A Very Long First Day

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Getting to New Zealand itself was fairly uneventful. We had in-flight entertainment and the meals United provided were surprisingly good for once!

Then we landed in Auckland and things got rough. We saw a currency exchange counter so we handed over our US dollars for New Zealand dollars. We thought we had plenty of time because United Airlines back in the States said our checked bags would be automatically forwarded to Queenstown. Yeah, they lied. Our baggage showed up on the carousel. So then we had to go through Customs. And then three different Biosecurity lines. By the time we were halfway through the second Biosecurity line, we only had 20min before our flight was boarding. One of our group Tony, was the sole person who got thrown into the slowest moving line. Apparently someone was trying to sneak stuff in. No literally- he forgot to dump his sandwich before getting into the BioSecurity line. They also looked quite understaffed. Then we kept seeing signs about declaring our hiking and backpacking gear. My boots were clean (I was wearing them on the plane so I scrubbed them the night before we left) but everyone else's were caked in dried mud. We were all pretty worried about losing our boots along with trekking poles and potentially the backpacks themselves. That would be great considering we needed all that gear for backpacking. Chris and I were first up for inspection. We were worried about Tony being left behind but the officer said he couldn't help us. The rest of the group had a more sympathetic lady helping them and she gave them permission to pull Tony to the front with the rest of us. Thank god. Atleast we weren't separated. We'd all miss our flight together now. All our gear made it in but Chris, Laura, Billy, Linna and Nathan ALL needed their boots scrubbed by the staff before they could move on. New Zealand did NOT want our American dirt. Lesson learned. Lol. So. We're not separated and we got a free boot cleaning

Now to find our flight because they are literally boarding as we finish with Biosecurity. We pass by international check in desk after international check in desk. We finally find an employee who said to follow the green line on the pavement, which was a 10+ min walk in the rain, or find a bus. Wtf, Auckland Airport.

We booked it with all our packs and luggage in the rain as fast as we could to Domestics. We found the JetStar check in counter and we were too late. Even though the flight had not left, they wouldn't let us check in. Even more frustrating, the next JetStar flight wasn't until the next morning- when we planned to be hiking the Routeburn Track. They suggested we try Air New Zealand if we wanted a flight for today still. Which meant paying full price for a new ticket. Assuming they had seats.

So we walked down the terminal to Air New Zealand to see what we could do. I'm already trying to figure out alternate plans in my head. Turns out a dozen of us (passengers outside our group) missed our flight because of Biosecurity. Why wouldn't JetStar just delay the plane when they knew so many passengers were held up? It was crap. But thankfully Air New Zealand had a flight at 2:25pm that would work. We had the confusing option to book online ourselves or pay an extra $30/person to have the airline worker do it for us. We were worried about not all getting on the flight and unanimously wanted to keep it simple so we opted to pay more for less hassle. The worker was stunned lol. She wanted to make sure we understood. We did. And then in a moment of kindness, she booked us all discounted tickets. It meant a lot with how stressful the past two hours had been. Literally, as Billy was handing out our new boarding passes, Chris checks his email. He gets an "alert" from JetStar that our flight was delayed by 15min. WE COULD HAVE MADE THE FLIGHT!!!! Yeah, feeling pretty scammed by JetStar. But now we have flights to Queenstown again. The only difference in our plan is we will have to drive to Queenstown in the morning from Glenorchy to pick up our Routeburn permits since the office will be closed by 5pm. It just means getting up early.

Our next flight was on schedule and other than mild turbulence flying into Queenstown that really upset my stomach, it went great. 😊 We thought if we rushed we might still be able to get our permits by 530pm. Chris and I picked up our giant rental van, lovingly named The Ark, while everyone else grabbed our gear.

We tramped outside to our van by 5pm. Still had 30min left before the DOC (Department of Conservation) permit office closed. We loaded up and Chris started driving. Lemme tell you. It is absolutely bizarre and scary to be in the front passenger seat of an extra wide vehicle in a country that drives on the opposite side of the road. Chris handled driving it like a boss, despite my frequent yelping about nearly hitting a curb, car, etc. We arrived at the permit office at 515pm so excited to have made it!!... only to discover that since it was a Tuesday they closed at 5pm. We missed them by 15minutes.

So we worked on our other errands instead- pick up lock box for car transfer, get backpacking food from outdoor store and then groceries. I really enjoyed downtown Queenstown. It had a straight up young backpacker vibe. Young people roaming the streets, in and out of tour company shops promising adventures, bars, trendy eateries. There was a dock with a gorgeous view of the lake that we took pictures of before and after dinner.

We decided on dinner at Coalfire, a grilled meat type place. They had green lipped mussels, which was the one thing I REALLY wanted to try in this country. From all my scouring of travel books, I was still having a hard time understanding what distinctly New Zealand cuisine is. It all sounds like hearty dishes of meat, vegetables and beer. Which I'm all for. The Mussels are something I know is all New Zealand, though. So I was very happy to eat the giant Mussels. I also had a half chicken with couscous that was amazing.

After dinner we started off to Kinloch Lodge. I picked this place because it was only 30min from there to the Routeburn Shelter trailhead. This ended up being pointless since we didn't have our permits. Instead of a 30min drive to the Track in the morning, we now had a 3 hour errand to go to Queenstown and back just for permits and breakfast before we could even begin the trek.

It was 10pm by the time we rolled into Kinloch Lodge. It looked pretty closed up for the night but we finally ran into, and accidentally scared the hell out of, an employee who handed over our room keys. We all thought we'd finally be getting showers after being awake for two days... no luck there either. It was frigid cold water. I managed to rinse off atleast and too tired to care to do more. So I went back to the room, organized my pack for Routeburn Track the next day and passed out.

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