Mellow Expedition - @madhikes_
For this week’s Mellow Expeditions, we caught up with @madhikes_ after four weeks of van life adventures through New Zealand. From sunrise summits in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park to glacier hikes, coastal campsites, and iconic Lord of the Rings filming locations, their trip covered over 4000km of pure magic. With icy dips in Lake Wanaka, wild encounters with kea, and over 100km of hiking trails ticked off, @madhikes_ takes us through the highs (literally) of exploring Aotearoa — and what it’s like chasing big views and bigger memories on the road.
Travelling around New Zealand for 4 weeks, living it up in a van, was an ABSOLUTE dream.
We started in Auckland, travelling over 4000km, heading through the best landscapes you’ve ever seen. It was my first trip living in a van and it’s motivated us to convert one when we’re finally back home. Sleeping under the mountains and being able to have a quick cold dip in Lake Wanaka then run back to comfort was unreal.
From the Tongariro Crossing to see the Red Crater and Emerald Lakes — 21km and at its highest point 1868m — it was so much fun. We were absolutely freezing, but it was totally worth it and not as hard as I thought it would be, which is always a plus!
Visiting multiple Lord of The Rings filming locations (iykyk) was unreal, from our trip to Hobbiton, to the filming locations of Isengard, Gollum’s Pool and Edoras. We even visited Weta Studios, Wellington, to see how some of the props were created.
Seeing the French Pass at the start of our South Island road trip was amazing. We camped right next to the sea, literally metres from where we saw huge stingrays.
We hiked the Rob Roy Glacier Trail and saw with our own eyes our first ever glacier. You could hike right up to the bottom and it was crazy. We even had to grab some glacier water with our LifeStraw bottles. Crisppp.
There were so many core memories made in our 4 weeks there, but the highlight of my trip has to be Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park… Mueller Hut with clear views of Mount Cook was crazyyy. We parked up in the car park and headed up around 4am. We climbed approx. 2200 stairs and scrambled after that to reach the 1800m summit for the 6am sunrise, and it was a dream. Mount Cook was golden, and all of the kea were playing on people’s tents (mountain parrots!). The trail down was closed off for maintenance for a few hours in the morning, so we napped in the sunshine underneath glaciers. After that, we headed down, had a chill, and a little evening walk to Hooker Valley — which was also 10/10.
We boxed off over 100km of hiking trails, snuck a cheeky little glamping weekend in a converted school bus in, and ate our weight in pasta. It was hands down the trip of a lifetime, and I can’t wait to head back and smash off some more hikes with big views.
