Backpacker’s lucky escape
Many young backpackers in NZ are finding generosity in a crisis – others are being exploited, writes Anke Richter.
When Sara Beckmann landed in Christchurch on March 2, she had planned to travel around New Zealand in a campervan for a month with a friend.
Three weeks into her dream vacation, the 30-year-old financial adviser and YouTuber from Bochum in Germany found herself sleeping on a bench outside Auckland Airport even after the lockdown, not able to afford food because her money had dried up from rebooking cancelled flights.
‘‘At least I have fresh air and there are no wild animals,’’ Beckmann said with a sense of sarcasm on Thursday, stretching her legs over her open suitcase on the pavement. Not all of the 12,000 Germans who are still in the country and waiting to be flown out by their government over the next weeks were that upbeat, though.
Many of them are stressed, having to find last-minute accommodation on a shoestring budget while hostels and campgrounds were closing indefinitely.
From Wednesday night, freedom camping was not an option. Yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade put a temporary halt on the scheduled repatriation flights for German citizens, causing more stress and chaos for those in limbo.
Hannah Dircks, 18, from Northern Germany had been travelling in her self-contained van for six months on a work and travel visa. Earlier this year, a friendly Kiwi had chatted her up at a freedom camping spot in
Whakatane and then tried to meet her again later. ‘‘I was not interested in him at all. My friends kept him at a distance from me in the bar,’’ Dircks says.
When the backpacker realised on Monday that she would need to urgently sell the van she had bought for $7000 and find a lockdown place, she asked the random friend for help.
He told her he had someone who would buy the car off her, and she could stay with him – his brother would be living at his house near Huntly as well.
Dircks took him up on the offer, intending to camp out on his driveway. ‘‘Maybe I was naive, but I had no other option.’’
When she arrived at his house, she found he had no brother turning up. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable about the situation, she arranged for a friend to call her while her host was pouring her glasses of cider. ‘‘He tried to get me drunk and I was really stressed by it all.’’
She claims he then ‘‘jumped her’’, kissed her and took her into his bedroom, trying to undress her. She escaped into the bathroom and contacted a friend in
Christchurch who suggested she call the police.
‘‘I had too much alcohol to drive off. I was in the middle of nowhere and 24 hours away from lockdown . . . I felt powerless.’’
She retreated to her car, while her predatory host messaged her about potential buyers for her van. But feeling unsafe there, Dircks just drove off the next day. The man passed her in his car at a roundabout and tried to stop her. His last message to her read: ‘‘That made me sad as. No goodbye how mean’’.
‘‘The money I have lost on my car wasn’t worth the risk,’’ she says now, holed up in an Airbnb in Auckland with four other women she met through Facebook, waiting for her flight. ‘‘It feels like a lucky escape.’’
Over the last days, the social media page has had many posts from backpackers who have had incredible hospitality as well as xenophobia. Several tourists trying to get to a safe place say they were verbally abused about moving around, while the restrictions were still at Level 2.
One happier camper is Lucas Zimmermann, who was going to tour around the country on ‘‘Kiwi Experience’’ bus.
When that suddenly stopped, an Australian relative helped to place him on a dairy farm in Helensville. ‘‘I’m so grateful for the people here,’’ the 18-year-old German says. ‘‘They took me in as one of them from day one.’’
Many hostels shut down and put people out on the streets. Others that stay open are trying to enforce stricter rules than under the state of emergency. Base Backpackers in Auckland only lets their guests out for shopping. They have to sign in and out of a list, naming the shop, otherwise they will be reported to the police. Choice Backpackers on Wellesley St has a rule that guests can only leave the premises for one hour a day and walk no further than 500 metres.
a‘‘Is it allowed for a hostel to restrict my basic rights more than the government?’’ Edgar Reinhold from Germany asked on social media. ‘‘I’m gonna die in this hole otherwise.’’
Luckier travellers have been singing the praise of The Palace hostel in Nelson. Owner Dave Enting is sharing his Victorian villa with 30 others, including a self-isolating guest in a cottage on his property who flew in from South America.
When their money runs out, Enting will let them stay in exchange for help around the place, he says. ‘‘I’m 66 and the oldest one here – if I’m the only one who dies, I’m happy.’’
On Thursday afternoon, 16 hours into lockdown, Sara Beckmann, who was sleeping outside Auckland Airport, still didn’t have anywhere to go. Her mood was lifted when she received an email from the German embassy that she would get on the first Lufthansa flight from Auckland.
‘‘I’m allowed to go home!’’, read her last tweet.
Two German women staying in a hotel nearby and out for a walk took pity on her and offered her a place to stay. Beckmann is angry, calling the government and airport management ‘‘inhumane’’ for not providing emergency shelter.
Auckland Airport did not want to comment but referred to the advice from the police and Health Ministry about not coming to the airport unless you are flying out in the next three hours.
Before midnight on Friday, Beckmann started to walk the one and a half hours to the terminal to not miss the morning flight that left for Frankfurt yesterday, expecting to sleep inside or outside the terminal. Once she lands, the disillusioned tourist plans to put out a video on her YouTube channel to express her anger about what happened on her last days in New Zealand.