New Zealand: Leaving the Country After a Year, Sort Of
Well, it seems crazy to think that exactly one year ago we were flying over to New Zealand and I was writing about leaving our home in Canada. At the time, it seemed like our time in New Zealand stretched out in front of us like an eternity, but after plenty of adventures, new friends being made, and lots of cool experiences, here we are at the end.
But wait…it’s not quite the end. Before we head back to Canada we’re coming back to New Zealand for a few weeks. So if you’re confused now, let me explain. Hilary and I have come to the end of our working holiday visas, but instead of renewing them for another year and going through the hassle, we’re instead going to leave the country before they expire. We’re going to head to South East Asia for a quick 6 or 7 week tour around, then come back to New Zealand to pick up the rest of our belongings and head back to Canada to embrace the cold weather just before Christmas.
I wanted to quickly write this post so that you could keep up to date with our travel plans, so our schedule at the moment will be:
September 27th: Fly from Queenstown NZ to Singapore
October 1st: Fly from Singapore to Yangon, Myanmar
October 15ish (Not Booked Yet): Fly from Mandalay, Myanmar to Bangkok, Thailand
October 25ish (Not Booked Yet): Fly from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamg
November 15th: Fly from Hanoi, Vietnam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
November 18th: Fly from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Queenstown
December 12th: Fly from Queenstown back home to Canada
Throughout the course of our trip to Asia, the best place to follow along with our adventures will be on Instagram, where I’ll try to post pictures and stories of the day-to-day from our trip. Like every country that I visit, I’ll also be writing a full in-depth trip report for each country throughout the trip. Realistically, I won’t be able to finish and post these until after the trip, but keep an eye out for them once our trip wraps up. In the meantime, you should head over and check out some trip reports from other countries that I’ve visited.
It’s a strange thing to begin thinking of our trip in a matter of weeks. When we first came over and knew that we had a full year ahead of us, it seemed like an eternity. Now, however, we’re leaving New Zealand and have a few weeks in Asia, then afterwards only about 3 weeks left in New Zealand.
All in all, our year in New Zealand has been absolutely amazing and we’ve seen and done a lot of really cool things. This country is the kind of place, however, that there is always more that can be done. More hikes to backcountry huts, more bike rides, more small little towns to check out, and more pie shops to discover. Because of this, I would never hesitate to come back to New Zealand, especially with the people that we’ve met and friends that we’ve made.
Even though we’re only leaving the country temporarily for the moment, it’s still going to be tough to leave, which doesn’t bode will for when we actually leave for home in December. I would say that it’s actually almost as hard to leave New Zealand as it was to leave home in Canada. It doesn’t help that I’m terrible at goodbye’s to begin with. But I think this just speaks to how awesome our time in New Zealand has been.
But, for the moment, off to Asia!
