No ID Required

On my free weekend I went with Adam, Lauren, Jesse, and Cat to the South Island to visit Abel Tasman National Park and the town of Nelson. We left Thursday at 11:30 am and took a taxi to the Hamilton International Airport (yes Hamilton has its own airport). The first thing one would notice inside the Hamilton airport is that it’s incredibly small. The ticket counters are next to the café, which is next to the arrival/departure terminal (one terminal serves both purposes). Our bags weren’t x-rayed, there weren’t any metal detectors, and we weren’t required to show any ID when boarding the flight. Putting my first New Zealand airport experience aside, the airports that I went through over the weekend were more on par with a bus terminal in the way they operated.
We flew from Hamilton to Wellington on a New Zealand Air propeller plane. We then had a 35 minute flight to Nelson on an even smaller plane. Once we got to Nelson we had to wait for the bus for what ended up being around 2 hours. Once it arrived it wasn’t quite what we expected. It was more the size of a shuttle and it had a small trailer for our luggage. Again, we weren’t required to show any ID. They just assumed we were the people they were picking up since we waved at the driver. We switched buses three times on the way to Marahau (where our hostile was). Marahau was only about an 80 minute drive from the airport, so the bus transfers seemed unnecessary, but it was kind of funny since the buses got smaller each time.
Once we arrived we checked in at the hostile and confirmed our kayak trip for the next two days. The trip that we had booked was for us to get a kayak guide to lead us to Anchorage (bay up the coast of the national park). We would stay the night on a boat that was anchored in the bay. The second day we would be given a map and left to kayak on our own up to Tonga bay to get picked up at 3:30.
Our first day of kayaking we saw a seal in the water. It pretty much snuck up on us and then went his own way. We had morning tea on a beach along the way. We were given lunch at another bay up the beach. We were given kiwi fruit with our lunch and taught to eat it kiwi style (the entire kiwi skin and all). Once we got to Anchorage we were left on the beach and showed which boat was ours for the night.
The owner of the boat came to the beach and drove us on a little boat to our floating hostile. We had to sleep in a big cabin with other people staying on the boat. Once again, we weren’t asked for any IDs. We went back to the beach later that night, and the owner forgot about us. Adam ended up swimming out to the boat to try to get the owner, but about ¾ the way there, the owner realized he forgot us and boated ashore.
The next day we kayaked quickly to Tonga bay and just stayed on the beach for hours. The water taxi eventually came and picked us up to go back to Marahau. The trek that took us 2 days to kayak only took about 20 minutes to motor boat over. When we got back to Marahau, our boat drove directly onto a trailer waiting in the water without stopping. The trailer was then immediately pulled back to the kayak place by a tractor. I don’t think this method would ever fly in America because seemed a little on the dangerous side (no stopping to check to make sure we were even secure on the trailer).
We took a bus the next morning to Nelson and spent most of the morning just sleeping. We just travelled around the town for the day and played some board games. Lauren, Jesse, and Cat cut my hair after some slight “persuading”. I will admit it came out good though.
The next day we woke up at 5:30 and had breakfast. We were at the airport by 6:40 am and back at the University by 9:55. The weekend was definitely a blast. I just couldn’t help notice how differently New Zealand views security and personal trust.
-justinw