The Steepest Road and Arrival in Te Anau (7.03.2014)

First of all, sorry for making you wait for a couple of days for the next entry. The internet situation was rather strange in Te Anau, but let's start at the beginning.

We left that dreadful Backpackers Hostel behind us and decided to not ever do something like this again ;) Before we went to Te Anau as our base to look at the Fiordland, we first checked out the official "Steepest Road in the World" which happened to be in Dunédin's outskirts.

They really were not kidding! If it isn't the steepest road, I am sure it is in the top 3. What a silly road! I wonder if all people living at the top of it are slim and sporty. If you gotta beat that hill walking every day you hardly have a choice than to stay slim (unless you use a car, of course, which would make you a cheater to the cause of sportiness).

Afterwards, we made our way to Te Anau in an uneventful 3 hours that had me regularly misplacing my glasses while obviously sitting at all times in the same spot. It was a strangely impressive display of idiocy, I have to admit.

Lake Te Anau is a beautiful and huge lake surrounded by mountains. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, Te Anau itself is just a big assembly of motels, hotels and B&B's. The increased prices also show that it certainly is one of the major tourist attractions on the South Island. The tours of the famed Milford Sound and the Doubtful Sound can also be booked from here.

One other thing that was really annoying is the fact that wherever you go, wireless internet is charged by the MB. In every hotel and café, you tend to get about 50 MB free and from then on, it is $5 NZD per 50 MB.

Sadly, using a booking site like trivago.com (to book your next hotels) uses up those 50 MB within about 5 minutes due to the sheer amount of pictures being downloaded to look at. It was ridiculous. As a consequence, we decided to just book our hotel in the next location (Queenstown) and apart from that make do without the internet for the time we're here (As you will have found out by now).

Apart from that, we're now just relaxing in our spacious studio (compared to the Backpackers) and getting ready for a slow day tomorrow with a bit of walking around lake Te Anau.

 This is apparently the steepest road in the whole wide world by the name of Baldwin Street

 Our futile attempt at demonstrating the steepness. Trust me, it is really damn steep. Any steeper and you would call it a cliff.

 Lovely Te Anau

Otago Peninsula: Penguins and Amazing Scenery (6.3.2014)

Leaving the rather unexciting city of Dunedin, we went to the Otago Peninsula for a day trip. It is about 30 minutes out and has some nice reserves, an albatross watch point and the yellow-eyed penguin conservatorium. The conservatorium being our first destination.

I wish I could upload all the pictures we made. The scenery out there was nothing short of stunning. We had a sunny day with little wind and hardly any clouds. The sun glistening off the waves while we drove along the coastline. Beautiful! Sadly, although we tried, pictures never really quite capture the scenery and we did not want to see where we are all the time through a lens.

We made our way first to the conservatorium, where we found out about the purpose of the conservatorium. The yellow-eyed penguin is a very rare and endangered species of penguin that only breeds in New Zealand. They are actively being protected as they suffer greatly from pressures, such as loss of habitat, disturbance by humans and mammals introduced by man to NZ and to round things off the recent increase in ocean temperature has caused a shortage of feeding grounds for them. This, understandably, has created critical situations lately in that the penguin hospital has about 60 penguins in care (usually at most 15 to 20).

The guys at the conservatorium did a good job of explaining to us how to approach penguins (just don't. 100 m away minimum) and why (they think you are predators and are then stuck in open ground, easy prey for sea lions), while at the same time letting us appreciate the area, learn about the yellow-eyed penguins and take pictures.

On our way back from the reserve, we wanted to go for a little walk, so we chose the nearby Okia Reserve for a walk. It features everything you really want: Hills, cliffs, all overgrown by vegetation and finally at the end of it, a sandy beach. Of course, at the first sight of the sun, may entire face burnt up and I now look like one of those idiots where the entire face is read except the part where my sunglasses were ;)

After this nice little 3 hour walk (we got lost, otherwise it would have been more like 1 1/2), we made our way back to Dunedin for an event of a different type. There is a man known as the "Hairraiser" who offers several different types of tours of the horror kind around Dunedin. We went on the "Ghost tour". We thought it would be like a spoof horror show, but it was in fact very, very cool. Not unlike the "Nachtwächter tour" in Würzburg, he showed us around Dunedin, but instead he took us to the dirtiest, creepiest back alleys of town and told us the most famous stories of Dunedin murders. At one point, we were in an old second world war bunker 5 meters below the city library (?!?). An unexpected, but very cool experience. We rounded it off with a glass of a whiskey of his choice and afterwards went with an American couple for a few beers. Enjoyable time was had and fun all round.

Tomorrow, we are off to Te Anau. We heard so many things about the region that we are very excited. The weather is supposed to be sunny at least two of the days we're there, the other one will have a light drizzle, so it sounds perfect, given people told us, it rains there most of the time. Let's hope it stays that way and we'll have more exciting pictures to show you :).

Paronama from Otago Peninsula onto the mainland (Click on the picture to enlarge it)

A yellow-eyed penguin

A seal getting lost on the road (apparently it's common)

Okia Reserve: View from the hill called "The Pyramid" (Click on the picture to enlarge it)

Walking along the beach of the Okia Reserve

 

Journey to Dunédin and Speight's Brewery tour (5.3.2014)

Expecting another rainy and very windy day, we made our way from Christchurch to Dunédin (apparently the more Scottish place of the lot). I had jetlaggy symptoms (wide awake at midnight until 4 am, then another 2 hours and awake again). It awaited us a tour of about five hours down the road. Mostly due to the lack of real highways. The maximum speed limit is 100 km/h which were most of the time slowed down by lorries driving 70 on single lane roads.

The beginning of the journey was marred by floodings of the streets, but once we got clear from Christchurch to our surprise it became more and more dry. So dry, in fact, that we decided to stop over at a place called Moeraki boulders. These are boulders that were formed underground, but the nearby sea, slowly but surely eroded away the earth and took the boulders with them to the beach. There they are very smooth almost spherical like due to the constant erosion of the water. We enjoyed a little walk in the sun with a little wind after a 3 hour trip from Christchurch. There we also observed the sometimes not so rational thought process of adolescents (see below for pictures).

Afterwards, we hurried to Dunédin to check into our hostel and rush off to a Brewery tour of Speight's, NZ's most widely spread beer. The one thing we learnt now for sure is, that we are too old for backpacker hostels. We appreciate having a room, that is bigger than a matchbox and has its own bathroom. Also the music playing loud till late at night... we're just old ;)

The Speight's tour was very interesting. As Isi and I are fans of different types of beer, and we enjoy brewery tours, there were many things that we already knew, but some things were knew to us, too. At the end, we all were pouring ourselves a beer and get photos taken. It was a very relaxing atmosphere with good chats.

In expectations of tomorrows tour at the Penguin Conservatory and the Hairraiser Ghoststory tour in the evening, we decided to go to bed early and see how unrefreshingly we will sleep tonight ;) 

The street floodings on our way to Dunédin

Moerakin boulders

 Isi on a boulder

We didn't ask...

Beach with Moerakin boulders

Playing around with the camera settings (Moerakin)
 

 Our amazing Dual Beer Drawing Skills at the Speight's Brewery...

Christchurch & Lyttleton in the pouring rain (4.3.2014)

Our first full day in New Zealand was marked by even more rain and winds. A plural is fitting here, one wind alone can't be so damn strong. We're talking tree tops parallel to the ground, plastic chairs flying through the air strong.

I gotta say one thing, though. I "love" the Kiwis. While getting our pre-paid phone cards and surfstick, we asked the salesman if there is a cafe to sit in nearby. What happened was a very detailed "What to see in and around Christchurch" with little tips for the journey. Generally it turns out to be very easy to chat with people. Really cool!

Christchurch was nothing to write home about, though. The earthquake from 2010 still has an after effect on the city. Building sites and road repairs everywhere... which brings me to driving :D The adrenaline-rush doesn't stop. After several near death experiences after turning right on the wrong side of the road, we slowly got used to the left-handed traffic. Funny how one instinctively grabs to the right when wanting to change gears (well, directions. The car has an automatic).

Since the rain and winds stopped us from doing anything farther away, we decided to drive to the small harbour town Lyttelton to have a look at the sea side. By this point the wind was almost hurrican-like. I'll be honest, I loved it. It shouldn't be like this all the time, but it reminded me of my time in Scotland. We tried to take some pics from higher up, to catch the rain and mist as well as the harbour, but our camera was not up to the task (The pictures did not catch the "atmosphere" entirely).

Now, after having returned to our little cottage, we're waiting out the day relaxing and tomorrow we'll be off to Dunédin. Since the weather will be similar tomorrow, we'll first visit the brewery in the evening and the next days, we'll finally tackle New Zealand's country-side as the weather forecasts promise sunny 20 °C for the coming week.

 Christchurch: Beware the tram!

 Lyttelton's Harbour in the pouring rain...

Lyttelton's hillside (Harbour is to the right)...

Isi in the pouring rain (can you see the water drip off her nose? :D)

New Zealand, Baby! (1.-3-3-2014)

So we finally arrived in New Zealand!!! The journey was off to a rubbish start unfortunately. First the train to Frankfurt Airport was broken and we had to step over in Cologne (another reservation made in vain). This was swiftly followed by Emirates (our airline) screwing up our reservation leading to Isi and myself not being able to sit next to each other during the long haul from Dubai to Christchurch. Then while getting the obligatory McDonald's meal, I got shouted at for asking an innocent question . As a consequence, I was very quickly suffering from one of "those headaches".

 

The journey with the plane was looong, but exciting for us intercontinental virgins. We arrived without incident in Dubai. Dubai airport is an... interesting place. Very impersonal, loads of different nationalities with all that pomp that stems from having too much money (water cascades and all that).

The next surprise awaited us when embarking on our flight to Christchurch. Apparently, our "direct" flight stops at two airports before (Bangkok, Sydney). It turned out to be a good thing. Sitting for 21 hours straight would have been painful.

I happened to sit next to an Austrian fella who came to NZ to work in their vineyards in the south island. I gotta admit, that I only understand half of what he said most of the times, but he was a standup bloke, so we exchanged contact details to see if we can meet up once more during our respective travels.

Eventually, we arrived with a cramp in our butt cheeks and being in half-awake zombie mode for the best part of 35 hours or longer. We started in Frankfurt with 11 degrees, Dubai 20°C (Desert Sand with a taste of the sea), Bangkok 29°C (humid, soooo humid), Sydney 22°C (sunny boys galore) and finally Christchurch with summer-like 12°C and winds so strong it blew our suitcases away :/.

After getting our car and the first hotel room, we crashed unceremoniously after a shower and two beers each at 21:39 (that's when I last looked) and just woke up now at 9:something or other. The temperature is sadly the same and the winds are stronger than before. We'll now get ourselves set up with phone cards and a surf stick.

With that wind, we won't be able to do anything exciting like whale watching or hiking, so we'll take it slow. Suits me. Having chatted with the owner of the hotel (a nice lady of 50-years old who dreams of travelling Asia), I am looking forward to meeting more Kiwis :)

Speak to you soon, guys :)

 The journey begins...

Dubai: Slightly tired...

Bangkok: sleep deprivation in spades...

Sydney: Full on Zombie-mode

 Christchurch: Strong winds and arrival = Adrenalin-rush

The Calm Before the Storm

Now it is the night before the big journey. "All our bags are packed, ready to go", this or something similar John Denver already said. As you can see by the picture below, we packed quite a lot of bags for our month long journey ;)

We went through every single last detail. Passports... check, International driver's licence... check, paper copies of our passports... check, tickets... check, booking confirmation for our car and our first hotel... check.

The rest we can buy once we are there. Now only a 2 1/2 hour train journey and a 31 hour plane journey (27 hours net flight time) lies ahead of us before we arrive in that far away land made for tourists populated by people that were pretty much mostly tourists themselves that decided to settle down ;)

Let's see if my wife and I can dance the haka once we're back.

New Zealand here I come!

Oh wow! So much time has passed again since my last post. But in fact, all I really wanted to share with everyone is that I will try to bastardise my blog to show off some pics about the upcoming journey that my darling wife and I will do.

We are finally, after three years in the making, going to go on our honeymoon to New Zealand!!! If you know us and fancy following our little adventure to the other side of the world to a land with a rather similar civilization but strange accents, then come back to this blog now and again. If the Kiwi internet wills it, there will be a regular update here :)

See you around folks!