Cast Away in Otago

You may recall from our HelpX #4 post that although we were extremely grateful to be taken in during New Zealand’s lockdown, our accommodations left something to be desired. So when the government announced after 5 weeks that they were dialing down restrictions from Level 4 to Level 3 (essentially still a mandatory shelter-in-place order, just with slightly loosened restrictions), we leapt at the chance to stay somewhere else. We’ll admit that this move was principally selfish in motivation, but we also recognized that our HelpX host had very much run out of projects for us over the course of our time there, and we really didn’t want to overstay our welcome any more than necessary.

With inter-region travel still restricted under Level 3, we decided to find a place out on the Otago Peninsula, where Dagmar had stayed on her own a couple months before.

We cannot overstate how thrilled we were to be back in a house designed for human habitation. There was a sofa! There was a TV! There was a FIREPLACE! When we think back about what we did the first week we were there, I’m pretty sure the majority of it was just basking in the feeling of being clean and warm. We vegged out and watched several of the DVDs they had in the house, including Cast Away (a movie which struck a little too close to home as far as Tom Hanks’ living situation was concerned), and even got to eat out again (Stefan was really excited when he issued his first bonafide ‘Cheers’ after paying for fish & chips). Dagmar could finally concentrate well enough to get some serious work done for the remote job she had gotten as a consultant for a healthcare startup, and Stefan was similarly productive by reading through some old miniature tabletop strategy game rulebooks he found in the AirBnB.

We had a terrific view over the Bay right from our porch, and finished off each day doing Insanity workouts as the sun set over the water. 

Other short walks around the area were beautiful as well.

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It wasn’t all good, as we did run into ANOTHER mouse who was absolutely fearless, darting out into the middle of the living room and twitching his nose at us as he wondered what he’d done to deserve an invasion into his mansion. He had probably been lording over the house during all of lockdown and forgot people even existed! We did unfortunately have to end up giving him the mouse trap treatment as well, but we’re proud to report that our killing spree ended there!

As the end of Level 3 approached, we started adventuring out along the Peninsula to do some sight-seeing. And what a place to do it! We visited the Royal Albatross center all the way out at the end, an absolutely stunning view where the waves crashed and the wind blew dramatically. 

Our hair was looking FABULOUS after lockdown.

We hiked the Pyramids Walk, where two small, pointy mountains jut up over a flat coastal region right by the beach. 

We also did several shorter hikes along the rolling hills in the interior, which were absolutely gorgeous–so much of New Zealand hikes are covered in rainforest, which is terrific from an ecological standpoint, but sometimes it’s hard to tell where you even are. But the hikes on the Otago Peninsula let you soak in the 360 degree views of the bay and the ocean in the warm sunshine, which is absolutely unbelievable. And as a bonus, you get to bleat at tons of sheep! And sometimes step in their poo, but we won’t talk about that. Even though these hikes were a bit shorter than others we’ve done, they’re like rollercoasters in the way they go up and down ski slope-grade hills, so they were a fantastic workout. That’s also where we recorded our podcast on the Rakiura Track, which is why we sound so out of breath!

It was so great to finally explore some new things–we had obviously had a world-class beach during lockdown, but we never risked driving to any hikes nearby. There were strict orders to avoid all non-essential travel, and we didn’t want to show up on the news as the stupid Americans who thought the rules didn’t apply to them!

While we might not have made the news, we didn’t avoid our label as stupid Americans as we drove our car into a ditch.

That’s right, after sitting virtually unused in a driveway for over a month after we purchased it, one of our car’s first big outings ended up in disaster. We were out on some of the aforementioned farmland trying to find a hike recommended by our AirBnB hosts, and as we attempted to park on some grass at the end of a lonely gravel road, all attention focused on not plowing into the tree behind us, we drove one wheel straight into a grassy water drain.

As Stefan tried to find a log to put under the wheel to give it some traction, Dagmar looked up and saw a figure emerge from a farmhouse way up on a hill, apparently attracted by Fitz’s horn which had yelped like a surprised animal when we dropped into the ditch. The figure was watching us with binoculars. 

So there we were, a young (and highly attractive!) couple experiencing car trouble out on a backcountry road. According to all the movies we’ve seen, that meant we were somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes away from watching a family of inbred hillbilly cannibals giggle maniacally as they gobbled down our fingers and toes like so many French fries. But those movies weren’t made in New Zealand! If you’ve been paying attention, a big theme of our blog has been the kindness of Kiwis–this proved to be yet another instance.

Before we could even start to really panic, the figure at the farmhouse hopped into a truck and drove down to tow us out. She brought along her 11 year-old son, who excitedly jabbered about how they haul people out of ditches all the time. “Why, just last week we pulled out a digger up the road, and that’s heaps heavier than your little car!” 

The rescue went surprisingly smoothly, with the only observable damage being that to our egos. Compounding this was Dagmar’s near death by embarrassment: during our lockdown tribulations, she had gotten in the habit of responding to the slightest discomfort or indignity with her best sassy black woman “LAWD!” And maybe it was the fact that we had only interacted with a handful of other human beings over the last couple of weeks, but as the four of us observed the mess we made, that slipped out of her mouth before she knew what had happened. No one reacted, so hopefully they just assumed she had squeaked in an attempt to cover a toot or something. Between that and our idiotic crashing, we were really teaching that kid a lot about how smart Americans are!

Even with that little mishap, we absolutely loved our time on the Otago Peninsula. It’s not a place that is going to show up on any must-see itineraries for New Zealand, but if you have a bit more time when traveling through, it is absolutely worth a visit. If we were ever to move to New Zealand longer term, the Otago Peninsula would be the perfect place to do it–it’s right near the cute little city of Dunedin, but it’s also isolated out on its own with lots of beautiful scenery. The only potential downside is that everyone from up north talks about how Dunedin is “Antarctica’s largest suburb” because of how cold it gets in winter…

Speaking of which, as Level 3 came to a close we started recalling the reason we had come all the way south from Auckland anyway: the idea was to chase the warm weather north as winter set in, and after a 6 week delay, we really had to step on the gas! But before we headed north, we had one last stop which would take us to the other side of the island… tune in next blog post to see where that stop was!

For this post’s trivia question, you can predict where we were going!

*What world famous sight-seeing attraction lies on the southwest side of New Zealand’s South Island? Hint: you can find it by drawing a straight line from Dunedin to Queenstown and continuing on that line.

Send an e-mail to [email protected] with the answer by January 31, 2021 and 3 lucky winners will get a personalized postcard from us 🙂 

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