With election day fast approaching on October 14, the Labour leader was hamstrung by COVID, isolating in Auckland's Cordis Hotel for the past five days.
"I think I've eaten pretty much everything on the Cordis menu so I'm looking forward to getting home tonight," he told journalists in the hotel lobby as he checked out.
Mr Hipkins enthusiastically posted a picture of a negative rapid antigen test to his social media accounts early on Friday morning.
"Isolation over! Can't wait to get back into it!" he said.
Isolating is no longer a requirement in New Zealand, which ditched all COVID-related regulations earlier in the year, but Mr Hipkins chose to do so to demonstrate best practice.
"It knocked me around quite a bit the first few days ... but I've been on the mend for a couple days now," he said.
The former COVID-19 Minister said he "absolutely" had enough in the tank for the final few days, noting the irony of the virus coming back to haunt him as he campaigns for office.
"Well COVID-19 disrupted everything over the last three years so I think there's a certain sort of irony in it disrupting the last couple of weeks of the election campaign as well," he said.
Polls show Labour face a tough road to a third term, with the latest TVNZ-Verian survey showing Labour on 26 per cent support, behind National on 36.
As a whole, the left bloc has 41 per cent support compared to the right bloc, of National, ACT and NZ First, on 52 per cent.
Mr Hipkins said Kiwis could expect him to "be out there with a vigorous campaign".
"There's a lot of undecided voters going out in the electorate, even the pollsters will tell you that," he said.
"It could be up to 10 to 15 per cent of people haven't made up their minds how they're going to vote and that's enough to completely change the outcome. of the election.
"The last few days of the election campaign really matters."
Mr Hipkins is bound for Wellington on Friday before returning north to Auckland on Saturday.
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