Hitchhiking in New Zealand: New Plymouth / Bulls / Wellington
4th of July, 2025.
Nikaila stops for me soon enough. She’s very sweet! She is going to New Plymouth to get a new pump for her place around here, but as we start talking, and I tell her about my travels and all that, she offers to drop me off at Inglewood, which is strategically much better for me. “It’s an excuse to visit my father” – she says. Another funny fact is that she is friends with some people who know Trevor.
I have two of my banana muffins and then start hitchhiking again. My initial plans was to go up Mount Taranaki, to visit Egmont Forest, bust as the weather and the visibility are now terrible (we cannot see anything ahead of us, but we were supposed to be seeing Mount Taranaki very clearly), I decided to skip that and try to get as close to Wellington as possible today.
As I held up my “Wellington” sign, a family stops. They are going to Stratford only, but as the weather shows signs of raining soon, I decide to get it anyway.
This family is the grandmother, one of her daughters, and two grandchildren. The young lady in front is curious and surprised about my journey. The same for her mum. They are just trying out this new car.
As soon as I start hitchhiking in Stratford, a car stops. When the driver tells me where he’s going, I think he says he’s going to Pātea, which would be already great, but no, he’s actually going further away, to Palmerston North. Wow! That’s so close to Wellington! Yay!
The best part actually is that Cal is Māori. I was actually asking the universe for some Māori people to pick me up. Cal gives me masterclass about so many Māori things. He’s a very kind and quiet man, like very peaceful and nice. My biggest regret is that I didn’t ask to take a photograph with him. He even sings a song in Te Reo, and it sounds so nice that I ask him to sing it again.
We agree that the best place for him to drop me off is in Samson, just after Bulls, because from here there will be a lot of cars going to Wellington tomorrow. Yeah, I’ll have to camp somewhere to tonight because by the time we arrive here is already dark.
What surprises me the most about Samson is a massive second hand bookshop. Apart from that, I make a lot of silly mistakes.
I walk around looking for churches. I find them but there’s nobody to help me in neither of them.
Then I keep on walking, hoping to find locals outside their house, in order to ask to camp in their backyard. It’s useless. After dark an in this cold, I can’t find anyone. So I make to a campervan park, which is by a school.
There are about 10 campervans parked here, and plenty of grass to camp on it too. But there’s also a sign which says that overnight camping is only allowed in non-school days. Luckily for me right now are the school holidays.
My mistakes are many: 1) I could’ve camped by the school, under a covered area, but I didn’t because I was afraid someone would come tomorrow morning (on Saturday?); 2) As I’m using the toilets, I notice a room with some lights on, but I didn’t check if the door is open or not, neither what is it, only in the morning I would realize that being the Community Hall, this was a big room where people would meet, and do stuff, so it’s warm, with carpets, and it has a kitchen, meaning I could’ve simply slept here; 3) By stupidity, I didn’t ask for food to any of the people in the campervans, most of them are senior couples, and I’m sure they would be happy to share their food with me. Plus, that could lead to them giving me some breakfast too.
Yeah, so as you see I didn’t do any of these so I ended up camping in the opening, it was cold and raining at night, and I had no food. Sometimes experience means nothing.
Another mistake was that I didn’t message Niki, my friend in Wellington with whom I’m staying tomorrow, that I had to cut my trip shorter and am coming tomorrow. Technically, tomorrow and the day after were the days I gave to her as possible arrival dates, but that was before I got stuck in Marokopa. What I did then was to message her, saying that I would be late in one or two days. Now I’m not anymore.
5th of July, 2025.
In the morning I use the Wi-Fi from a shop nearby to message Niki, and also ask her the address. She’s surprised but tells me that there’s no problem.
A teacher stops for me. Grant studied History, in Scotland, his home country, but has taught different subjects in his life. Now he’s teaching Psychology in school. I think it’s awesome that the kids have Psychology in school. Grant is a very quiet and calm man. He speaks very low and slowly.
He stops in a second hand shop to drop off some stuff, and says I can take a look around if they have some hiking boots. They don’t. So then he stops in a small town nearby, where he says there’s a sale at the main sports shops. I think that’s very nice of him, so while he’s having a coffee, I go and take a look. The discounts are very small for the hiking boot, and they don’t have many sizes available. Plus, I know I would struggle by having to buy something so important in a such a short period of time.
Grant takes an alternative route to Wellington, through the highway number 58, so in that way he can drop me off half way to where I need to go, in the Upper Hutt. That’s very nice of him.
I don’t have to wait long until somebody stops for me. Steve in his working van take me all the way to Niki’s house. He’s a handyman so he’s surprise when I tell him about all the things I can do. I arrive to Niki’s place soon before midday.
10 Years Around the World 