A South Pacific Adventure

The Milford track is..  THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WALK IN THE WORLD.  We are gonna start there and then backtrack.  I woke up far too early. My room was the equivalent of a one bedroom college dorm room. that may sound bad. but in comparison, the bunk rooms I have been renting in larger cities were more expensive. So it was nice to have my own space for night. To be able to pack, repack, plan, freak out a little in my own space without the risk of waking anyone or having any prying eyes was a much needed respite before my endeavor into the fiord land... so just to recap. I woke up in Te Anau, pronounced “teh ah now”. To get to the start of the Track requires a short bus ride to Te Anau Downs and then about an hour long boat ride to the beginning. Accompanying me in the boat were 6 other hikers.  The boat ride was good, perhaps a little small but not at all a problem. Our captain was an older gentleman who had lived in Te Anau his whole life. During our hourlong...

I am sorry for having taken a hiatus. I love writing, and sharing this beautiful adventure with you has continued to be a rewarding and beautiful if not moderately challenging endeavor. It did not take a toll, but it did become harder. Not harder in the sense of wanting to quit, but harder in the sense that I almost felt like I was sounding redundant and being too critical of my own writing, like the writing itself wasn’t good enough. So much so that I over thought a lot of it and didn’t want to post. Also I am just staying busy giving myself every opportunity I can. I am a traveller and a story teller and I love that about myself, but sometimes the hardest part about being those things is collecting your thoughts and making sure they are conveyed on the page the way I want  them to be. I have rewritten my post about the Milford track 3 times. I still do not think it showcases the track in a light that does it justice. So, after today and tomorrow the blog will be all caught up. I...

Checkout was at 10 and I had made one mistake in my calculations the day before. I knew I would be coming back to queenstown but I had yet to book a room anywhere, or figured out what to do with the rest of my clothes while I was hiking. The hostel I stayed in for the one night was a little too center of town for me. The atmosphere had a “kids out of school on wild vacation” feel rather than a quiet backpacker kind of place. I grabbed my stuff and found a place on the edge of town that was a fair price and asked them if they had a bag room I could lock some stuff up in while I went on a hike for a couple of days. They said yes so I booked and I was ready to go.  Bus pickup was at 1 and to conserve funds the only other thing i purchased while in town was an extra bottle of water so I could carry a little more while on the track. Got all my stuff organized and made some calls home then I waited. when I got picked up and we started driving out of town, I made it all of about 15 m...

I think I’m gonna like Queenstown. My bus driver into town is blaring music and has the look of a bearded biker gang member. After everyone makes it on the bus, he turns the music up a little louder and steps out to have a smoke.Yeah definitely gonna like this place.  Queenstown itself feels small. But as we ride in it is apparent there is a lot of different demographics of people visiting this place. 5 doors down from a outdoor shop is a Luis Vuitton. The boardwalk has hikers, tourists, wealthy visitors, and student looking persons alike. It feels like a cross between a sleepy mountain town, with a little bit of night life, splashed with a casino, that exists solely for the tourists and adventure seekers. When I flew in at noon I had a very specific list of things I needed to get accomplished. So I am just gonna list out what those things are and then elaborate as needed.  Book hostel - I needed a place to stay for the night.  Pickup shelter tickets for ...

It’s 2:40 am. The airport opens at 4. I’m rolling back over. I assume    employees are starting to arrive. The door that I have foolishly camped near seems to be opening and slamming closed more frequently now. 3am rolls around and I am up. I get dressed in my tent and greet the employees that walk past me with quizzical looks. Since I look homeless, I may as well try to come off as a friendly homeless person.  4am. The airport is open now. I make my way to the men’s room to get what I can only in loose terminology describe as a wash. Brush teeth. Fill water bottles. I get to the check in point and I have a problem. My bag is too heavy. Scratch that. Both my bags are too heavy. I have never encountered a company that has a weight limit on carry on bags. I get a trash can and start throwing out stuff. All my candy and some food, gone. A couple guide books, gone. And now for the fun part. Being I have a lot of hiker clothes in my bag the easiest way to cut more weight ...

So throughout my time in Sydney I have been helped by the workers at the hostel I have been staying in. The Jolly Swagman backpacker hostel(never get tired of saying that outrageous name). They have been nice enough to allow me to prod them with questions about the city and just genuinely give me help or advice when I ask for it. Between the employees I have met there is Sam, Joe, Adrianna, and Ark(no idea if I’m spelling this right). Adrianna and Sam have definitely had to put up with me more than anyone this week and I am immensely grateful for their help. If I were ever to return to this hostel, I would be excited to see either of them if they were still there. Sam is a hilariously energetic Man with a knack for food and wine that brings his dog to work every day. No matter how hard I tried, that dog does not give a rats that I ever came through the door. Always quick witted, he was always an interesting person to talk to and get an option from when it came to just about anything. ...

Let me just say, I said I went to sleep at 10 the day before.. that was a lie. I slept for like an hour and then some ruckus in the common room caused me to get up and find a birthday celebration with free home made cake. It was carrot cake. The frosting was home made cream cheese. Not that I’m a starving backpacker, but I am not above looking desperate for some home made cake. Also happy birthday to.... Kate?  5:50am rolled around too quickly. With cake and birthday shenanigans I was still in bed well before midnight. My bunk is still a summer camp slab of springs and metal bars. The only difference is that I know that my jet lag is still taking a toll on me waking up early. But this morning there was an extra something added to the “cant sleep” cocktail. My bunk mates had at some point the day before opened the window. No worries. Little airflow to empty out the hiker funk and so one of them could smoke out the window. They however did not close the window. Some time just be...

Considering I crashed so early from my first day, I had trouble staying asleep this morning.  I’m gonna go ahead and say this now and get it out of the way. The Star Wars nerd in me is thinking it’s a must. May the 4th be with you. Alright back to my regularly scheduled blog post.  Nothing says comfort like an 8 man bunk room in the kind of bed I can only describe as, something I would have slept on at sleep away summer camp. I guess I reached a point at around 5am this morning where I was tired of rolling over and possibly disturbing my bunk mates. I snuck out of the bunk room and  had the hostel common area to myself to read and just relax until breakfast around 7. This hostel offers free breakfast consisting of bread to toast with some toppings for spreading and some cereals. Considering it is a super reasonably priced hostel I wasn’t expecting anything extravagant, but it was nice and saved me the trouble of going out and trying to hunt down a cafe. Without ...

Walking off the plane, I am feeling good.  Spoiler alert, the universe was about to throw a stick in the spokes of my plans.  You know what will give you a really sinking feeling? watching everyone at the baggage claim find their bag. while you stand alone realizing that all the gear you need for your camping plans across the world did not make it across the world with you. A really optimistic worker was nice enough to radio down and check all the possible hiding places of my bag to no avail. The bag never made it out of LA.  So to recap. I was just about to rent a car and drive to the mountain I wanted to climb. Now have no tent, boots, or any of the other outdoorsy shit I might have needed for that endeavor. I have been on planes for something like 19 hours with a 2plus hour layover in LA so I smell like that of a fresh budding rose, with no clothes to change into. Oh joy.  This whole ordeal was a problem and I hate that it happened, but I am...

No matter how much I enjoy sleeping, there is no way to enjoy enjoy sleeping on an air plane. In this 14 hr flight I managed to sleep for a continuous 10 hrs. Now I am wired and there is no way I am gonna be able to get back to sleep.  I wasn’t able to get a 3 person row all to myself this time around, but the gentleman I shared it with was very polite and nice making a great long trip companion. Not a downside to sitting next to Paul, but something to be considered when trying to get out, was that he was paralyzed from the waist down. I managed to get out and not disturb him once while he was sleeping, but it worked much better to wait till he would call the stewardesses for help and then i would dash off to the bathroom and to the snack room for an armload of goodies. I only have just under 3 hrs remaining on this flight. And the sun is up. Cruising above the clouds with blue as far as I can see. I feel pretty darn good as of right now so I think my next move needs to ...

Since I am sitting on my first flight with a pretty large amount of time to kill. I figured I would go ahead and get a jumpstart on the blog. from LA I will be flying to Sydney Australia. My timeline while in Australia is a very short 84 hours. My initial plan was to try and accomplish 2 things while here. Take a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and climb the highest peak in Australia. But with my limited time frame, whether or not I am able to accomplish both of these feats will be determined by how jet lagged I am and how expensive it is gonna be. The tallest summit in Australia is MT. Kosciusko. At just over 7,000 feet tall, it is the shortest of the 7 summits. The 7 summits are aptly named because each one stands as the tallest peak on each of the 7 continents. I would love to accomplish as many as I can throughout my life and this one shouldn’t be too difficult in comparison to some of the others. If I take this option I should be able to either rent a car or take a bus 7 hrs, clim...

I never really know how to start these. So lets jump jump in.. For anyone new here, My name is Hank Holleman. I’m 27 and completely hooked with love for travel and adventure. I have been fortunate enough to travel and backpack all over the world. Most recently, I flew to Nepal with my dad and some of his friends to trek in the himalayas for the better part of a month and I was lucky enough to summit a 20,000ft peak named Lobuche. I recently graduated from a Technical welding program with the skill sets of a combination welder which I hope to get all my certifications in soon. But for the time being, I’m putting off starting my career and I’m jetting from Knoxville TN to Australia and New Zealand. I will be gone from May 1st to June 20th. I am able to make this trip because of a connecting with a company that I made. I am lucky enough that they are willing to put me up all while allowing me to explore their beautiful country. My itinirary is very open while I’m there with open schedule...