New Zealand - South

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So far we have left the south Island and are back in the warm north island! After Kaikoura we headed towards Christchurch and did a bit sight-seeing, the inner city was still completely closed after the last big earthquake in February 2011. There is a rumour going on that they are waiting for the next big earthquake, that’s why they hadn’t started rebuilding yet. We celebrated my birthday at Mount Cook, again with Claudio, Kerstin and Christian (CKC). There we were lucky with the weather, the day when we arrived, the 19th, it was raining and the mountain was hiding behind huge clouds, but when I awake the next day, sun was shining and gave a beautiful view of the snowy mountains. We did a short hike until the start of the glacier, so it was a pretty good day. We drove then all along the east coast, until Invercargill, where our group of five split up, because we wanted to go kayaking at doubtful sound (kind of fjords). Our New Zealand map said there was a road, with some bad sections in between where you need a 4WD, but luckily we have quite a good one. Nevertheless, we asked in the DOC office (Department of Conservation, responsible for actually everything concerning tracks and so on) whether this road is accessible, but they said no, so we decided to go as far as we can. We actually didn’t make the whole way, as a short part there was really just a mountain bike track, which we decided not to try. But at the start of the mountain bike track was a big lake, Lake Manapouri, which was also really nice and we did a long kayak tour. Unfortunately at the beginning it was quite windy, so kayaking was a bit rough, but when we got back to our car, which stood right on the beach, the wind has dropped. But what we hadn’t considered before, sand flies don’t like strong winds, so as soon as we wanted to start cooking, billions of these insects surrounded us. Nik got kind of hysterical as most of those flies just bit him and not me. So we left the beach as soon as possible and tried to get rid of the hundreds of sand flies in our car. Actually that did work, so the day started really nice and ended not that good. But still a funny story to tell. Afterwards we headed towards the famous Milford sound where we met CKC again and did a nice boat tour the next morning. Milford Sound was really impressing; there is a reason why it’s so famous! Queenstown was fun, because we did a luge ride; see the pictures for explaining. The two glaciers at the east coast were nice, nothing special but the fact that they are just half a kilometre away from the sea makes them really special. Another famous National Park is the Abel Tasman, we went there next and did a long kayak tour. To get to the most famous and beautiful beaches one has to at least kayak for 2 hours to be at the beginning of the Abel Tasman Park. As we were aware that our arms will fall off after more than four hours of paddling, we paid a water taxi to bring us back, so just one way of paddling. But in contrast to the weather and wind forecast the sea was pretty rough, the wind was coming from the front and it took us 2 ½ hours of intense paddling to get to the first nice beach. And a guy from the water taxi we met earlier said he would call us stupid if we go any further with our kayak and these conditions. So we just paddled in the bay for another hour and had then lunch at the beach. It was a nice day, but actually we had seen beaches and bays which were nicer. Funny thing was that we met Clemens there (Nik’ cousin), quite per accident, and spent a nice evening with him and his friends at the campsite. We actually wanted to take the ferry next day, but Claudio texted us that there will be a good surf in Westport, so we headed back to the west coast and had three pretty relaxed days at the beach, with surfing and barbecue between two sessions. Christian and Kerstin joined us again, and brought Laura with them, and Claudio had met a Dutch guy, Michiel, so the group started to grow…:-). But after three days the sea was flat again and Nik and I decided to go to the north island as soon as possible. And now we are again in Taranaki at the same campsite we stayed around Christmas...:-)

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