Blogs from Hanmer Springs, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

De weg naar Hanmer Springs is prachtig! Je passeert talloze brugjes, grote rivieren, bos, parken, watervallen, etc. Werkelijk de moeite om deze baan te nemen naar Hanmer Springs. Van de Westkust van NZ kan je in een uur of 3 zeker naar Christchurch rijden. Het is allemaal niet ver van elkaar de steden. We lazen in een boekje dat je in 10 dagen het ganse Zuidereiland kan bekijken. Waarom wij er al bijna 2 maanden over doen? Ertussen is er zoveel te zien! We zien ook vaak gehuurde busjes die echte snelheidsduivels zijn, beperkt in vakantie, en toch alles willen bekijken. Het enige nadeel hier is dat er zoveel zandvliegen zijn! Aaagh , wat haat ik die beesten! De beten zijn even groot als een muggenbeet en ze jeuken minstens even hard. De locals hier gebruiken ... read more

We started out our day making a lovely meal in the camper van and then going out to explore. The forest are very lush around Hanmer Springs and we hiked out to a waterfall. The waterfall was amazing! Probably 50 feet high with ferns and moss everywhere. We then happened upon a trail that led to the summit of Mt. Isabel and summited our firest New Zealand mountain! After our hike we drove out to Kaikoura and walked around the very lovely beach town. We stayed at another holiday park right on the beach! It also happened to have a zip line (called a "Flying Fox" in NZ) which was probably 50 years old and sent us crashing into rubber tires that poured water on us (um, yes, it was awesome.) ... read more

SO this is kind of playing catch-up but here we go... We landed in Auckland after a nice nights rest on the airplane. We got off the plane and talked to a very nice police woman who told us to go through custums. After not seeing our baggage on the carosel for a while we became concerned and brought this to the attention of a very jittery baggage agent, who informed us that we were not supposed to go through customs at this juncture. WHOOPS. I am imagining this happened because I was too involved in playing Bejeweled to pay attention to what the flight attendent said and Brian said he seconded guessed himself. Brian: slightly embarrassed. Melissa: unphased. We finally made it to Christchurch with a big CANCEL on our first customs stamp and went ... read more

Morgen's mussten wir die Kea-Station in Christchurch aufsuchen. Grund hierfür war der Zulauf zum Wassertank, der uns in der bitter kalten Nacht am Mt. John aufgefroren ist. Nach 30 min war das Problem behoben. Das Personal war sehr freundlich und hilfsbereit. Danach machten wir uns auf den Weg nach Hanmer Springs, das für seine Thermalquellen bekannt ist. Bernd zog es vor, bei schönem Wetter lieber eine kleine Wanderung zu unternehmen. Währenddessen ließen es sich Jürgen und Michi in den Thermalquellen bei 40° gut gehen. Nach diesem kurzen Zwischenstopp fuhren am Abend noch nach Kaikoura, wo wir direkt am Meer übernachteten. Bei sternenklarer Nacht konnten wir noch die Milchstraße bewundern. Grüße aus dem sonnigen NZ!!! ... read more

New Zealand Day 8 & 9 Day 8 saw us drive up the coast from Haast to Fox Glacier, a distance of 120 kms, but took about 2 hours. The kms mean nothing over here, as the roads are soooo windy in places that you are travelling very, very slowly. The open road limit is 100kms, but we are only allowed to do 90 in our motorhome.....which is fast enough as times. Anyway, we arrived at Fox Glacier at about 12-30......in the rain. I was soooo disappointed. We were both really looking forward to doing the walk & had decided that I wouldn’t do the chopper flight if we both do the walk. That would have been great if it wasn’t raining. All I could think of was that my photos just wouldn’t be the same. ... read more

Day 20 – Saturday the 2nd of April Our last day of honeymooning had arrived much sooner than we had anticipated; thankfully it was going to be a relaxing and enjoyable day. Hanmer springs was the perfect way to end a honeymoon, we had planned it so well. What we didn’t think about was the fact it was a Saturday and the pools were packed. It’s apparently a popular place for christchurchers to come to in the weekends and with the recent earthquake, probably a lot more a needing an escape than usual. It didn’t dampen our day though. The pools were heavenly. We tried most and a few were visited a bit more frequently than others. The 3 hot spas were sulphur and stunk like Rotorua and about 5 of the other pools were thermal, ... read more

The drive up to Hanmer started off quite flat with some lovely rolling hills around - and Mark even managed to get a photo of a bird of prey!! Then it got very windy once off the main highway. When we arrived we headed straight for the campsite we had booked. As we parked up and went to the back door of the van we noticed that it was covered in oil - Mark immediately checked underneath to find that there was oil dripping off the mud flaps. So I headed straight to the desk to find out where the nearest garage was. Luckily we had a tent so we unloaded all our necessary gear into Dad and Sandra’s cabin and off we went to drop the van at the garage. They had a quick look ... read more