After being in the camper van with Anne and Alex for few days it was time to go on the track again. I was missing hiking since my last hike has been more than 3 weeks ago in Nepal. Anne drove me to the DOC office in Turangi where I was hoping to get a lift to the nearby Tongariro national park. My plan was to hitchhike to the national park and it has been a full success. Normally you go to a road and put up your thumb up an wait until a car stops. In my case a car was already waiting for me. Apparently a friendly Kiwi has been bored and was waiting for hitchhiker like me :). He drove me into the national park and because of the great success, I will definitely hitchhike again in New Zealand!
Hiking in New Zealand can be different compared to Nepal. There are nice and modern huts around the official tracks so you do not need to bring your tent but you do need to carry food. This means you have to carry a lot of food and therefore additional weight with you. Luckily there is plenty of fresh water around the track where you can just go and drink it out of the streams, without treating it. Once I found a nice spring where I got the best tasting water I ever had in my live.
On the track, I met many local people and they are all so friendly: Everyone invited me to their home and left me the phone number in case I needed a place to stay. At one place I was just sitting and eating dinner at a parking lot and everyone just came by and asked me if I needed a lift. In the future I will try to be as friendly as the people in NZ :).
