Timaru, Christchurch

We made our way up the east coast. It has much more settlements then the deserted westcoast and the landscape is dominated by agricultural areas.


But before leaving Dunedin we discovered the Otago Peninsula. It has the only colonie of Royal Albatrosses on Mainland. So we drove up to the end of the peninsula to see them. Unfortunately we had to discover that the colonie nists behind a small hill and that the whole area was closed down. To see these huge birds we would have had to pay a ridiculously high admission-fee. So we went back to our car, where Oli took this picure of a Karoro (black-backed gull), also a big bird which is often mistaken for a albatross by naive tourists (like Oli)...

Next we made stop at Baldwin Street - "the steepest street in the world" according to the Guinness Book of Records.

It was quite exhausting to walk it up.

A little north of Dunedin we visited the Moeraki Boulders. These are big spherical boulders that look as if they were not of this earth.

After having slept in Timaru we headed for Christchurch which is the biggest city on the South Island. It has a very english background. Next to nice churches...

... there are beautiful buildings and a city tram circle.
 

Invercargill, Dunedin

This time we discovered the south coast of the South Island.


The region is famous for its wetlands.

Here we spotted the New Zealand falcon. But the weather was not so good and we drove to Invercargill (the southernmost city) with only a few stops...

Having reached our destination, we decided to use the bad weather and go to the cinema. We watched "Tangled" and we now see why Gaby recommended it to us ("mother knows best").

Here in the far south the sun works overtime. So we went out after dinner and discovered the city in the twilight. The sun set only around 9:45 pm.

Today we headed for Dunedin.

On our way we passed the southernmost point of the New Zealand mainland. It was really windy (and maybe you can see on the picture, that Oli has to hold on to the sign, so he isn't blown away...).

We next made stop at Curio Bay where a fossil forest can be seen on the beach. But Flo was much more interested in this little fellow she discovered.

It is a Hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin) which is the rarest penguin in the world. Even the information sign near the beach suggested, that you can count yourself lucky if you see one!

By the time we had arrived at Florence Hill the sky had cleared up and we enjoyed our lunch with this wonderful view.

At Nugget Point, so named for the big rocks in the sea, we also saw some seals.

Finally we arrived in Dunedin. As it was quite late and we were very hungry and tired we decided to discover the city tomorrow.

Te Anau, Milford Sound

We drove on to Te Anau, the door to the Fiordland National Park (the biggest national park in New Zealand) and the famous Milford Sound.


It had started to rain and we were a little worried about the next day, when we intended to do a boattrip in the sound.

Having arrived at Te Anau we booked our Ship together with a short trip to the Te Anau Glowworm Caves (@ all who study biology: Yes, you hear right: glowworms and not fireflies! It's a larva of a fly (Arachocampa luminosa). It makes a nest of sticky threads and atrackts food with its glow.)

Until the next boat would take us to the caves, we visited Takahes. A endangered flightless bird, that was believed extinct until its rediscovery in 1948...

We crossed Lake Te Anau and entered the Glowworm Caves. As it was not allowed to take pictures in the cave, we have only this illegal picture of Flo at the entrance... (After the tour you could buy a cd with pictures of the caves for $30. That's probably one of the reasons, why we couldn't photograph in the cave.)

But what we saw inside was really amazing. After walking a short distance through the cave we reached a big pool where we entered a small boat. The tourguide then took us through the pitch black darkness of the cave that was broken by the greenbluish light of the glowworms. The small glowing dots at the cave ceiling looked like a starry sky. It was really an awesome experience. Unseen before!

Leaving the cave, the wheater cleared up and we saw an amazing rainbow that filled us with hope.

Today we had wonderful weather and apart from some white clouds which hanged in the mountains we had blue sky.

Our first stop on the way up to Milford Sound was the Mirror Lakes.

Arriving at Milford Sound we boarded our ship around 12:00 and started this trip into the breathtaking fiord.

We saw seals...

... and some waterfalls very close up.

Where is Oli at the Stirling Falls?

The landscape was not the only thing beautiful to admire. ;-)

It was really the perfect thing to do on the day that we are together since precisely 90 months!

Well, and we (Oli) had also some fun on the way back! :D
 

Wanaka, Queenstown

Our next destination was Wanaka. The road followed the coast (again an spectacular route) and the Haast River up to the Haast Pass.
Our first big stop was Knight Point from where the view down to the sea is really amazing.

But also the route along the the river was stunning. Its intense turqoise colour was just fascinating. We made rest at the Thunder Falls.

Oli couldn't resist climbing on the huge boulders at Gates to Haast (also called Gates to Hell for it was a dangerous place for early settlers...).

Where is Oli? @ Gates to Haast

The Blue Pool sparkled awesomely in the shining sun and had a colour that we can't find words for it.

After the Pass the road followed the border of Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea.

This place reminded us a little of Davos with its smell of pine trees and the beautiful lake.

Today we drove the short way to Queenstown. This is the centre of New Zealands wintersport and in summer it's all about outdoor sport as well.

On the road to Queenstown

We took a small road which leaded us to "Glenorchy the door to Paradise". The road has many narrow curves and leads at the border of Lake Wakatipu up to Glenorchy. From there a even smaller road, that is in the end only a sandpist, leads up to Paradise. (Again a filmset for Lord of the Rings (Lothlórien))

View in direction of Glenorchy

Back in Queenstown we enjoyed a walk in the Queenstown Garden.
 

Greymouth and the glaciers

The route from Nelson to Greymouth was one of the most beautiful drive we ever did so far in our travels. It even puts a shadow over the Great Ocean Road...
The Road leads through some amazing national parks. In the first half we followed the Buller River. The road leads many times close to the river banks and presents spectacular views.

Around noon we took a small detour and visited a small seal colony on the coast. There were maybe 20 seals we could see from a high lookout.

We also saw this little fellow.

It's a weka which is often mistaken by tourists as a kiwi (Oli seems to be the stereotypical tourist that way...). Like the kiwi it is flightless, indigenous to New Zealand and has become rare today. The biggest difference though is the much shorter beak.
The second half of the drive follows the coastline. The road is built at the edge of the sea and offers stunning views over high cliffs and deep drops.
Our next stop was at the Pancake Rocks. These are rocks with strange layers that have become visible by erosion. The beautiful foot track provided us with several lookouts on these geolocical features.

Being geocachers it didn't take long until we ended up off track and after a leap of fate, Flo stood right at the edge of this amazing rock.

We continued our drive to Greymouth, the biggest city on the westcoast of the south island.
 
Today we drove to Franz Josef. It is a small village near Franz Josef Glacier and not far from Fox Glacier.
The Road leads through a subtropical rainforest and over many ice cold streams that come directly from the close southern alps.
That we had most of the time sunshine or just some clouds is actually unusual for the westcoast of the south island. And the two mentioned glaciers are the exception of the rule, for they are both advancing due to the excessive rain in this region.
On our way up to the Franz Joseph we climbed on the sentinel rock and had this magnificent view.
 
 

 
But the Peters Lake nearby was amazing with its mirroring effect.
 
 

 
The Fox Glacier as well was stunning to look at. What makes both glaciers special is that they reach down to the forest zone. And the combination of the ice next to the rainforest is just unique!
 

Wellington and the Cook Passage

Our next destination was Wellington - the capital (aka the windy city).


But the first thing we did in the morning was to use the beautiful weather and visit the Tawhai Falls, which apparently were also a film set for the LoTR-movie.

Unfortunately we don't know in which scene that would have been... We'd be glad for any informative commentaries on that!

The way down to Wellington was quite far and so we didn't do a lot of sight-seeing along the road.

Arriving in Wellington we found the city to be surprisingly beautiful and very clean. It is really a worthy capital. We entered the huge "Te Papa Tongawera National Museum of New Zealand" which is free. It is really as big as its name is long and shows several different exhibitions. You could easily spend a day in it.

But also the parks and the harbour are really beautiful and there seemed to be an inviting nightlife.

Today we took the ferry which took us to the south island. It is said to be one of the most beautiful ferry tracks for it leads through the stunning Marlborough Sounds.

It is also a quite windy trip. The Cook Passage lies on the Latitude 40° where the "roaring forties" blow. These strong winds are tunneled between the two islands and get therefore even stronger.

It was bloody freezing!

But the passing through the Marlborough Sounds is even in cloudy weather awesome!

From Picton we drove on to Nelson. The way leads along the curvy Queen Charlotte Drive which passes along the borders of the Sounds. Here we could find heaps of the silver fern which is New Zealand's national plant.

Tangariro National Park

From Taupo we drove to the Tongariro National Park. Over the night it had started to rain (the first rain since we came to New Zealand!) and so we were not in the mood to discover a lot. Also was the highly praised view and landscape of the park not really visible due to the dense mist.

Where is Oli?

We planned to stay in the National Park for two days and to do the Tongariro Crossing (19,4 km!) on our second day. The weatherforecast was rain clearing in the morning and wind up to 60km/h (the crossing is only possible below 65km/h...).

Although it was uncertain, if we could do the crossing, we got up at 5 am and went to the shuttlebus assembly. It was still raining and visibility was very poor... However, the wind was not dangerous anymore and so we started our hike.

Before...

The path is in an extreme good condition that would have enabled us to proceed quite fast. But we started the hike rather slow in the hope the weather would clear up when we reach the higher grounds...

Where is Flo? (She's much better in hiding than Oli! ;-) )

After a steep climb we reached a little plateau where the mist began to clear up.

Suddendly there it was just on the left of our path: Mt Ngauruhoe aka "Mount Doom" (Lord of the Rings).

As it had been covered by clouds since we entered the Tongarira National Park, the sudden sight of this striking mountain was breathtakingly awesome and really a highlight of our hike. We really enjoyed the special effects of the nature!

When we reached the interception where a 3km return path leads to Mt Tongariro summit Oli couldn't resist and left poor Flo waiting in the cold wind... (but he was back in 35 minutes!)

When we had climbed the red crater we had a stunning view over the Emerald Lakes.

Their intense green colour that contrasted with the vast brown and grey landscape around them fascinated us.

Walking on, a view over red crater, Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Ruapehu (the snowy one) struck us.

The landscape changed from rocky into grassy and from grassy into a dense forest. And finally we reached a little tired the carpark at the end of the Tongariro Crossing.

... and after!

It was really a beautiful hike. No wonder it was chosen by National Geographic as the most beautiful hike in the world!