Blogs from National Parks, New Zealand, Oceania - page 3

Le plateau central de l’île nord est également riche en événements cinématographiques. En effet, c’est ici que certaines scènes du Seigneur des Anneaux ont été tournées. Pour ceux qui ne connaîtraient pas cet évènement planétaire du 7ème art (Arg ! J’ose espérer que ce ne soit pas le cas) -> go Wikipédia ! Hobbitebourg Notre premier contact avec nos cousins aux grands pieds velus a été la visite d’Hobbitebourg. Peter Jackson, réalisateur de la trilogie, a eu dans sa folie des grandeurs, la fabuleuse idée de reconstituer en grandeur nature le village des Hobbits. C’est donc au environ de Matamata, petit bled fermier de 32’000 habitants, que nous sommes allés guetter la paisible vie des fumeurs d’herbes à pipes… Nous pouvons déjà vous dire que rien n’a changé à Hobbitebourg : Sam cultive toujours sa terre ... read more

Arthur's Pass English (Lisa) 28/1 Arthur’s pass is one of the best known highways in New Zealand. It connects the westcoast to Chirstchurch. We read and heard that driving on it would be quite adventurous, so we only expected to reach a campsite located 2 hours away from Chirstchurch. The road turned out to be about the same as some of the ones we’d already driven on. It went through some valleys and over some hills. There were plenty of lookout points along the way. At some point we drove through a valley and everywhere around us were mountain ridges ranging from looking nearly black to being covered in light grass. Another infamous local specialty was the Kea. Birds that literally eat EVERYTHING. Even if it’s not edible, they’ll still repeatedly try to nibble on it ... read more

The West Coast - Fox Glacier English (Lisa) 26/1 For the first time in 3 weeks, there’s really not an awful lot to say about this day. It has been pouring with rain since we woke up. Excellent conditions to spend a day sitting in the kitchen/living room of the holiday park drinking tea, listening to the Beatles and playing ‘doorslaan’ (even though I was the inventor, I very much suck at it). 27/1 When I opened my eyes this morning I could see a wonderful blue sky. Brilliant start of a day that would only get better and better. After some skyping we left for Fox Glacier. First, we walked to a viewpoint and past it up till the point were the road was closed due to falling rocks and ice. Then we did another ... read more

Endlich mal wieder starten wir zu einem der neun Great Walks - unser zweiter. ... read more

Driving from Tui Ridge Park to Tongariro National Park English (Lisa) We faced the first possible real difficulty on the morning of our departure from Tui Ridge Park: the car wouldn’t start. To be more precise, we couldn’t turn our key in the lock. Nothing we did worked and we were getting slightly frustrated when “the grandfather” turned up. He jumped in the car; after a brief moment said “you’ve locked it eeh”, turned the steering wheel around and we were ready to go. Anouschka found out that we were very close to the ‘desert road’. A famous road through the Rangipo desert. This desert is also used by the army for training. See the enclosed pictures to view the landscape with desert and mountains (the dark one is Mt Doom) yourself. We were lucky ... read more