Life in the Backpackers of New Zealand

I'll be in Wanaka for a few days, deciding whether to go down the West Coast, to Queenstown or up the Coast, to Franz Josef Glacier. I'm staying in the YHA Purple Cow Backpacker, which has a nice view of Lake Wanaka from the dining area. I'm staying in a 6-bed dorm, for $29/night. As a YHA member, I get a discount off list price. The dorm is all-women for the first 2 days. For my last day here, I'll move to another dorm, this one a mix of men and women.

Every backpacker you stay in has its own distinctive flavor. I've also stayed in those that are part of the BBH network, and others that belong to no network at all.

Sometimes the single-sex dorms are filled with considerate bunk mates. Sometimes they're not. Ditto for the mixed dorms. So far, I've dealt with one woman who insisted on turning on the dorm light at 2am, and then who proceeded to email into the wee hours, inspite of 5 other people trying to sleep. Fortunately for this priceless person, I was exhausted after hiking, so I could sleep through despite this blatant rudeness. In Mt Cook I had to deal with a stink pot, a giant of a man who I don't think took a shower, despite having just come off a 4-day tramp on the Tasman Glacier. Last night, I had to enjoy the sounds of a woman in the room who was snoring loudly. Not only that, her cell phone must have been powered up, as I could hear faint supersweet elevator music coming from the depths of her daypack.

The solution to all this is having the right attitude + earplugs and an eye mask.

In other backpackers I've met the most delightful fellow travellers you could wish for. Great girls and boys, men and women from Israel, Germany, Russia, France, Holland, USA, Australia, UK, Norway, Spain, Canada, Uraguay, China, and other places.

The best situation is to be around many other solo travellers. That way, you are happy to talk to others. I've met a bunch of "WWOOFERS" [Willing Workers on Organic Farms]. One German guy told me he's woofing to get 12 weeks' experience before enrolling in an organic agricultural degree back home.

Many of the travellers on on a "gap" year, either taking time off, up to 1 year, after high school and before starting college, or during a college break. Most seem to be in the 20- to 35 yo demographic. Yesterday I shared a shuttle ride with a guy coming off 5 months of work in McMurdo in Antarctica. Travellers like me, in their 50s, are quite rare, and often folks with interesting reasons to be on the road. I met one woman from York, England, a landscape designer with 3 college age children, here to visit her 92-y-o uncle,and get inspired by the tussocks and mountains of New Zealand's national parks. Not your"run-of-the-mill" type.

Sometimes the backpackers have excellent kitchens, well stocked with dishes and cutlery. Other times, they are greasy pits where you don't want to risk touching any surface. Those nights you eat out.

I find the Chinese travellers the most interesting to watch in the kitchen. There are many more Mainland Chines folks touring around than I've seen before. I guess it's a sign of the Chinese economic boom. Usually these folks try their darndest to do a full-on multicourse dinner in the backpacker, with freshly prepared vegetables and enormous fruit salads. I'm always interested to see how they do it, as most knives in backpackers are so blunt you could use them as a mallet to hammer in your tent stakes.

If you're a fully self-supporting bike tourer, YHA gives you a good discount on nightly stays, around $19 per night. The rates vary depending on good ol' economics. In larger towns, like Wellington and Christchurch, you pay $30-$35 for a dorm bed. In smaller places you pay less.

YHAs usually have somewhere for you to store your bike. However, often it's a shed filled with old mattresses and stacks of extra chairs, so you have to have a sense of humor about "bike storage" as a convenience.

In at least two backpackers, I've walked into the TV room, and joined a bunch of kids watching one of the LOTR movies.

Yesterday, I went through Twizel. Nearby is the site of the big battle scene with orcs, armoured elephants, etc., from the 3rd movie. Apparently Peter Jackson recruited the entire town of Twizel (1000) people, plus everyone in Mt Cook Village (300 people), backpackers with time on their hands, to be extras. He still couldn't get enough people for the shoot, so apparently he contacted the New Zealand army. As they had little else to do, they were happy to help.

Nice to know that if New Zealand is ever invaded by orcs and goblins, their defense services are well-prepped.