Well, friends, my farming days are officially behind me.

While I’m happy to have tried it and gotten such a unique New Zealand experience, I don’t quite feel a pull to pursue the field any further. And during the duration of my time in New Zealand, I don’t think I’ll find myself mourning the loss of my cow time anytime soon. I’ve been on the road for a few days now and so far nearly 70% of the roads that I’ve driven down have been lined with cows grazing in their pastures. Those babies are everywhere.

Initially, I had set up a potential job at a wine bar in Christchurch, bringing me back to my original starting point on the South Island. However, due to lack of sufficient communication and job assurance, I decided not to pursue that path. There was more I’d wanted to see on the North Island before heading back down south, and I figured I’d have more to lose in taking the job than not. So with that, and a call to my parents to assure me I was making a good decision, I dropped my car off at the Auckland airport and did not board my flight to Christchurch that evening.

Steve finished at the farm the same day as me, as we had started our time together. Unlike me with my rental car, Steve took the time to find and buy his when he first arrived in Auckland. He planned to leave the farm and hit a few more sights on his way down to the South Island, no set plan for the future other than sight-seeing. He invited me to join him, and since I had been worrying about the lack of security with my job, I told him I’d let him know.

There are many ways to travel around New Zealand. One of the most popular ways of travel I would say, especially amongst backpackers, would be by campervan.

Normally, when I think campervan, I think of those Sprinter vans that people purchase and convert the inside of, often creating a beautiful mini home on wheels that they can comfortably live in.

In New Zealand, a model similar to that exists, but there are also cheaper van options that a lot of backpackers purchasing a car here opt for. That mode is a minivan – or similar type – that consists of the two front seats, and a mattress spread across the back. All of the back seats are ripped out, replaced by a wooden frame in which all necessary items can be organized, a wooden slab on top, and a mattress pad to create a bed on which to sleep.

This last option is Steve’s mode of travel, in which I was invited to embark and camp in.

His car has been named Edward the Estima – by me – and when I decided not to board my flight, I called him up and asked if he was still willing to travel with me. The next day he drove up to Auckland to pick me up, and we kept heading up north into the Northlands to see a few beautiful beaches before making our way back down.

Often, every day with Steve is an adventure. I tend to think he just is prone to bad luck, but not everything is necessarily bad – just a new experience you might have never thought yourself involved in.

Our first day on the road, as we headed into the Northlands, came our first unique detour. While driving along the winding roads weaving through farmland, we slowed to a stop behind a car sitting in our lane with the flashers on. A look to our right showed a single-car crash.

Steve was our driver at the moment, and he flicked his flashers on as well before getting out of the car to see what happened. We didn’t see how the crash happened, but somehow the truck had flipped around so that it was perpendicular to the road, facing out towards us. I couldn’t see anything that had happened besides a smashed windshield and the bent frame of the cab.

As Steve jogged over to check on things, I sat in the car, unsure of whether I should also get out and help, or if I should stay with the car. I’m not quite great in a crisis, and have a deep fear of witnessing medical trauma, so I opted to stay with the car in case things were too grisly for me. I felt supremely unhelpful, but a few other people had stopped and I was pretty sure I would just be in the way. A woman that had been the first to stop had taken it upon herself to direct traffic around our stopped cars, helping others travel safely.

While I waited and felt more and more like I should get out of the car, Steve and two other men were rounding the crashed truck, maneuvering things in different ways that I couldn’t quite see. Steve had spent time in the fire brigade back in Germany, and another off-duty firefighter had stopped to help before the emergency vehicles that had been called showed up. They seemed to have things under control.

As the first fire truck showed up, I saw Steve making his way back to the car. He wanted to get out of there before the police showed up and potentially made him stay for some statements. He said that an older man had been stuck in the driver’s seat and they had gotten him out safely. Now, the emergency vehicles could handle the rest.

So there was our first adventure, not even an hour into our road trip up north.

Our next unique adventure came two days later. Not every campsite is a full-blown spot made up specifically for camping. Many seem to be just open chunks of land, or parking lots, that have been labeled as campgrounds.

This campsite for our second night was in the middle of nowhere in the woods, no cellular service to be had. The road in was just a circular drive, with a few pocket campsites carved out of the trees on dirt ground. Our campsite had a sad little fire pit as well, where I was able to give Steve his first campfire s’mores experience.

All was well with the campsite, and I slept well despite heavy rain that fell during the night. In the morning, the ground looked a bit muddy, and water puddled in some spots. I vaguely worried about the van potentially being stuck in the ground, but Steve didn’t mention anything about it, so I carried on and figured we’d be fine.

When we set out to leave, the car moved smoothly for about a foot, before the engine revved and we didn’t move along with it. Steve tried a few different maneuvers, going into drive and reverse and back again, before letting out some German curse words. No matter what we tried, the van was stuck.

We tried several different methods to free it ourselves, from neutral pushing to one person attempting to hit the gas and drive out while the other pushed. Almost immediately, Steve slipped in the mud and was covered from his hat to this feet. The only progress we had managed to make was turning the car around to face our exit a measly 5 feet away.

Luckily, the angry sounds of our engine must’ve caught the attention of the only other people at our campsite. A young man walked over, checking on us and asking if everything was alright. We told him about our predicament, and he willingly jumped right in to help, going to change from his camp sandals into his hiking boots before helping us out. His partner joined a little while later, presumably after we kept him much longer than anticipated.

They were a couple from Belgium, also here on working holiday visas. They had bought themselves a campervan that was bigger than ours, and was more like the converted vans I was used to seeing. They had only been in New Zealand for about 3 weeks, and were exploring the country before finding jobs.

We again had tried pushing and hitting the gas, but even with more people pushing, the van wasn’t budging. If anything, it was digging itself a deeper hole in the mud.

When all hope of doing this ourselves seemed lost, the couple suggested we call a tow truck service. That may have been our next move had the campsite not been in a cellular dead zone. I had visions of walking down the road with my phone held high in the air, desperate for just one bar to show up on the screen to call for help.

Steve began to formulate another plan to dig the car out of the mud. He gave the couple an out, saying that he had another idea, but that it would take time. The couple either didn’t hear, or didn’t care to stay and help a bit longer, as they hung around and assisted where they could.

There must have been some sort of construction going on around our campsite. There were what looked like chopped trees, and piles of wood chips sat beside our section of muddy land. We had been siphoning away at the wood chips in an attempt to cover some of the mud and give the car traction, but so far it hadn’t been enough. Steve’s next plan involved using the car jack to lift up each of the front wheels individually, and use the extra space to pile more wood chips directly underneath the tires.

Initially, I was worried this would just send the car deeper into the mud on the other side, but as I know nothing about the mechanics of any sort of machinery, I just bumbled along and carried wood chips back and forth. I started to spread the chips all over our exit route as well in the hopes that once we got the car moving again, we wouldn’t be stuck another foot away from where we started.

It was somewhat slow moving, but we got there. As Steve stuck his hand beneath the tire to spread wood chips around, he looked me in the eye and said “Never do this.” Luckily, the car hack held and he didn’t sustain any hand injuries on top of our already problematic morning.

After both wheels had their turn of being jacked up and given a bed of wood chips to rest on, the car jack was put away and we decided to take what we hoped would be our last attempt to free the car.

I was given the role of being the driver while the other three went behind the car to push. I often hate any form of responsibility, and even though I was given the easier task, I was worried about messing it up. There was a narrow drive out of the spot, and the trick lied in aiming perfectly for that exit. Our campsite was bordered by green grass that probably would’ve allowed us to drive out if not for the ditch that it dipped into. Therefore, I had to make sure we didn’t aim for the ditch, which we were pointed directly at, and turn it perfectly out over the muddy area.

Steve yelled the signal once they were all in position, and I hit the gas, not too aggressively, but enough to get her going. When the car didn’t immediately move with their pushing, I assumed we had failed yet again. However, just as I was about to take my foot off the gas, I heard “Go, go go!” and kept my foot on the gas, finally feeling it take purchase and move. Once it got started, it kept going easily, and luckily the turns to make it out went smoothly and we made it out onto the gravel ground of the main drive.

Relief was instant, and I’d never felt so accomplished in my life, although arguably I had a very small role overall in being helpful with this journey. However, I am a great moral support.

We thanked our Belgian saviors and they quickly went on their way, ready to return to their own scheduled adventure. Steve had to stop for a cold shower (the only kind this site provided), but soon enough we were on our way to our journey for the day, which consisted of a long drive to Cape Reinga, the very end point of the top of the Northlands.

I was a little nervous that traveling with Steve was going to result in some kind of hazardous adventure every other day we were on the road, but so far that has been the worst of it. Now we just have a week left on the North Island before finally making it to the south!