First Things First in Planet’s Adventure Mecca
Braving the 16-hour flight from Los Angeles to New Zealand is easy, according to Outside Magazine, but the hard part is sorting through the overwhelming number of possibilities crammed into the two islands. Outside provides 13 must-do adventures for New Zealand holiday checklists.
Of the 13 suggestions, the magazine recommends a plan: “Yes, there’s a lot to do in New Zealand, but you pretty much can’t go wrong.”
“Stay in a lodge for unplugging,” editor Jen Murphy writes. “A typical day [at Aro Ha retreat in the Southern Alps] starts with sunrise yoga followed by breakfast, then a three-to-four-hour hike and a well-earned (and healthy) lunch.”
Cycling the length of the country is another idea:
“New Zealand’s transformation into one of the world’s great mountain-biking destinations had an unlikely beginning: in 2008, some forward-thinking bureaucrats came up with a plan to build an off-road bike path that would run the length of the country. The New Zealand Cycle Trail, known locally as Nga Haerenga – Maori for ‘the journeys’ – launched in 2015.
“It’s not a linear system but a collection of 23 segments that include everything from gravel to rugged single-track. Want to see a lot of it? Sign up for February’s Pioneer, a seven-day supported stage race from Christchurch to Queenstown,” Aaron Gulley writes.
Or, buy a used camper van in Auckland and see the entire country at your leisure.
Editor Kyle Dickman paid US$1500 for a spray-painted Mitsubishi named Humbug and he “pointed it south.”
“At the adventure hub of Rotorua, I kayaked 12ft waterfalls on the Class IV Kaituna and rock-climbed above the shores of Tahoe-like Lake Taupo. Then I hopped a ferry and spent three months on the South Island, where I shared Humbug with a Dutch girl and a Swede headed in the same direction. We harvested green mussels from the bleached beaches of Abel Tasman National Park and hiked fjords on the [84km] Dusky Track in the deep south. Thanksgiving was in the beech forests beneath 9950-foot Mount Aspiring.”
Original article by the editors, Outside Magazine, January 29, 2016.
Photo by Tim Winterburn/H&I Adventures.
