New Zealand

---

Hey Everyone,


I have a couple of days here in Auckland before heading back up to Beijing. Another beautiful city, with water everywhere, apparently 1 in 3 Aucklander's owns a boat - crazy! I will make the occasional blog entry from China detailing special sights, but as I will be living in Beijing for the most part, and not travelling, there won't be as much to update. So consider this an overly large blog as somewhat of a finale.

I've spent the last couple of weeks in New Zealand and tremendously enjoyed every minute of it. Jotel and I started off on the South Island and rented a car, which gave us the freedom to go whereever we wanted and for however long we wanted, and which also turned out to be much cheaper than taking one of the many backpacker tours offered here. After a couple of days in Christchurch, we went to Hanmer Springs, an amazing hotsprings located at about 1000 metres. The weather in NZ is a lot chillier than it has been for me for the last 3 1/2 months, so it was great to soak in a relaxing hot springs while taking in the mountainous surrounding.

we then carried on across some mountain passes to the west coast of new zealand. we went to franz josef glacier and fox glacier, the two largest glaciers in NZ (i believe). they have tours that offer hiking on top of the glaciers, but as they were expensive, we decided to try and trek up ourselves. as we started, one of the group leaders shouted, "hey boys (they love saying boys here), you need crampons)." we paused for a minute debating what to do, and as he passed, we inquired whether crampons were necessary or recommended. he replied, "well boys, a few years ago i pulled an aussie guy in flipflops out of a crevice. the only thing was, he was dead" with a wink and a smile. the whole scenario was quite humourous, as he was trying to show his group that they paid high dollars for a reason, when we were there doing it for free. anyways, we hiked up a little ways before turning back to go to the fox glacier.

after the glacier's we went on to wanaka where we hiked a small mountain for great panoramic views. the town is situated on a lake and is beautiful, reminding me very much of whistler. New Zealand has been more enjoyable than Australia, and I think in large part it's because of the beauty and isolation. Whereas the east coast of Oz is cram-packed with people, NZ only has 4 million and (especially in the south island) you can drive for miles without seeing anyone, enjoying the scenery to yourself. we carried on to queenstown, the self-proclaimed adventure capital of the world. however, unlike malaysia, which falsely claims everything it possesses to be the greatest this or highest that, Queenstown actually lives up to its billing. In NZ, the government made it illegal to sue anyone for personal injury when doing a voluntary activity. Thus, spawned the massive activity industry that exists here. Some activities including bungee jumping (visited the first bungee jump location ever), sky diving, river sledging, zorbing (google that if you're curious), and the list goes on and on. unforunately, this has drawn thousands of tourists, and correspondingly the prices are extremely high. given this, the fact that i've already been bungee jumping, and also that i live fairly close to another world-class adventure town (Squamish), we did our best to avoid paying for activities (eg hiking to the top of the gondola for views of the city and mountains, rather than actually taking the gondola), and decided to spend our money on something that would last longer than 12 seconds.

So, after several days in Queenstown, we took an overnight cruise to Doubtful Sound. Actually a fiord that was originally discovered by Capt. Cook, it is perhaps the most serene place I've ever been to. As it's only accessible by boat and then coach and then boat again, we were the only people in the entire fiord, surrounded by green mountains, dolphins and birds. we met some good company as well, and the food was the best i've had on the trip. they also provided kayaks and were able to kayak around for several hours, followed by some swimming in the ice cold waters. my leap off the top level of the boat into the water earned me a stern lecture from the cabin crew, but i figure i should be allowed for the money spent on the cruise. Overall, Doubtful Sound was definitely one of the highlights of my trip. Following that, we crossed back across NZ to Dunedin, where we spent a couple of days taking in the bar scene that is filled with mostly students. We then drove back up to Christchurch, where we flew to Auckland via Wellington.

We had two days on the North Island before Jotel flew to Fiji, so we decided to rent a car again and drive to the Tongoriro Crossing, purported (is that okay use of the word??) to be the best day hike in New Zealand. Originally an 8 hour hike, we decided to tack on summitting two mountains that are not part of the crossing. One of these mountains, Mt. Ngauruhoe, was used as Mt. Doom in the filming of Lord of the Rings. It was a very tough climb, mostly crawling up on all fours as you sink back half a foot for every foot you climb. Although it was snowing, it wasn't overly cold on the mountain as volcanic gas was seeping out of the top. We made it down to the opposite carpark as the last glimpse of sunlight disappeared, and luckily there was a camper van there that was able to drive us the 30 km to the otherside in exchange for a little bit of gas money. we spent the following day soaking in a hotsprings nursing our sore legs, then rushing back to Auckland so Jotel could catch his flight.

happy passover to all my relatives 😉 hope the weather is getting nice for everyone and take care. Aydin.

---