New Zealand, A Tornado of Beauty

Hello everybody!

This time a journey in English, especially for all the friends we’ve met so far on our travelling.
We’re now in Auckland, New Zealand after a beautiful trip through the South Island and a green, lush trip from Wellington to Auckland, the North Island.
On September 13 we said goodbye to our friends John and Chantal, who live close to Sydney and had welcomed us again for a nice and friendly stay at there home . John picked us up in the middle of Sydney and brought us to there house, thanks again John and Chantal for the lovely time!

The flight from Sydney to Christchurch started nice and easy, but got really interesting when we flew above the Southern Alps, what a view! It seemed to be just a small bit of what New Zealand has to offer!
From Christchurch we relocated a campervan to Queenstown, a trip through the rough part, with lots of wind, rain and beautiful views on the silver blue lakes and the wind carved hills.
Queenstown itself is a nice alpine village which reminded us of alpine France and Austria. After a nice stay and some recovering in Queenstown and a lot of hassle with the creditcard and the “new” campervan we were about to rent from Jucy, we finally headed to Wanaka. The winding trip over the mountain passes was overwhelming and it was almost too much for our nice, leaking, small and dusty diesel campervan…
Arriving in Wanaka was very pleasant. It breaths nature, adventure and peace and quite. We did some beautiful hikes from Wanaka, saw the gorgeous lakes and even an avalanche.

From Wanaka our trip headed north, via the West coast.
Near Fox Glacier we hiked to a seal colony and after three ours of adventurous walking we got a rewarding lunch with a cute seal, bathing in the sun.
At Franz Joszef Glacier, we hiked to the glacier itself. It’s strange to see such an old natural phenomenon, just lying and waiting there.
From Frans Joszef Glacier, we went to Punakaiki, famous for its pancake shaped rocks and blowholes.
In between those two places lies Greymouth, where we visited the Monteiths Brewery, great place with good beer!
We got confronted with the power and force of nature in Punakiaki. The sea smashing against the rocks and producing loads of cracks in the rocks. In Punakaiki (great name by the way) we saw the coastline changing from more flat to rough and hilly, a spectacular view!
From Punakaiki we tried to get to Nelson. The drive was beautiful, but the wind was sometimes so strong that we had to pull over and wait for the wind to lay down..
We arrived just one day too late in Nelson to see a pod of orca’s(!!!) swimming in the harbour.
In Nelson we booked one of the Great Walks of new Zealand: The Abel Tasman Coastal Track. In Motueka we did the shopping for the hike and saw…..DROP, SCHUIMKOPPEN, SOEPPAKKETTEN, ERWTENSOEP, GEHAKTKRUIDEN, SATEHSAUS VAN CONIMEX…. A whole compartment full of Dutch quality food right in front of us and a heavy homesickness feeling rushed through my vaines…
The Abel Tasman Coastel Track started and the first day we started with a boat trip to Toteranui and walked the last part in the rain to the first hut. Late in the afternoon I looked through the window and I thought a saw a couple walking with a baby on their chest, so the word Baby slipped through my lips. Majorie said, no, that’s not possible! But it was even more possible that that couple with the baby slept in the same room as us…Luckily you’re not allowed to throw your rubbish away in te Abel Tasman National Park, so you can imagine the smell of the bag where all the used diapers were inside got opened in the middle of the night, when the baby needed to be fed and cleaned again. The baby was four months old and the next morning the father said proud that this was already her fourth camping trip….
The rest of the hike we (read Majorie) got confronted with some other heavy smelling body odors and snoring people. After four days in the beautiful nature, with all the lovely biting, annoying, stinging sandflies we were a bit disappointed that the hike was already over, because we got in the rhythm of hiking, but on the other hand we thought it was more than enough of smelling and snoring people and sleepless nights.

From Nelson we went to taste some wine in Marlborough. Also that trip was beautiful and the wine from Fromm, a nice Riesling from 2007 was astonishing, so if you have 27 dollars to spent…. :)

Kaikoura was the next stop and we were planning to go swimming with the dolphins. After some information about the ocean conditions and the temperature of the water (9 degrees) we decided to try to swim with dolphin near Busselton, Australia.
On our way from Marlborough to Kaikoura we passed five seal colonies, a real treat!
From Kaikoura we went to Christchurch to get our relocation campervan to Auckland.

With the relocation campervan we decided to stay overnight on a free campsite in the Marlborough Sounds, another beautiful place in New Zealand which you can compare a little bit with the Fiords of Norway.
The ferry from Picton to Wellington had to sail through some nasty weather and the ocean was really rough. Luckily we didn’t got sick and arrived in Wellington with our manual campervan, a new experience after driving with an automatic vehicle all the time in Australia and New Zealand.

The way from Wellington to Auckland was hilly, green and beautiful and we arrived in Auckland without and problems.
We tried to get in Auckland before the 15th of October, because Hennie and Ferry, friends from Holland, flew into Auckland to visit some family and us in New Zealand.
After a long journey they arrived tired but healthy in New Zealand and it’s great to see them again. For us it is the third time now that we picked family up from the airport, but it is still strange to see a familiar face all of a sudden, at the other side of the world and it is still a real present when a friend or family is coming over!

Until the third of November Hennie, Ferry and us will travel together in the North Island and after that Hennie and Ferry will fly back to Holland and we will fly to Queenstown where we will do the Milfordtrack and the Routeburntrack before we fly back to Sydney again.

So far, New Zealand is the most beautiful country we’ve visited and we are really looking forward to explore the North Island with Hennie and Ferry!

We hope you enjoy the pictures and videos!

Love,

Majorie and Jeroen