| New Zealand |
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| The Route |
| Highs and Lows Highs Sailing in Sydney Harbour - On our last day in Sydney, Steve and Jo hired a sailing boat for ten people and we sailed all day around Sydney Harbour in the blistering sun, sipping wine and champagne and enjoying a barbie on the beach. Jeroen's birthday - Celebrating your birthday away from home has to lead to some unusual birthday events. The first one took place a few days before Jeroen's birthday in a restaurant in Ohau, where we were having dinner with Meriel's relatives Chris and Gwen and a birthday cake was put in front of the unsuspecting Jeroen. The second one took place on Jeroen's birthday, when we were on our second day of hiking the Milford Track. We were sitting on the balcony of the hut, enjoying the sunshine and the spectacular views after the day's hike, when Jeroen said: "Quite fancy a glass of wine now". To his amazement, Meriel pulled out a bottle of white wine that she had been carrying in her backpack as a birthday surprise. And what a surprise it was! Spectacular West Coast - It was meant to be raining, as it always does, but instead the sky was bright blue and no clouds were in sight. The rough West Coast of the South Island looked absolutely spectacular. Reaching the boat - After a forced march of 18 km non-stop in the pouring rain, we finally reached Sandfly Point, the end of the Milford Track. Sandfly Point meant: no more walking, no more rain and a hot shower to come. Breakfast in Te Anau - Our favourite place in New Zealand was probably Fiordland. All in all we stayed there for two weeks, hiking, kayaking and just enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery. We pitched our tent on the lakeside with a beautiful mountain backdrop, which became our home away from home. In the morning we had breakfast next to our tent, admiring the lake and the mountains. Sailing in Doubtful Sound - We spent two days kayaking in the remote Doubtful Sound. On the first day, we put up our sails and the strong wind pushed us high-speed through the narrow gorges of the Sound. 180 degree penguin - That little crested penguin looking over his shoulder as we kayaked past, wasn't that sooo cute! First glimpse of Mount Cook - For us, mountain nerds, the first glimpse of a famous mountain is often a big moment. Although Mount Cook is often covered in clouds, we had a beautiful view of the majestic mountain with the turquoise lake in front. Swimming with dolphins - Meant to be one of the highlights of any New Zealand trip, it was indeed quite an experience. Swimming in the bay near Kaikoura with hundreds of dusky dolphins. They love playing with you, particularly swimming in circles, so we had a few eye-to-eye spinning sessions with those gracious creatures. Meriel's birthday - Meriel's birthday, three weeks after Jeroen's, was also memorable. We had just got back from a miserable hike and booked ourselves into a nice motel-cum-private spa in Rotorua. Bubbles galore as we opened the champagne bottle in the jacuzzi. Lows Burnt hair - On our first hike in New Zealand, Jeroen was experimenting with our new gas stove without having consulted the instructions (even though only women are supposed to do that). Not having read the warning "Do not put your head above the stove at any time" as a result, he lit the gas with a match, whilst keeping a close eye on the stove. A big flame shot up and burnt the front of his hair. There wasn't much on there anyway but it still smelt like burnt hair. Gales on the mountain ridge - On the second day of the four-day Kepler trek, we had to cross a ridge at 1400m, fullly exposed to the winds blowing in from the Tasman Sea. When we set off that morning, we had been warned by the hut ranger that wind gusts of up to 120km/h would develop later in the day. Struggling down the ridge, we had to walk over 200 wooden steps which were very difficult to balance on with winds raging and snow blowing horizontally. Sandflies - Those little buggers are everywhere. They are very easy to spot and to kill, but only after the damage is done. Doubtful Sound must have been the worst: if you tried to wash up your dirty cutlery in the river in the evening, they would attack by the hundreds. Rain galore - Another low caused by the weather conditions on a hike, but this time even worse. Our last hike in New Zealand, the Tongariro Norhtern Circuit, took us into spectacular volcanic scenery. Unfortunately, we couldnt see a thing, as everything was covered in clouds and a thick drizzle kept falling for five hours. We were cold and wet and just kept walking until we got out of the park, cutting our hike short by one day. Puking with dolphins - The only down side of swimming with dolphins was that we had to go quite far out to sea. The sea was fairly rough and, particularly after some mad spinning around with the dolphins, we felt pretty queasy to say the least. On one of the other boats everybody fell sick. |
| Detailed Trip Schedule |
| Map of New Zealand |
| SYDNEY So, after about three weeks of lingering in London, we set off for the second phase of our world trip. Fresh flight ticket in the pocket and renewed desire to go and do things. Before arriving in New Zealand, we spent about a week in Sydney to meet up with a number of friends. We stayed with Jo and Steve, who moved out there from Holland 7 months ago. We also met up with Alun + Claire and Brian + Diane (whom we met in Alaska). Sydney is a fantastic city, with lots of water, sunshine and hiking opportunities. On our last day we hired a sailing boat for ten people and sailed around Sydney Harbour in the blistering sun, sipping wine and champagne and enjoying a BBQ on the beach. THE NORTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND We then moved on to New Zealand. The first two days were spent in Auckland, where we needed to prepare and equip ourselves for a 6 week adventure. We managed to hire a car for the amazing daily rate of NZ$ 19 (GBP 5.7) and stocked up on food and camping tools. We headed straight north to the most northern point of the country, the Bay of Islands and the 2000 year old forest of Waipoua Kauri. We then drove down past Auckland to the Waitumo caves. These limestone caves house the famous glow-worms that light up the cave ceilings with their green "disco" lights. We tubed down an underground river through the caves, hopping off waterfalls and lying on our backs looking at the light show. Pretty cool! After that it was time for our first hike (or tramp as they say in New Zealand). We had chosen the Lake Walk, one of the four Great Walks in NZ. The track trails around Lake Waikaremoana through the Urewera National Park. Even though the track is supposed to attract lots of trampers, we only had to share our hut one out of three nights with one other person. The combination of lake scenes with dense forest was beautiful. After the track we stayed with a relative of Meriel's Barbara in Hastings, near the beautiful Art Deco town of Napier. On the way down to Wellington, we stayed at the farm of some more relatives, Chris and Gwen, surrounded by cows and deer. The farm was a lovely wooden structure, designed by another relative, Pete, who happens to be the same architect who designed the famous Te Papa museum in Wellington. ARRIVING IN THE SOUTH ISLAND We crossed the Cook Strait between the North and South Islands in glorious weather, enjoying the sunset as we disembarked in Picton. We had four days to drive down to Milford, where we had booked ourselves onto the Milford Track. We had just been able to reserve for the 10th of November. After that the track was fully booked until April! The nice weather continued the next day when we drove down the West Coast. We were very lucky to be able to enjoy the gorgeous seascape under a blue sky. Given the nice weather, we decided to embark on the two-day Inland Pack Track, a trail formerly used by pioneer gold seekers. Good weather (i.e. no rain) was a pre-requisite, as any rainfall in sufficient quantities would make the many streams impassable and might cut us off from the civilised world (a particularly worry if you are diabetic and run out of food). Fortunately, the weather stayed dry and we enjoyed wading with our boots through the picturesque (and shallow) streams. We camped in the "Ballroom", a massive limestone overhang. The next day, we continued our journey southwards, passing by the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK When we arrived in the Fiordland National Park for the Milford Track, we had no idea how long we would stay in that area, but definitely did not expect to stay there for two weeks. The place was so beautiful though and we loved staying in our tent on the shores of Lake Te Anau, which became our base camp in between our hikes and kayak trips. The first hike was the famous Milford Track, a four day tramp leading from Lake Te Anau to the Milford Sound. The tramp has been hiked by tourists for more than a hundred years and is fully booked for many months every season. We had some nice hiking companions and were very lucky with the weather. The fiords are renowned for their high rainfall. On the third day, when crossing McKinnon Pass, the sky was bright blue and the views were amazing. On the fourth and last day, rain was pouring down, so we marched the 18km without a single rest until we reached Milford Sound. The next day, we paddled around the Sound in our kayaks, giving our neglected arms a bit of exercise. After two days' of sun and rest, we embarked on a second four-day hike in the park, the Kepler Track. The Kepler Track takes you up from 200m to 1400m, with magnificent views over Lake Te Anau. The Alpine crossing over 1400m is very exposed and we ran into severe gale force winds and heavy snow and rainfall on that crossing. 80mm of rain was measured that day at the hut we were staying in. As the weather changes and turns in New Zealand, the next day was beautiful and clear and we marched over flooded trails along the wildly roaring Irisburn River. The last day took us back to Te Anau. After another day of rest, we joined a kayaking trip to the isolated Doubtful Sound. Similar to the Milford Sound, it is a bit narrower and much more quiet, excellent for kayaking and camping. At one point, we tied sails to our paddles and sailed down one of the fiord arms (although we had to paddle all the way back the next day). BACK UP TO AUCKLAND On our way back up north, we passed by Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. We were very lucky with the weather, as, not unlike Mount Denali in Alaska, Mt Cook has the habit of hiding behind a thick layer of clouds. We then stayed with some more relatives in Christchurch, Phillipa and Dave, before moving on to Kaikoura, a favourite place to go and swim with the cute dusky dolphins. Back in Wellington we managed to see the Harry Potter film on its first night, which Meriel was quite excited about. The next day we met up with Moya Maxwell, a university friend of Meriel's. After two sunny days in Wellington we drove further north to start our last great 4-day hike, this time in the volcanic area of Tongariro. The whole national park was hidden in a drizzly mist, so we decided to cut our losses after two rainy days and spend some more time in Rotorua, the geothermal Las Vegas. This coincided with Meriel's birthday, so we treated ourselves to a nice motel room with en suite bathroom/spa and SkySports. And then we were back in Auckland where we started off only six weeks ago. We spent quite a bit of time with the icon of Meriel's family, 85-year old Auntie Win. We had a lovely time with this witty and energetic lady, playing quite a few scrabble games. And then it was time to pack up and go ... |
| 13 October: London - Sydney 14 October: Sydney 15 October: Sydney 16 October: Sydney 17 October: Sydney 18 October: Sydney 19 October: Sydney 20 October: Sydney 21 October: Sydney 22 October: Sydney 23 October: Sydney - Auckland 24 October: Auckland 25 October: Auckland - Paihia 26 October: Paihia - Waipoua Kauri Forest 27 October: Waipoua Kauri Forest - Waitumo 28 October: Waitumo - Lake Waikaremoana 29 October: Lake Waikaremoana 30 October: Lake Waikaremoana 31 October: Lake Waikaremoana 1 November: Lake Waikaremoana - Hastings 2 November: Hastings 3 November: Hastings - Wellington 4 November: Wellington 5 November: Wellington - Picton 6 November: Picton - Punakaiki 7 November: Punakaiki - Inland Pack Track 8 November: Inland Pack Track - Haast 9 November: Haast - Te Anau 10 November: Te Anau - Milford Track 11 November: Milford Track 12 November: Milford Track 13 November: Milford Track - Milford Sound 14 November: Milford Sound - Te Anau 15 November: Te Anau 16 November: Te Anau 17 November: Te Anau - Kepler Track 18 November: Kepler Track 19 November: Kepler Track 20 November: Kepler Track - Te Anau 21 November: Te Anau 22 November: Te Anau - Doubtful Sound 23 November: Doubtful Sound - Te Anau 24 November: Te Anau - Wanaka 25 November: Wanaka - Geraldine |
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| 26 November: Geraldine - Christchurch 27 November: Christchurch - Kaikoura 28 November: Kaikoura - Picton 29 November: Picton - Wellington 30 November: Wellington 1 December: Wellington - Tongariro 2 December: Tongariro 3 December: Tongariro - National Park 4 December: National Park - Rotorua 5 December: Roturua - Auckland 6 December: Auckland 7 December: Auckland - Sydney 8 December: Sydney 9 December: Syndey 10 December: Sydney - Capetown |