After Whangārei, I still had the rest of my week-long road trip to go. By now, I’ve found I’m not entirely made for sleeping in hostels – not that I’m that surprised – and left last night’s hostel just as the sun was coming up. I didn’t have any plans left in Whangārei, so getting the four hour drive to Hamilton done early suited me just fine.

I would categorize myself as a particular kind of sleeper. I almost always struggle to fall asleep anyways, so if there’s one thing out of place while I’m trying to go to bed, like an uncomfortable pillow or a light on, then I find it extremely difficult to fall asleep.

My last night in my converted prison cell room, I had a new roommate join who happened to be a snorer. I already knew I was being set up for failure when the light was still on past 11 P.M., but it took me a bit to work up the courage to be the one to turn it off for the room. When there are 3-5 other girls in a room with you, it feels like everything needs to be a group decision.

Once I finally shut off the light and got myself settled in, my bunkmate started her snoring, which never seemed to taper off. I’d brought earplugs with me, and I’ll often put a headphone in and play some music when I’m sleeping somewhere other than my own bed. But I tried both of my barrier options, and still the snoring pierced through all of my defenses.

Eventually, I fell asleep, but when I woke up before 7 A.M. and still heard snoring, I knew that was all the sleep I was getting. I swung down from my bunk with all of my stuff and went right to my car as soon as I was ready for the day.

Maybe if I try sleeping in hostels back-to-back long enough, I’ll be sleep deprived enough to fall asleep anywhere. I’ll test that theory at some point later.

I spiced up my long drive with a stop at a cafe for coffee, and another stop at a doughnut shop I’d tried when I first landed in Auckland and loved. I’ve found I’m treating myself almost daily to a coffee and a baked good, to where I’m almost desperate to be stuck on a farm for several days in a row so that I don’t have access to them anymore. I always love a good treat, and when every street corner of every town offers coffee and their own unique baked goods, I’m absolutely weak. It’ll be good for me when I can only treat myself on my days off, or else I may never recover.

I didn’t have much planned for my first day in Hamilton, but as I got there around noon, I figured I needed another sort of adventure to round out my day. Looking online, I saw that there was a waterfall nearby, called Bridal Veil, and was about an hour’s drive away. Despite the fact that I’d been driving all morning, I put my car into gear and followed the map along some more windy roads, passing more farmland and ending up in the middle of nowhere with no service.

It was an easy walk to the falls. The only hard part of the trail was taking the stairs back up. Initially, you’re dumped out at the top of the falls, and there are two different platforms to give you different perspective views of the falls. Then, you follow the stairs down and get another landing to view the falls at their middle, and another at the very bottom where you can walk across the river and get an all-encompassing view.

The falls were beautiful, rushing down from an astonishing height whose measurement I don’t know off the top of my head. I’d passed a few people on the trail heading up while I went down, but now again, I was left alone to take in the view.

As a solo traveler, I’ve realized that I’ll leave this trip with next to no pictures of myself. The first photo I got of myself here didn’t happen until I’d been here for about two weeks and I made my first friend. And since she’d continued on in her own travels, I’d been left again without a photographer.

The way the wooden walkway across the river was set up inspired me to try my hand at a self-timer photo. I was able to prop my phone against a wooden slat and sit it on the bench that stretched across so that I could capture myself with the falls in the background. I wasn’t sure if it would actually turn out, but it surprisingly wasn’t half bad. The only hindrance was my anxiety that my phone would somehow slip its precarious perch and fall into the rushing water below.

After enjoying the view of the falls a little longer, I booked it back to my car, feeling ready to get settled in for the night. For the next two nights, I had booked an AirBnB rather than a hostel. I’d initially looked, but when the first few hostels I’d checked said they were booked out, I decided to peruse AirBnB just to see. And of course, I became obsessed with one place and had to stay.

The place wasn’t anything super special in the grand scheme of things. It was essentially a shipping container that had been converted into a type of studio with a Murphy bed on the wall. It was set up beside a stream, offering views of the water and the farmland beyond that were beautiful beneath the rising or setting sun. Though the real selling point of this place, to me, had been the outdoor bathtub and shower.

Yes, it is winter here, but once I get an idea in my head, I need it to happen.

The first night, since it was getting late by the time I was settled in, I went for a shower. The water came out freezing, and I was worried the heat wasn’t actually going to kick in. I took advantage of the overlong stream of cold water and cleaned off my disgusting, muddy hiking boots I’d been storing in a Ziploc freezer bag in my backseat. This provided the perfect opportunity to fix them up. Otherwise, they probably would’ve festered like that the rest of the week.

That night was fairly windy, so even when the water did heat up, I was shivering. Not quite the fantasy shower it had been in my head, but overall I still enjoyed my experience.

The next night, however, I’d had my sights set on the bath.

During the day, I drove an hour out to Waitomo, where the big attraction is their glow worm caves. It was a fairly quick tour, where we got to see the inside of the caves, and then we finished with a boat ride out. During the boat ride, you ride in complete darkness through the caves, where you can look up and see the glowing blue lights being emitted from the worms. Apparently, they glow when they’re hungry. Considering these tours go every ten minutes throughout the day, those guys must always be hungry.

After the caves, I didn’t have many other plans for the day. I went to Hamilton’s Botanical Gardens, which were cute, but slightly underwhelming. I was more excited to go back to my AirBnB and try out the tub, so I did.

It was a bit earlier in the day than my shower had been the day prior, and the sun was shining brighter. I set the tub faucet as hot as it would go and began filling up the tub while I got a glass of wine and some cheese ready for myself to enjoy in my riverside bath. I feel like wine and cheese really elevate any moment, and I just love it, so this bath was gearing up to be the best experience of my life. And honestly, it held up.

I thought the water would lose its heat rather quickly, but I nearly burned myself getting into the tub. I ran some cooler water in as I settled back. The AirBnB also provided a wireless speaker, so I chose my playlist to perfect the moment and settled into the tub with my glass of wine.

I never wanted to leave. It felt like one of those perfect moments where every single thing in that moment was just as it needed to be. The music provided just the right background, the weather mixed well with the temperature of the tub’s water, and the chilled wine and cheese snack gave me everything in the world that I needed. The only thing that could and did eventually chase me from the tub was another threat of rain rolling through. It was probably for the best that something encouraged me to leave.

Following that experience, now I require every future stay of mine to include an outdoor tub of some kind. I hope I can find some back home that fit the bill.

The next day, I had to say goodbye to my shipping container, and headed to my first stop of the day, Hobbiton. For those who don’t know, this is a tour of the the Lord of the Rings set, specifically the shire where the hobbits lived. I’d only just seen the Lord of the Rings movies within the last year, but somehow have forgotten the majority of what happens. The same thing happened to me with Star Wars, so I think it’s just the lack of compelling romance that leads me to forget. If you want me to be instantly interested in something, throw some solid romance storyline in there and I’m hooked.

Nonetheless, it was cool to tour the set and get a firsthand look at places that had actually been in movies. The location was beautiful as well, set in farmland that I’m sure was (and still is) paid handsomely for this slice of real estate. I got a keepsake mug at the end of the tour as well, so overall I’d highly recommend it.

I was staying the night at a hostel again in Rotorua, so after I left the hobbit world, I headed in the direction of my next city. Along the way, I stopped at Te Waihou springs, which provided a walking trail along beautiful, clear blue water. I took a nice stroll there and continued my journey.

I got to my hostel around dinner time, so as soon as I checked in, I walked the streets to see what my options were. I’d seen on the map that there was something called “Eat Street,” which sounded right up my alley, so I scouted out that location first.

Eat Street was a cool little spot, but it seemed like mainly sit-down restaurants, something I surprisingly haven’t done yet, so I wasn’t too enticed to try any of them. I’m fine with eating alone, but I much prefer it at cafés where you place your order at the front, and then they bring it to you. It feels like too much to have a waiter that keeps coming back when you’re out alone. But maybe that’s just me.

Another look at the map showed me that there was something called the Rotorua Night Market only a few blocks away. Apparently this market is only open on Thursdays, the day I happened to land myself in town, and I’m so happy it worked out like that

I absolutely loved the night market. It was similar to food festival events I’d done in Philly, where there were a bunch of food trucks lined up along a closed-off street, and tables placed in the middle for anyone to sit at. There was also a live performer singing Adele as soon as I’d walked up, and some pop-up shops were selling clothes and jewelry. As I hadn’t been expecting anything like this, I was floored and so excited that I hadn’t settled for Eat Street.

I did several laps around the two-block stretch of the night market, seeing what my options were. I second-guessed myself several times before deciding on the way to spread myself around the most. My meal that night consisted of a beef empanada, a very large order of fries (for some reason I was expecting it to be personal-sized), and a Nutella crepe to round things off. Again, I love a good treat, so if a crepe presents itself, I’m gonna take it.

After finishing my small feast, I headed back to the hostel to get settled in for the night. Although the hostel said it was booked up, I only had one roommate in my four-person bunk room. She was older, with a daughter around my age, and was traveling around for the next two months as she was on a break from teaching. She was from Canada, and had just started her journey only a week or so ago. She’d already done Australia, and seemed to be leaving her options up in the air for where to go next. She was either going to Bali or continuing in New Zealand, and later was planning on Thailand and Iceland, but didn’t have anything booked. I admired her ability to travel around that much without having everything organized already.

She was pretty chatty, so we talked for a bit before going to bed. She fell asleep right away, and proved herself to be another snorer. Her snores were softer, though, and provided a nice background noise. I think I fell asleep for a little bit, but woke up around 1 A.M. because it was hot.

Our window had been open when I’d arrived, but I’d closed it, not thinking much of it. Apparently that was our only form of AC, because I was sweating with it being closed. I flung the window back open, and struggled to find sleep again until maybe an hour later.

Still though, I woke up around 7, and got ready for my day. Today I planned to hike around some geothermal hot pools and then maybe visit one of the various surrounding lakes. I made it through the hike, which was stunning in the beginning, and then got slightly less impressive as I went. After the hike, though, I felt dead – probably from the lack of sleep. Lucky for me, I’d booked another AirBnB for the night!

I know, I feel like I really need this farm job to put me in the middle of nowhere. I need something to restrict me from my eating and spending at the moment 🙂

I rented out an AirBnB for a specific reason this time. A show I love, The Summer I Turned Pretty, was coming out with its second season that day, and I wanted to essentially just get a cozy space where I could binge it. Unfortunately for me, they only released the first 3 episodes to start, but at least it was more than just one! It was just the night I needed after how I was feeling that day.

That marked the last night of my road trip, as I was planning to make my way down to Taupō, and then officially begin my stay at the farm on Saturday. I got to see a little of Taupō, but it’s a lovely little town that has a good amount going on. I think it’ll be a nice balance of being in a remote environment and a more populated place. My schedule is going to be 6 days on and 2 days off, so I’ll be in my farm bubble for 6 days, and then get to rejoin society those two. It’s also in a pretty good place for a lot of close day trips, so I can have some weekend adventures on my days off.

While I’m all settled into the farm now and starting soon, that’ll be a story for another time. Tune in next time to find out all about it!