NEW ZEALAND (6-15 May)

15 May 08, Queenstown, New Zealand

Auckland-Christchurch-Kaikoura-Greymouth-Franz Joseph-Queenstown-Glenorchy-Milford Sound-Queenstown-Lake Tekapo

New Zealand - the country where there are more sheep than people. The country of the kiwi bird, the hobbits and adventure sports. NZ is made up of 3 islands although most people only hear about 2 - the North Island and the South Island. Over here the New Zealanders joke that they have 4 islands - the 4th being Australia.

We arrived on 6 May! A 13 hours flight from LA and yet we lost the 5th May. How surreal crossing the international date line.
Obviously jetlagged, we landed at 6.30am in Auckland on the North Island and checked in to our very basic hostel centrally located.

Alex, our Scottish friend whom we met in Ecuador, met us at our hostel and took us for a guided tour of Auckland. The tour started with a puncture of the car, which we quickly fixed and then we off to see the city, Mount Eden, Mission Bay, the sunset from Michael Joseph Savage Memorial, went to a funky basement bar called the Wine Cellar and had a Korean meal, before Amit and I had a drink at the Skytower. We saw a lot in one day - all thanks to Alex.

We flew to Christchurch the next day, where we rented our little mustard coloured car and headed straight to Kaikoura. It is poxy but it drives fine, convenient and is only costing us 9 UK pounds a day (petrol is expensive though). We debated between a campervan and a car and we decided we preferred to be warm at night - and it is now autumn in NZ - so the campervan was out of the question.

It took us 3 hours to Kaikoura - a small town on the beach side. It was dark when we arrived (gets dark here around 6PM) so we could not see much of the surrounding sceneries, but the next morning we were amazed to see snowcapped moutains surrounding the sea side. Absolutely beautiful sight. We joined a catamaran boat tour to see whales - and we saw two sperm whales - massive creatures! We only saw the upper body of the whales- and when they turned their tails to the sky when they went food hunting - so imagine how gigantic they are in size under the water. Closer to the shores we saw albatrosses, cape petrels (birds) and 70-80 dusky dolphins jumping around. So happy and playful - amazing to watch!It was a warm, sunny day with blue sky, so we enjoyed our packed lunch on the pebbled beach with its music like waves.

After our sea experience, we drove to Greymouth (8 May) - a long 5, 5 hours drive. Not much to do here - just a stopover for us. (Though, had some of the best Indian food in Priya restaurant.)

(9 May) After breakfast, drove to Franz Joseph - a very small town famous for its glacier.

Franz Joseph glacier originally called "The Tears of the Avalanche Maiden" by the Maories, is one of the 3153 glaciers in NZ. Fox glacier is the other famous one and the rest you barely hear of. Franz and Fox are famous because they are considered "warm" glaciers. Many people think a glacier is a frozen river, but it is actually compressed ice. The Franz Joseph glacier moves about 6 meters in a day. You can climb parts of the glacier and that is what we did. First a 1 hour walk on steep rocks and climbing of 4 ladders, then you get to the ice and we put our "crampons" on to our boots to keep us stabil when climbing the ice stairs and passing cravesses. The sun was shining, the sky blue and the reflection of the sun making the ice look so blue and pretty. Going down the cut ice stairs seemed harder than going up the stairs. A cool experience and a taster for when we venture to Patagonia one day.

After our glacier walk we drove to the adventure town - Queenstown.

Again, we arrived when it was dark and when we woke up the next morning we saw the beautiful autumn colours in the mountains of yellow, orange, red and brown, surrounding the lake. Queenstown is full of adrenaline-filled activities and I took part in two of them - river rafting and jetboating on Shotover River. Imagine being a passenger on a jetboat going up to 80km an hour on a river with sharp cliffs and rocks on the way and you go at such speed while the jetboat suddenly turns 360 degrees. You will get wet and cold but you will love it. The speed and thrill - just excellent.
After getting changed into a wet suit, I was put into a team of 6 and we were soon out on our raft on the Shotover River (the second richest gold river in the world - gold digging/mining is however banned for 50 years in NZ to leave the nature alone - our rafting guide found half an ounce of gold last year on this river - so you never know, this could be your lucky place). It was a grade 4 raft journey and we went over several rapids some of which are called "Toilet", "Flush", "Oh shit", "Mother" and "Cascade". The Cascade rapids come after you raft through a 180m long dark tunnel. It was FUN! I love rafting!
By the time I got back to our motel, my arm muscles were aching like anything.

A traveller had recommended a drive from Queenstown to Glenorchy. It took one hour one way and yes it is worth it. We stopped at the lake in Glenorchy and had a picnic lunch on a wooden bench just by the lakeside. We had snowcapped mountains in front of us and yellow brown mountains behind us. What a spot! SO beautiful.
And and ..I saw a hobbit or two. : )

Milford Sound (12 May) arrived at 8pm, and although it looks like a big place on the road map, it is not! We arrived thinking we would find a supermarket and several hostels. We got there and we could not find the town only to find out that we were in the town which consisted of one pub/bar and one lodge and a petrol station with no attendant. We were luckily to find room in the Milford Sound Lodge which was full of tour groups. Well, we could choose between a dorm bed or a chalet. We chose the lake facing chalet. Yes, the best accommodation we have stayed at in NZ. The next morning we went on a 2 hour boat cruise in the Fjordlands going into the Tasman Sea. Very pretty, though we would have seen a lot more had the weather been better. We saw several waterfalls. On the way back to Queenstown, we stopped at Mirror Lake and Te Anau downs and several other beauty spots with names I don't remember.
We perhaps made the mistake by staying at XBase - the popular backpacker hostel. The room was fine, but the hostel. There were 350 people staying that night and there was a masquerade party on. It felt like my 1st year back at University. A guy with a big backpack was attracting much attention, and we saw why, he had a person sitting inside his backpack. It was funny, yes. But everything was like being back in a Halls of Residence, really loud young people. (Makes me sound so old). We did not mind that, what I minded was that we had to get up early and we could hear people screaming and being drunk in the hallway until 3am.
Oh well, all part of the experience I guess.

(14 May) A drive from Queenstown to Lake Tekapo, passing gorgeous yellow- brown mountains and several wineries. Our NZ trip has already come to an end and tomorrow we fly to Sydney.

(15 May) It was stunning this morning. As I pulled the curtain to the side, the sunrise appeared. It was reaching over the lake and reflecting towards our room. Not bad.
I was preparing for our last few hours in NZ. We really liked it here in NZ- there is serenity and calm.

Overall impression:
NZ is beautiful, scenic, lots of adventure sports, good outdoor culture, clean, spacious, easy going, relaxing and great for family life. Very tourist friendly and easy to travel (you need a car of course). Yes, we could live here - but it is too far from the rest of the world and our families.