What a day... Full of adventures! In the morning we left the beautiful hostel in Wanaka, said good bye to all the travellers, and headed south to Te Anau, in the Fiordland. Our first stop on the way was Arrowtown. We didn't find what was interesting in the town except that we managed to shop AGAIN :-) (some beautiful jewlery, yes, again. They have stuff made of a shell called Paua shell, and I fell in love with it). On the way we stopped for WC, and only thanks to that, completely by chance, we saw the steam train that is [View Full Entry]

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This was a real fun day! First of all, no driving :-) I needed a rest from that... In the morning we went to a museum in Wanaka called Puzzling World. It has a great exhibition of illusions, a maze, and mind cracking games room. We were actually first to arrive to the museum and we had the illusions rooms all to ourselves. I attach pictures from the giant and the dwarf room, illusion used in Lord of the Rings movie. See me and Shiri exchange our heights :-) One room presented holograms, one room had 168 faces on the walls, [View Full Entry]

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We were warned before that the road leading to Rob Roy track is terrible. I knew I had to cross some creeks with the car... and that the unsealed road is bumpy. Well the creeks were not too bad (in the first I felt I am driving an amphebian car, but I got used to it). However the 32 km of this road were bone breaking. I started out driving 20 km/h so I don't break the car, but then I understood that you feel much less the bumps ("coulisses - is that a word in English???) if you go 80 [View Full Entry]

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We meant to wake up really early to go to a lake called Lake Matheson, where you are supposed to see reflections of Mount Cook in the water and it's beautiful in sunrise or right after. But the night before we met some nice people in the backpacker and we chatted too long... So we still went the all way around the fanmous TINY lake and the views of the high mountains were suberb but the reflections were really poor. No fight to the beauty I saw in Norway on the way to the glacier there, and right from the [View Full Entry]

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Today I am in a town called Franz Jozef, that is not so much a town, mainly a tourism center for trips to the neighbouring glacier. If you wonder how come it has this name, it was named like that by an Austrian guy (its European "discoverer"), aparently it reminded him of the emperor's white beard!!! Earlier today, I actually walked on this glacier. Yesterday it rained all day but this morning looked promising. We walked over the valley, put on the ice-talonz (a metal piece you put on the shoe to help you walk on the ice), started to climb, [View Full Entry]

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The day started with a fine weather and we drove north to see the famous Pancake Rocks. Not much to say about them but the way there and back was awesome - rocks on the shore with all kinds of shapes, and more amazing was the amount of green all around - trees bushes etc, and so close to the sea. Shiri wondered how this all survives with the salt of the sea and then, just about mid-day we got the answer - rain rain rain... I drove 200km in non-stop rain, quiet heavy rain. this part of the road (from [View Full Entry]

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First day out of Christchurch... Getting out of the city in foreign countries always gives me a sense of freedom. I love driving on the long roads, with beautiful views around me. On Arthur's pass we had our first nature walk. Since it was the first we chose the shortest one, need to get used gradually, as we learned in the army :-) So we wnr to some waterfall, that was really beautiful, 131m high. I did see more impressive ones before but I never had enough of waterfalls, I always find them so beautiful. [View Full Entry]

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That's it, the real thing - New Zealand. I am really in the "end of the world". I am standing upside down and all the blood goes to my head, and I struggle not to fall down... We are staying in a backpacker that is for women only. That was the only one where I could find a room, but it has some advantages as very nice showers with hair dryers :-) So this morning we walked to the center of Christchurch and found the main square full of people and very happy. There were street performers doing tricks, advanced jugling [View Full Entry]

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Hong Kong is amazing. We have spent here 3.5 long days, full of action and celebrations. There are several significant characteristics of HK. I have graded them: In the forth place, the crowd, the hustle and bustle - more than other Asian cities I have seen. 6.8 million people in this place, so what's the surprise? In the third place: shopping. Shopping is everywhere, worse than the US. Of course, we arrived on the holiday and probably holidays are the same all around the world - package wrapping stands outside stores, long lines. In HK, it's even more :-) In the [View Full Entry]

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So what did we do here? If you read the previous post you know we traveled on escalators... Hong Kong park and its zoo are great. The skycrapers are amazing. Their architects are doing a great job. My favourite was China bank tower - you'll get a picture when I get a chance to load one. We climbed to the Victoria Peak - a famous place but for no reason. The view on HK from Kowloon (the other side of the bay) is much more impressive. We wandered in the markets of Kowloon, that are nice (I like Bangkok weekend market [View Full Entry]

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