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hi again,
after arriving in christchurch we picked up our rental car ... and surprisingly it was a NISSANÂ - not a PRAIRIE, but a SUNNY ;) ... and with automatic! so this is my first time driving on the left side of the road with an automatic in the dark ... can't be better :) but the first way was only to our hostel, so it was only a 10-15 minute ride and i got used to it quite fast ...
christchurch is very empty in the evening ... we wanted to go for dinner at about 9pm and nearly everything was closed ... except of McDonalds etc and the japanese friends ;) ... here in NZ there are lots of japanes (or asian) guys, unbelievable, sometimes i think i'm in tokyo or an other big asian city ...
the 1st day driving was great ... left christchurch in the morning and did the summit road ... from there we had fantastic views on both sides ... to the Littleyton Harbour and Christchurch city ... this is also a famous mountainbike track so we saw lots of them ... but we enjoyed our car ;) our goal for today was Dunedin, but we quickly realised that this won't be possible, as there are so many beautiful places where we MUST stop for photos ... so after about 300 km of driving southwards we stopped at Oamaru ... driving in NZ is very comfortable, outside of the cities there is nearly no traffic (sometimes you feel really lonely on the road) ... speed limit is 100km/h and there are only one-lane highways (except around the cities, there you have highways like in europe) ... every few kilometres you got an extra lane to overtake a vehicle ... but driving is really easy here ;)
so first stop was at oamaru which is about 100 km north of dunedin ... found a nice motel and the owner told us we should go to the penguin park down the street ... as we arrived at sunset this is the best time to see them ... so we quickly drove there and unfortunately the tour already started ... but the lady behind the counter told us for a donation of 5 bucks for the penguins she will let us enter the park to see the penguins ... these penguins had a blue back (unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos to protect the eyes of the penguins) and were very small ... and they moved very funny ... they have little holes where the jump out and go in very often .. don't know what they do in their holes, but everytime there are coming strange noises out of the holes ... it's up to you to think what they are doing ;)))
the next day we wanted to go to Invercargill, but as yesterday we had to stop earlier ... only some km after oamaru we stopped at the mourake boulders ... very strange place there ... lots of big round stones lying on the beach ... for the Maori people a sacred area ... the next stop was in dunedin where we only visited the i-site (tourist information in new zealand) to get an map for the southern scenic route which starts south of dunedin and ends in te anau (about 440 km) ... on this route there are lots of spots (lonely beaches, huge willows with sheeps, deers, cows, etc, fantastic rain forests, huge waterfalls, big mountains, green hills, gravel roads and much more) ... some samples you can see in the photo albums, more of the fantastic nature i will show at my return in Austria ...
yesterday we arrived in te anau and did a glowworm cave tour in the evening ... starting at 7pm (by the way: sunrise is at about 8am or slightly after and sunset is at about 5pm - very short days) we took the boat to get to the glowworm caves ... this cave system is between 12000 and 250000 years old (depends on the part of the system) and is several km long ... inside the cave is a strong river smashing down and forming the cave as it is today ... real huge, also fishes come into the cave ... but the main attractions are the glowworms which are about 300 metres inside the cave ... in complete darkness we took a boat there (our guide pulled the boat on fixed chains) to drive on an cave-lake ... and then we saw thousands of glowworms shining ... they shine for attracting insects to eat them .. the brighter they shine, the hungrier they are ... they even eat their own species if they fight for territorie or are just too hungry to wait for insects ... was real fantastic
the next day we did a day tour to milford sounds ... we only were 4 people on the tour bus ... stopped again at some awesome places, saw the peak of the mountains with snow, lots of waterfalls (some of them very big) and after 2 hours busride we arrived at milford sounds ... this is the most famous part of the fiordlands ... took a cruise there for another 2 hours and cruised up to the Tasman sea and back ... unfortunately it rained a lot, but up to now we were quite lucky with the weather, had a lot of sunshine and only few rain ...
ok, so far so good ;) enough internet for today ;) actually we're in queenstown, leaving tomorrow to go to the west coast ... now we want to try the ice bar, where everything is made of ice (even the glasses you drink of)
will keep you updated (but don't know when ;) )
cu soon
christoph&daniela
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