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hey guys,
how is it going? i'm actually back in auckland (alone again) but owe you some infos about our awesome trip through new zealand ...
so queenstown was great, is actually a nice city (looks like a wintersport village in austria - and in fact, the winter season is starting soon) ... originally i wanted to do the bungee but decided not to do it for several reasons - instead we took the cable car there to climb the mountain - the cable car was biult by the austrian company Doppelmayr ... it's the steepest cable car in the southern hemisphere and the cable car with the most working hours per year, that is why Mr. Doppelmayr comes every year to inspect the cable car personally (this told us the man behind the ticket counter) ... so arrived on the mountain we had a great view over queenstown and after that we enjoyed a delicious buffet dinner in the skyline restaurant with awesome view over queenstown ... originally we wanted to visit the ice bar that evening, but it closed at 10 pm and we were too late there ...
the next day was quite busy ... first shopping (i needed some warm clothes but only bought a second jumper), then had breakfast and after that i got my first penaltie for parking in the wrong direction ... it's 40 bucks, tried to get rid off the fine but the police didn't want to drop it off :( ... so we went again up the cable car to do the luge there (this time we got a free ride on the cable car) ... the luge is a 3 wheel "car# with steering bar and brakes and you can choose 2 tracks (each about 800 metres long) to go down ... we both had 5 rides, was quite funny ... after the luge and going back down to queenstown we went to the ice bar (as it opened at 3 pm), had pay 50 bucks entrance and were only allowed to stay half an hour inside ... but at least, there were 2 free non alcoholic cocktails included - wow, what a bargain ;) ... in this bar it's really cold, altough minus 5 doesn't sound that cold, we were happy to leave after 30 minutes ... everything was made of ice except the floor, walls and ceiling ... my first drink even got frozen as i took too much photos and did too much time to drink it out ;) ... after our cold visit we were prepared to go to the franz joseph glacier which is about 400 km away from queenstown
getting to franz joseph was the toughest ride i made through this journey ... took us about 7 hours as we had to pass a big mountain, it was dark and lots of animals crossed the street ... so i had to drive very slowly, but unfortunately i hit one little animal, but saved about 5 - is a good ratio, isn't it? ;) on this way we saw more dead animals on the street than cars ... sometimes we felt really lonely ;)
so arrived at 10 pm at our hostel, which was really nice ... as we had to get up early the next day we immediately went to bed ... wake up was at about 7 am, check out and go to the franz joseph tour terminal ... there we discovered, that our travel agent overcharged us by the double privce, so we complained and got of course our refund ... the tour was about 4 hours and it was awesome, getting there within 10 minutes by bus we had to do a 1 hour walk through the franz joseph valley ... then we reached the glacier ... franz joseph is beside fox glacier (which is also in new zealand - the picture above is fox glacier) and one other glacier in patagonia (south america) one of only 3 glaciers worldwide which starts below 2000 metres ... moreover, around the glacier is rainforest ... so we walked through a rainforest to go to the starting point of the glacier ... very strange - our giude told us, this is because over australia the air will get heated and go eastwards and cool down over the ocean ... and gets very hevy (ie full of rain) and when it reaches the west coast of NZ and the alps there it starts to rain and snow ... at the west coast, the measure rain and snow in metres not in millimetres ;) ... if i understood our guide there can be snowfall up to 80 metres a year .. but don't claim this number, maybe i understood him wrong (but i'm quite sure he said 80 not 18) ... so we spent about 2 hours on the glacier, sometimes it was really steep and nearly a climb, our guide had a ice pick to make improve the ice stairs, which were already there ... there was even a handrail to climb up more comfortable ;) i only can tell you it was awesome there and quite warm - our giude went with shorts and t-shirt, the "tourists" of course we dressed with jacket, long trouseres etc. ... but in summer time also tourists go there like on the beach ;)
franz joseph was definetely worth to go there and after our 4 hours trip (you also can go for a full day, but we had to drive further north this day) we drove to greymouth ... only spent the night there but had free spa in our motel (don't expect a hotel spa area, it was just a spa pool, but it was good after that hike this day) and then we had dinner in a pub ... the bar man told me that he had been in vienna and innsbruck in 1978 ... i told him, that was before i was born and he laughed ;)
the next day we went to abel tasman national park (it's on the north coast of the south island) ... stayed in a nice hostel in motueka (owned by germans, was quite strange to speak german to somebody else than my babe *g*) and booked a kayak trip (again for half a day) for the next day ... had to wake up again very early, at about 9 am the tour started and we had to get there by car and boat ... the water taxi took the group, guide and the kayaks on a lonely beach ... was real strange, we were all sitting in winter clothes but had to put them off, as you only kayak in swimwear, t-shirt and rain coat ... was really f***ing freezing on the beach, the water was freezing, but our guide promised us we will get warm as soon as we started to paddle ... after some instructions we started and paddled into a nice little bay where we saw young seals - lots of them, they were so cute, they "played" with us and one seal even jumped on a kayak for taxi service ;)
after about 2-3 hours kayak we had lunch on a lonely sand beach in the sun ... aber tasman national park is the smallest national park in nz but the most beautiful one ... and doing kayak there is very famous you also can book a 3 day tour and sleep in simple huts ... but we were happy with our half day trip and after lunch the water taxi braught us back to the starting point ... but this time, it was different to go on land, as the tide was very low the boat couldn't go the the port ... instead it was towed by a tractor machine for about 100 metres to the port ;) the afternoon we drove further north to go to golden bay but unfortunately we hadn't enough time to do much there just saw a spring and the point, where Abel Tasman (a dutch sailor) discovered nz ...
this was our last full day on the south island, the next day we headed to picton to take the ferry to wellington (capital of nz) ... just drove to nelson (nz sunniest city with about 250 sunny days a year) and then to picton ... the only thing to mention was, that we met a tyrolean couple in the i-site (tourist information) in picton ... they are also travelling around the world like me but were already retired ...
so, the resumee of the south island: too much to see to spend only about 10 days there ... we were little sad to leave the south at it was really beautiful there and at this time of the year the are only few tourists, so you can just go to a hostel/motel and ask for accommodation (in summer you should prebook) and the tours are not so crowded ...
stories about the north island in the next blog
cu soon
christoph&daniela
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