Milford Sound and the Underwater Observatory (9.3.2014)

We rose today bright and early to make our way to the famous Milford Sound, apparently one of the most beautiful places in the world. As the weather forecast promised a warm, sunny day (very unusual as about 200 days of the year are filled with rain), we looked forward to our trip "a lot"! When we left at 7:00 am the mountain tops were still covered in mist and dew was still on the grass fields, giving the road up to the Milford Sound (about 2 -2½ hours from Te Anau) a rather mystical aura. On the way up, there were already several vantage points from which we could enjoy the beautiful scenery. One very creepy experience was going through Homer Tunnel, as the tunnel is rather crudely carved out of the rock. I couldn't help but sing the Gregorian Chant from the movie "The Hobbit". Isi was not impressed. The further we got, the narrower the streets became, but thankfully due to our early start, we did not encounter much traffic. We were warned in advance by our Motel owner and by several guides that the traffic can be a bit more busy than one might expect in such a remote area of the world.

When we finally arrived, we got ourselves our tickets for our booked trip to the Sound, together with a one hour Kayak trip and a look at the Underwater Observatory. But one step at a time. A Sound is originally the name for an inland entrance from the sea into the mainland that was created over several thousand years by a river. Interestingly, all but one Sound in New Zealand was actually formed by glaciers, so they should actually be called, for example, Milford Fiord (or so the guide told us).

Yet again, the scenery took our breath away. Worryingly enough, we are starting to get used to that ;). As it was such a nice day, we stood on the rear deck on the top of the boat (The "Spirit of Milford") and enjoyed the very witty, but informed guide, while constantly trying to find a compromise between trying out all the features of our camera and simply enjoying the scenery.

At one point, we took a closer look at the Stanley Waterfall, one of two waterfalls in Milford Sound that was fed by glacial ice. The fine water spray was very refreshing on our faces and while the guide was just mentioning that it also has the effect of a fountain of youth ("Your face will be so refreshed, you will feel ten years younger"), I was able to observe one of those rare Isabel Vogel Sprints. In this case to the front of the deck. I have never seen her run so fast, a feat made even more impressive by the uneven ground due to the waves rocking the boat ;)

On the way back, we went off-board for a round of beginners kayaking in Harrison Cove with a group of ten others. We didn't dare take our camera with us and judging by how wet my clothes got, that was a wise choice ;) Kayaking is cool. I have done it once before and like last time my main problem was to have the strokes on either side to be of equal strength so that I do not swerve to the left or right (a problem Isi did not encounter in the slightest).

Afterwards, we took a look at the Underwater Observatory, a large floating structure that has a circular observation room about 10 m below sea level to be able to observe fish and other marine organisms in their own habitat, among them the for New Zealand very typical black coral (which is white by the way). The Milford Sound has a very particular marine fauna. As it is one of the rainiest areas of the world (it has more than twice the amount of rainfall in comparison to the Amazon Rain Forest), but the sheer cliff faces do not allow for earth erosion into the sea, lots of tannin from the plants is washed into the Sound where the first 2-3 meters are exclusively fresh water with these tannins inside. This has the effect of making the water much darker than is usual. As a consequence, marine organisms that usually live at around 50 m below sea level, can be found here as high as 10 m below the sea. I was not particularly interested in that aspect of the tour, but Isi took a couple of good shots.

Afterwards, we made our way back and now we are relaxing in our little Motel room and looking forward to tomorrow's ship cruise onto the Doubtful Sound.

 The Road to Milford Sound

Getting closer to the Sound...

The creepy Homer Tunnel

 Milford Sound all day long!!!

 Isi's fountain of sprinting youth

 A fantastically ugly fella

 Mirror Lakes on the way back

The Rainbow Reach and Lake Manapouri (8.3.2014)

The weather gods treated us with sunny 20-25 °C today and it looks like our entire stay in Te Anau will remain that way, so we were very upbeat about this development. Yesterday, an overcast sky was in the forecast with a bit of drizzle. Lucky us... I will give my sacrifices to the ancient Maori gods tonight in form of eating grinded pig meat inside the membrane of pig intestine cast into a heated oily substance that may approach the temperatures of death and destruction, accompanied with potatoes thrown into a similar oily inferno. I hope they will be pleased and acknowledge my giving thanks to their generous gift of good weather for our journey.

For our first day in Te Anau we wanted to take it easy as there will be two big trips the following days. So we decided to do a little walk starting from the Rainbow Reach (the name really took our fancy) going towards Lake Manapouri, a slightly smaller lake just south of Lake Te Anau (which is massive indeed).

I gotta say, though, we are getting spoilt by amazing scenery at the moment. We try to appreciate it as if it is the first time we see something like this, but wherever we go, the landscape is just bonkers beautiful. The very short one hour walk was prolonged by our constant taking of photos. Today, for the first time, our newly acquired gorilla pod was put into action (thanks Marian for the suggestion. It is an invaluable tool) so that we could take pictures with both of us in it without the need for a stranger who happened to stroll past.

On our way, we crossed the Waiau River twice over rather shaky suspension bridges. Apparently, somewhere near the places we passed, parts of the Lord of the Rings were filmed. A fact that should have made a true film fan watch all three films again just to see which parts were in it... I guess I am not "that" big a fan...

The trips destination, Lake Manapouri, was awesome in its own right. I am running out of words to describe pretty landscape here unfortunately. So just look below and see for yourselves. We tried to take the opportunity and show off how sporty we are by doing cart wheels on the shores of the lake. We are "very" sporty indeed... I think I pulled a muscle in my calves, though. Then we had a picnic to show how good we can eat things. We are "awesome" at eating things :) ... By the way, I am also awesome at squashing bananas inside a rucksack full with stuff just using a gorilla pod :( Stern and disapproving looks by the wife followed by a hefty scolding ensued :(.

Now we are sitting in the sun on our terrace having a beer while I write this blog. To prove it, we used our gorilla pod and camera again (See how useful that thing is!!!) :) Tomorrow, we are off to the Milford Sound doing a ship cruise, some kayaking, followed by looking at an underground sea world centre thing. You will hear all about it tomorrow :) Take care and see you around ;)

 A suspension bridge near the Rainbow Reach

One of the many beautiful views during that walk

 This is a New Zealand Robin that hops after hikers to eat the sandworms that were shook loose by the people

A rather large pond without connection to any river on our route

Sporty Spice

 

Elegance in all its facets

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