Starting Early Nov. N to S

[sticks]

Coming from U.S. I'm an experienced backpacker/trekker. Curious what the general weather will be like then, e.g., what extremes have to be planned for.

I have Chappie's book and have looked at the messages in this group and so may have missed answers to the following:

- are the NZ post offices open on Saturday and if so, all or half the day? Important to me for planning arrivals in towns to which I've posted a food package
- my choices for a GPS are either a Garmin 450 or an iphone5. I wonder how the latter has worked for folks, it's tempting as the phone (providing there's an NZ sim card for the iphone5), camera, and gps would all be in the same box.

More questions will come. These will get the dialogue started. BTW, I may be by myself, so if someone is look for a hiking partner I'm interested. Oh, I will be section hiking, returning to the U.S. in mid-December.

Regards,

Rod

[Shane Davidson]

"Post offices" tend to only exist in larger towns now. In smaller rural areas "Post offices" have been replaced by "Post shops" - essentially just another service within the store, a post shop may sell petrol, food, books etc. as well. Most would be open 7 days.

The iPhone should work, I do know there are free topo maps you can download (see http://mobac.sourceforge.net/) and also  http://macmapper.com/mapapp/). The Topo maps for NZ are excellent though I'm not sure if you can transfer a GPX/KML track into them. The big issue I see with an iPhone will be your battery life - you'll need spare batteries for longer sections.

You'll be catching the tail end of spring which usually means a bit windy, and rain in the alps/west. I would expect the Rangitata and Rakaia rivers could be running high in November/December so plan on getting transport around these (you probably would as a section hiker anyway).

For the length of time you've got you're probably best to stick to the South Island (though I'm biased here). My wife Jane (see http://janeandshane.com) took 53 days for this and she had support and was pushing long days. As a section hiker you should be able to fit in the nicest SI sections.

Shane

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[Paul Adams]

Concerning the post-offices' google search them, and your questions will be answered, you'll find that some are open on Saturday's and Sunday's. In North island just pick up your supply from town to town; save on the postage.

[Roy Britten]

Hi Rod,

On 15 April 2013 08:42, sticks <hrodm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Coming from U.S. I'm an experienced backpacker/trekker. Curious what the general weather will be like then, e.g., what extremes have to be planned for.

While the weather will be mild at that time of year, do bear in mind that this is a mid-latitude island country, and our mountain regions can have sudden changes of severe weather at any time. It's not uncommon to be sunburned in the morning and in a blizzard in the afternoon.

 

I have Chappie's book and have looked at the messages in this group and so may have missed answers to the following:

- are the NZ post offices open on Saturday and if so, all or half the day? Important to me for planning arrivals in towns to which I've posted a food package

As noted by Shane, post offices (or "post shops") are often in small local stores these days and generally operate 6 or 7 days a week. In larger centres you still get actual post offices that may not be open on the weekends. http://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/postshop-kiwibank-locator has all the locations and hours.

 

- my choices for a GPS are either a Garmin 450 or an iphone5. I wonder how the latter has worked for folks, it's tempting as the phone (providing there's an NZ sim card for the iphone5), camera, and gps would all be in the same box.

I do hear of people using the latter, although they are utterly inadequate.

Personally, it frightens me how many people rely on phones for navigation in NZ terrain. I'm a big fan of old-fashioned paper maps (they cover enough terrain to orient yourself when lost, and never get flat batteries), but acknowledging that you're probably not going to carry dozens of paper maps, please carry an EPIRB. They save lives in NZ every year. If you don't own one they can be rented very cheaply.

Cheers,

Roy.