Chaos is bound to ensure when you make the impulsive decision to fly 11,000 km across the globe two weeks prior to departure. I wanted to hike and camp, but most of the candidate destinations around the world were either fully booked (Patagonia), too unfamiliar (South Africa), or potentially crawling with the arachnids of my nightmares (Australia). I ended up finding a reasonably priced albeit 40-hour flight itinerary from Frankfurt to Auckland and set my sights on two of New Zealand’s Great Walks: the Tongariro Northern Circuit and Abel Tasman Coast Track.
My first of many mishaps occurred at the check-in desk for departure where a distraught China Southern agent refuses to let me board without a travel visa and gave no fucks in response to my entitled “But I’m literally part of the Commonwealth how the fuck do I need a visa” pleas. My heart drops with the terrifying and precipitous acceleration of a free-falling elevator (in another universe, one without floors or consequences, the experience of weightlessness might be exhilarating). She motions me towards one of the travel desks decorated, almost desperately, with the sketch kind of "last minute!!!!” print media advertising you’d expect from a middle schooler crafting WordArt. One hundred and fifty Euros, cash only, to magically conjure an “instant” visa and the promise of the New Zealand sun: what a scam. More about that sun later.
The banks of Queen Street in Auckland CBD are lined with street musicians, store awnings, and vogue cinemas, parallel until they intersect with the ocean. In a way, so is Pike Street in downtown Seattle, in a universe where all the Asians decide to flock south of Vancouver. All cities are somehow born from each other. My eyes widen at each mix-and-match sushi takeout I pass on the way to the hostel, but mostly I’m just happy to be a consumer in a world of big box retailers and twenty-four convenience stores again, minus the price tag on exorbitantly taxed cigarettes. At thirty dollars a pack, I think I’ll do without for a few weeks even if the rooftop terraces and spaces between bars call for them, ever so devilishly.
At the hostel there is a British receptionist who provides me with the raw materials for making a hitchhiking sign and forgets to give back my passport. I joke that a Canadian one would fare him better these days. (More about that passport later.) A girl from New York introduces herself in the bathroom and asks me what I’m doing here. I wax philosophical with what is anyone doing, anywhere, ever? before glazing over hiking plans. “Me too!” she responds. The pretentious backpacker in me sneers from beneath the hood of her Arcteryx rain jacket at the enthusiasm of girls who day-hike but, like, not even often enough to qualify it as a hobby on their Tinder profile. Bitches be amateur.
Taupo is south of Auckland, three hours by car or six hours by bus. This is the nature of all distances in New Zealand; hitchhiking starts as a means to an end before it becomes a pursuit of its own. Some drivers gawk, others shrug with their hands to apologize for rejection. Most probably aren’t using their peripheral vision. It’s important to smile. Visualize windows rolling down from across the driver’s seat. Meditate them to stop. The relief that accompanies the sight of a decelerating car as it angles in your direction is exhilarating. The company is nice and it feels like a moment that could be shared with a glass of orange juice.
Between Auckland and Taupo there are stories about getting hitched, last minute in a makeshift church in Vegas or via the blessings of a monk in Vietnam. There are signs at junctions that I’m only able to articulate in one direction. Left for Hamilton or right for Ngauruhoet. The portrait of a man named Ngauruhoet forever having to spell out his name over the phone to customer service in an exasperated fashion makes me laugh. “NO, N as in Nancy. G as in Gary...”
Like other coastal towns in New Zealand, Taupo is dotted with bachs (holiday homes in Kiwi speak), skate-surf shops with a little more personality than your average PacSun, and charming restaurant-bar hybrids buzzing with life until early curfew. The French girls in my room are aghast at being turned away so early in the night. Back at the hostel “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is blaring through shitty speakers. A very drunk American attempts courtship; the French girls are now unavailable. I’m briefly entertained by his clumsy compliments to keep feelings of insecurity at bay. It’s too early to check my phone for Christmas texts: I’m 12 hours ahead of CET, 18 hours ahead of EST, and 21 hours ahead of PST. It feels a little lonely to live in the future.
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