride above Queenstown, and a cruise on Milford Sound. 

We hiked to a 400 ft. waterfall near Arthur's Pass

          On the kayaking day, we toured Okarito Lagoon and saw two White Herons, which are extremely rare. Only 170 remain in existence. 

Kayaking on a tributary to Okarito Lagoon

          Our “epic” day of the tour included a flight into a remote valley, a nine-mile hike out of the valley, and a jet boat ride back to our resort. The bush pilot flight was the most exciting twenty minutes I have experienced in a plane, which was a tiny Cessna 185 with balloon tires for landing on grass in the mountain valley. I felt as though I could reach out and touch the trees on the mountainsides, and was in awe of the beauty of the snow-capped peaks and the glacial ponds which are only visible from the air. Once back on the ground, we had to ford a tributary, then hike up the valley towards a beautiful peak in the clouds. Turning back down the valley, we hiked several miles to the Wilkin River where the jet boats took us back to our resort.

The Cessna 185 plane that took us to a remote valley.

Take-off was next to the Wilkin River Valley, then up into the mountains.

I felt like I could almost touch the trees on the mountainside.

The remote Siberian Valley in Mount Aspiring National Park

A day of memorable hiking

A wild and crazy boat ride was the exclamation point on an epic day.

          Two days were spent in Queenstown, which was crawling with tourists. It reminded me of an oversized Estes Park in Colorado. One of the days was spent hiking up Ben Lomond Peak. It began by taking a 1500 ft., mostly vertical gondola to a point above Queenstown, then a strenuous hike at twenty percent grade for three miles. I barely made it two miles, and then turned around to save my legs for the remainder of the week.

Overlooking Queenstown at the top of the gondola station.

View of Ben Lomond Peak from the twenty-percent grade on the trail.

          The last day of the tour began in the early morning darkness, with our guides brewing French-press coffee. We piled into the bus and drove to one of the top tourist destinations: Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park.

Milford Sound - unrivaled beauty

          About every twenty minutes a huge cruise boat (with 150-200 people on board) departed for the two-hour cruise out to the Tasman Sea and back. During the cruise, the tour boat ahead of ours had stopped and turned at a waterfall. The photo had a good composition for a watercolor: reflections in the water, the boat and waterfall as the focus, with numerous textures and colors on the cliffs and mountain. Back home in the studio, it was a joy to paint, although it is one of the most difficult scenes I’ve painted, due to all of the detail.

Stirling Falls - Milford Sound, New Zealand
2025 watercolor by Gregory E. Larson

          Our last hike was one for the memories. We hiked two miles up through the forest to a summit pass. The beginning was in the mossy woods with ferns and trees surrounding the trail. As we ascended through the forest, we began to have glimpses of the granite peaks through the 800-year-old trees. Once at the pass, the vistas were in all directions. Our guide passed out boxes of pasta salad for our lunch, and we sat on benches that viewed the snow-capped peaks. It was one of those places that was hard for me to leave. When we began the trek down the mountain trail and back into the forest, I knew that I had fallen in love with New Zealand.

Glimpses of the granite peaks through the ancient forests.

A view at the mountain pass on the last hike - one to remember.

THE END