Finally, an easy day in the city - no hiking, no mud... So it's a perfect sunny day and we go to Nelson. We preplanned it to be on the weekend for the market - I lost my hat and I need to buy a new one! Look in the pictures, didn't I do well? In Nelson we also visited their famous museum - 2 in 1 in fact. It's called the "wearable art" museum, plus a collection of collectible cars. The wearable art is really impressive - works that are only by chance called "clothes" - well, they are worn [View Full Entry]

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Friday, we drove up to the north edge of the south island. Again we followed the advice of that woman from the info in Takaka, and we went to Wharariki beach in low tide. She said that the baby seals are playing in the pools that are left when the sea goes back. And this time she had no mistake. We went down to the beach and there they were - little seal babies playing like kids love to play. They were swimming and doing "flip flops" just like the Dusky dolphins we saw in Kaikura. We watched them for maybe [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday morning we left Picton on a beautiful drive to a small town called Takaka. On the way we had a short glimpse on the Queen Charlotte Sound again. We heard people saying there was no point to do the track because you can see it from the road, so if anybody comes here remember: it's bullshit... go and walk, you'll see much better views! Then we stopped in Havelock which is "the town of the green mussels". Unfortunately, it was too early for lunch, but still we shared a bowl of mussels chowder (very creamy and very tasty soup), and [View Full Entry]

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So today we came back from this wonderful 4 days hike. As I mentioned before, we walked a lot... The first 2 days were very tiring, walking 51 km total (plus some uncounted track to get to the place you sleep...). The nice thing about this track is that you sleep in backpackers, with a shower and a kitchen, and not in a "mountain hut". In additon, the big bag is transferred by a water taxi from one point to the next. So it was just us, some water, some lunch picnic and some goodies (we love marshmalloes here!). The views [View Full Entry]

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Is even harder! But luckily, the views are amazing... worth every drop of sweat. [View Full Entry]

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Is a lot of walking for one day!! [View Full Entry]

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In the early morning we went to our whale watching cruise. We saw 3 whales, but you don’t see much - just a small part of their body and the famous picture of the tail when they go down again. However we did see dolphins, which makes my previous dolphin watching cruise in Akaroa so stupid. We were in the middle of hundreds of Dusky dolphins that love acrobatics and didn’t stop performing for us, jumping and “swimming-dancing”. It was really splendid. We also saw an Albatros. A “side effect” of this trip as the sunrise that we never saw here, [View Full Entry]

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It’s a complicated and incomprehensive title this time? I know, but there’s a story behind it, don’t worry… Tuesday morning we head out from Murchison to a village named St. Arnaud, for my first tramp (which is a hike of more then 1 day) - the 2 days Angelus hut trek in Nelson lakes national park. Based on our previous luck (mainly Erez’s), we trusted to have a good weather. There are 3 ways to go to the hut, so you choose one to go up and one to go down. We chose the most difficult one to go up the [View Full Entry]

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Today we are in Murchison that is on the Buller river. The Buller is a nice and fast river, lots of water especially after it rained all night. In the morning we went to attraction number 1 here: The longest swingbridge in New Zealand - 160 meters long. And to come back you don't have to cross it again (not that it's was in anyway scary after all I did so far), but you can fly back on omega! In fact it wasn't scary either, I was a bit disappointed, but it was fun. In the afternoon we went rafting!!! Erez [View Full Entry]

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The hike didn't come without cost, with a good muscles pain. But since it was foreseeable, we planned for the day after an easy day with hot springs in the middle. We went to the pools in Hamner springs, which were not as nice as I expected after Baden Baden and Andora, but still it was a refreshing day (with also 500km driving but I don't drive anymore...) The next day we went to a place called Karamea, it's the north end of the road in the west coast, and they have some beautiful karst caves, or more true arches - [View Full Entry]

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