Blogs from Dunedin, Otago, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 4

I spent my fist afternoon in New Zealand strolling through the expansive Dunedin Botanical Gardens. The first thing that struck me were the things that seemed so similar to home; the vibrant summer rose blossoms, the call of gulls clamoring for scraps of lunch leftover and the smell of lush undergrowth after a warm rain however what I soon realize is the subtle yet substantial differences that set this new place apart from any other I have visited. As I walk down a solitary path I notice that the sounds of the near by road masked by dozens of exotic bird calls, at first they blended into the ambient noises of the gardens but I soon realized many where calls that I had never heard before. The rhododendron that Washington is famous for grow taller with ... read more

"It doesn"t matter if the All Blacks win or lose. Especially in Dunedin they will make party and drink a lot after the game." (Guide im Oamaru Informations Center) Wie im letzten Eintrag schon erwaehnt, erstrahlte Christchurch am zweiten Tag im hellen Sonnenlicht. Wir erkundeten ein ziemlich grosses Gebiet der Innenstadt, angefangen mit der Art Gallery, die leider etwas enttaeuschend war. Es wurde viel moderne Kunst in den ersten Galerien gezeigt, die wir zumindest nicht wirklich verstehen konnten und zudem war es sehr stickig und warm. Erst gegen Ende, als wir schon Kopfschmerzen bekamen, konnten wir einige schoene aeltere Werke von diversen Neuseelaendern entdecken. Immerhin war der Eintritt kostenlos, sodass wir uns nicht zu sehr aergern mussten. Weiter ging es zum Kuenstlerviertel, in dem einheimische Kuenstler Bilder, Mode und Schmuck in sehr huebschen alten Gebaueden a ... read more

The short answer to that title is go to Queenstown; though as I have a little time to kill I might as well go through how i managed it... I headed up to Queenstown this week, travelling by myself and hoping to meet up with a bunch of different groups of people whilst there - everyone had a big shake up of plans, so after meeting up briefly with some fellow students, I was by myself and decided to get to know the people in my backpackers. Queenstown has a lot more english people visiting and living in it, the first I met was a posh sounding but totally unspoilt girl who was cooking noodles whilst washing her clothes in the other sink with her free hand, and told me about travelling all across Asia and ... read more

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, with probably too much to fit in to one blog, so sorry if i race through a bit... Firstly after my night in Wellington I headed north-west to Wanganui where my friend Karthick lives and then we drove east to Taupo and got caught in the craziest snowstorm along the way. Two feet deep snow in places, sky as dark as night and visibility of perhaps about 30 - 40 metres. It wasn't long before we got caught in a big traffic jam, in a line of cars, behind two trucks stuck on the other side of the hill. Quite a bad situation to be in in New Zealand where there's often no phone coverage, and no payphones etc. outside of towns and also the added worry of being ... read more

Well, after our doubts over whether we would ever see the sun again in our last blog - we did!! On a tip that the weather was coming from the south we went south to the tourist town of Hokitika (although we were going there anyway...). The sun came out and we browsed shops selling local jade and had some fish and chips, (or seeing as 2/3 of us didn't eat fish.. just chips. Ben had a particularly unhealthy fried doughnut with a chocolate bar melted inside it if I remember correctly...). We went to the beautiful aquamarine Hokitika Gorge then tried to find somewhere to camp where there were no sandflies! Arthurs Pass/Christchurch Next day we headed over the Arthurs Pass back to Christchurch to pick up Chris' friend Aimee who was ariving from England ... read more