After a relatively short flight to New Zealand from Sydney, we arrived in a cold rainy Christchurch. It felt very much like England, or perhaps a typical Swedish summer day… The rain poured down as we took a shuttle into the city centre and our hotel.

As we now had reached our ‘end destination’ on our trip, we decided to treat our visit in Christchurch as an administrative stop rather than a sightseeing destination to get our bearings right, sort out or plans for the next seven weeks and attempt at getting a little ‘ORGANIZED’.

In the southern hemisphere it’s now the end of summer, so somewhere equivalent to late August (Sweden or England) or early September in Canada (Vancouver). Around Christchurch the grass on the hills was a little yellowish from a long summer but after the initial rainy welcome, the next day it was very warm and around 25C.

We had talked about renting a small camper van, a bigger camper van with a toilet and shower, or a car, but after careful consideration, we decided to buy a car and drive around for a few weeks stopping at B&Bs and motels before renting a small place and stay in one destination for the remaining time. Robert researched the options and we headed to the local car auction to see what they had to offer.

We walked to the southern part of Christchurch which is a more industrial part where all the car dealerships and the auction are located. There would be an auction for ‘commercial and 4x4s’ the following day so today was the day to check out what would be auctioned out. A lot of backpackers and travelers do what we plan on doing; buy a car or a van for the time they are in New Zealand and then sell it before they leave. As it is approaching the end of summer, we hoped that we would be able to find something at a reasonable price.

After some looking and kicking of the tires, we (Robert), had a pretty good idea of what was on offer and we headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately, we still hadn’t seen too much of Christchurch yet due to the nature of our stay (sorting stuff out rather than sightseeing), but Victoria was happy to see that there were many sushi restaurants as she has been craving sushi since she left Vancouver. This time around she had to be satisfied with California rolls and veggie sushi but was happy as a clam! Robert, not being a fan of sushi and raw fish was very accommodating in satisfying Victoria’s sushi craving and stoically ate a large number of teriyaki beef dishes during our days in Christchurch. In fact, the city centre of Christchurch seems to be the home to an abundance of Japanese and Korean restaurants and shops and a lot of young Japanese and Koreans that look like language students.

The next day Robert headed to the car auction while Victoria pottered around on her own. About two hours later, Robert came back with a car!!!! He had bought a 4x4 Mitsubishi Pajero to a decent price which meant that we now had wheels!!!! The car had to go through an inspection and the only thing that was ‘wrong’ with it was that one of the seatbelts in the back seat needed replacement. Other than that, we were pretty much ready to go!

We set off the next day and our only definitive plan was to ‘go north’. We bought some map books and started driving. The landscape was beautiful and as soon as we left Christchurch we started seeing some of the millions of sheep that inhabit New Zealand. They are everywhere but are mixed with other animals like farmed deer, cows, horses and the occasional goat and lama. It is clear that farming and raising sheep and cattle is big business in New Zealand!

We more or less drove along the coast and the landscape is quite varied. Some parts look drier and hotter and not much unlike the Okanagan in Canada. Not surprisingly though as we were heading to the Marlborough district where the Kiwis grow their famous wine. Other parts along the coast are very rugged with large waves and rocky beaches.

The first night we stopped in Kaikoura, a little beach resort town on the north eastern side of the South Island. We arrived late and accepted the first hotel that had a room available. We had dinner at a nice restaurant and the seafood chowder was almost to die for! So good! The size of the mussels in the chowder were about twice the size of any other mussel either of us had ever seen. But as the waitress said ‘everything is bigger in New Zealand’… hahaha!!!

The next day we drove from Kaikoura to Picton which is the home of the ferry terminal for crossing over from the south to the north island. We drove through the Marlborough district with vineyards and more sheep and decided to stop on the way back south again as we wanted to have more time to visit and sampling some Kiwi wine.

At some point when we were driving along the sea there was suddenly a sign warning for seals on the road. Hmmm…. After traveling through Canada we have seen warnings for moose, deer, bears and the occasional horse, but never a ‘seal on the road’ warning…
Well, it turned out that there is a large seal colony on the rocks just off the highway and during really rough weather, there is a possibility that the waves sweep the seals off the shore and all the way up to the road!!! Luckily today was a less windy day so we just enjoyed the seals on the beach instead. They were an entertainment to watch! The parent seals were lazy and sleeping on the beach but the baby seals where playing. They were chasing each other up and down the rocks and playing in a natural rock pool that had formed; swimming, diving, splashing and being… youngsters.

We reached the ferry terminal in Picton well on time to find that our ferry was about an hour and a half delayed due to very rough weather…….

The loading of the ferry took forever and was something of a very inefficient procedure. Later on we realized it was slow because they had to carefully secure all the bigger trucks in preparation for a bumpy ride. Still, the organization of the loading was somewhat of a comedy!

The trip over to Wellington that should have taken about 3 hours took close to 4 hours and yes, the sea was rough! More than one person grabbed a designated seasickness paper bag ‘just in case’, and more than one passenger used them! The rolling of the ferry was particularly bad in the front and the back so most people congregated in the middle of the ship.

We were quite happy and relieved when we finally reached Wellington, and on a little bit of shaky legs we drove off the ferry and in to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand!

written by  Victoria & Robert on March 15, 2010 from Christchurch, New Zealand
from the travel blog: The rest of the world
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Both of us with Mount Taranaki in the background

Victoria used to sometimes complain a bit about BC Ferries in Canada, but after this experience, BC Ferries feels like a luxury cruiser. In fact, a suggestion to the operators of the Kiwi ferries would be to go a course in how to load and unload a ferry…. ;) When we went to bed it felt like the bed was still moving and we could still smell the odor of toilet disinfectant that had seemed to linger around the entire ship.

We didn’t spend much time in Wellington and only went for breakfast and a quick drive up to the Victoria lookout before heading off north. Again without much of a plan, but we decided to drive up the West coast.

View over Wellington from Victoria lookout

The scenery was beautiful and we passed several smaller towns and villages that have managed to keep their small town charm without McDonalds or Walmart planted in the middle. It seems as if most of the commerce is still run by ‘mom and pop’ shops with a local butcher, bakery and small stores.

As for fast food, fish & chips and homemade pies is clearly the main staple and it is evident that people take great pride in baking pies as many of the little shops claimed that their pies were ‘the best pies available’. So we decided to stop and try some and picked a small ‘shack’ beside the road in Wanganui. As we weren’t starving we opted for only one piece of fish and a serving of chips each. When our food was ready it was turned out it could have fed a smaller army! Two huge packages wrapped in newspaper filled with fish and chips! All to a cost of $6 each!!! We could easily have shared and gotten full on one of the servings and felt a little bad that we would have to leave quite a lot behind.

Mmmmm.... yummy fish & chips

Robert ate his food in the parking lot of a park and suddenly he was surrounded by curious and hungry ducks waiting for any accidental spillage. It turns out ducks LOVE chips!!! Who knew? Perhaps not the best diet for the birds, but at least we didn’t feel so bad that we couldn’t finish all our food when we got some help to finish it.

The ducks are getting interested in fish & chips...

Robert is getting harrassed by the ducks

We drove a little further up the coast and made a stop for the night in Hawera. We found a wonderful Bed & Breakfast that was hosted in an old renovated house. The standard of B&Bs is very high and often more luxurious (and expensive) than a hotel. The next morning we enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast served by the very nice hostess who told us a bit about the history of the house and how she and her husband had spent four years to renovate it.

Green lush landscape

Our next destination was to go and have a look at the old extinct volcano Mount Taranaki in Egmont National Park. Once we got there a windy road (which by the way, there are plenty of in New Zealand), took us about half the way up the volcano to a viewing area. The weather was nice and the view was absolutely magnificent! We took lots of pictures!

View of the volcano

Victoria and Mount Taranaki

Robert looking cool

Mighty Mountain

Mount Taranaki

That afternoon we continued driving east inland towards Rotorua which is the main town in an area famous for its volcanic activity leading to hot springs, geysers and mud pools. We certainly knew we had arrived when a really pungent smell of sulphur hit us! After visiting some hot springs in Canada we were familiar with the sulphurous smell that usually comes with the springs, but this smell was about five times as strong! We took a look at some of the motels and hotels in the outskirts of town but the smell actually really put us off and one hotel employee told us the smell was particularly bad in this part of town so we decided to drive a little further. We eventually found a very nice little hotel to a reasonable price and where the smell wasn’t too bad.

The next day we set out to explore the volcanic activities and the mud pools that can be seen around town. In the middle of town there is a big park and parts of it is fenced off because of the mud pools which literally are bubbling pools of hot (and smelly) mud! There is also a large aquatic centre which has hot pools (without the mud) and an Olympic sized swimming pool, all heated by the thermal activity. Of course Victoria had to try it out for a swim!

Bubbly hot mud pools...

Victoria and Robert with green lime coloured smelly hot spring

We also went out to Rainbowsprings Wildlife Park in search of some kiwi birds. It’s a small zoo displaying plants and animals of New Zealand and that breeds the rare kiwi bird. Most mammals are introduced to New Zealand and not native and the same is true for a lot of plants and trees. There are, for example, large redwood trees like in Canada, but they have been planted here. Apparently the redwood trees thrive in this climate and make them grow extra fast, but to a cost of poorer quality wood if it were to be harvested. We also saw fish, plants, small mammals and yes, at last, a real kiwi bird! (Not just on a poster...)

Look! It is a...... boy?...girl?...no.....a KIWI!!!!

Kiwi bird on a poster!

Bird bathing

The next day we were up early as we had bought tickets to the Lady Knox geyser which erupts at 10:15am every day. It is located about 30 minutes outside of Rotorua, so we were off to a relatively (for us!!!) early morning. During our drive there we were talking about how amazing it is that they geyser goes off at exactly the same time every day! Strange!

We were very excited to see a geyser as we had hoped to see one in Iceland but didn’t have a chance to. It’s funny that when we were travelling in Canada we had hoped to see the Northern lights but eventually saw them in Iceland, and the geyser we wanted to see in Iceland, we finally would get to see in New Zealand!!

When we got to the viewing area for the geyser, the geyser itself was puffing steam but with no action yet. People were gathering all waiting for it to go off with cameras ready not to miss the big show. At 10:15 everybody was ready but nothing happened…. Then a man that worked in the park came out and starting talking about the history of the geyser and the area we were in. It turned out that there used to be a prison camp not far from there and the prisoners used to come to the hot spring and do their laundry. One day when they had soaked their clothes in water and soap, the geyser erupted and took everybody with a big surprise. It turned out that the soap made the geyser spurt, and from that discovery, they were able to control when the geyser would go off by putting a little soap down the opening of the geyser. Hahaha! So much for the geyser erupting exactly at the same time every day!!!! Of course the park employee had a piece of soap with him, so when his presentation was over, he dropped it into the hole of the geyser, and voila! – the geyser started to bubble, steam and suddenly squirted a high beam of water!!! It was very spectacular and interesting and we took pictures. We only felt a little silly for thinking that nature would have had an internal 24 hour clock so precise that it would go off at exactly the same time every day….not sure if everybody else knew, so we kept it to ourselves in case we were the only fools….

Only some steam coming out so far...

The geyser needed a bit of a helping hand...

It's starting to bubble....

The geyser is going strong!

With the ticket to the geyser we also got access to a large thermal park with hots prings, mud pools and caves formed by volcanic activity. It was an hour walk and quite interesting but in the end it felt like every smelly hot spring looked the same and that the next one was stinkier than the previous…

Bubbly hot spring

Robert checking out if the 'hot' spring is hot. (It was boiling...)

Beautiful colours but very stinky

Soon, we were in the car again and continuing our journey east. Our next destination was Hawke’s Bay which is well known wine region famous especially for their red wines.

written by  Victoria & Robert on March 19, 2010 from Wellington, New Zealand
from the travel blog: The rest of the world
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We have some free maps in the car that we had picked up at tourist information offices and various hotels, but no real extensive road map over the north island. The best map we had did indeed show the entire north island but in very rough terms with only the biggest roads mapped. So when we set off to Hawke’s bay we saw that there was a ‘scenic shortcut’ through the Te Urewera National park.

From the looks of our map, there was only one main road through the park so we thought it would be a fairly straight forward ‘drive in the park’. We also have a compass in the car, so we felt well equipped!

It turned out that the signposting isn’t the best once you are in the park and that there in fact are many little roads crisscrossing the park. It also didn’t help that the compass seemed as confused as we were and we are now pretty sure that it was turned around and showed ‘south’ when we in fact were heading ‘north’ and vice versa. While we were never really lost, the 20km drive took us four hours!!! When we eventually reached ‘civilization’ and the main road, the car was covered in dust from traveling on the gravel roads.

The park is really beautiful though with a large lake; Lake Waikaremoana and lots of opportunities for hiking, camping and enjoying the lake. It would be a nice spot to spend a few days and exploring more!

On our journey we have seen many sheep and Victoria wanted to cuddle one. However, she didn't get her chance until we reached a souvenir shop...

A 'real' sheep

A sheep to cuddle....

Many cuddly sheep

Cuddle sheep

Once we reached Hawke’s Bay we headed to Napier, a little seaside town that is known for suffering a large earthquake in 1931 and afterwards rebuilding the town completely in art deco style. Almost all the buildings are preserved the way they were built in art deco which gives the town a distinct feeling like you are stepping back in time. The town is a nice beach resort town and we found an outdoor pool which made Victoria very happy. In fact, both of us when for a morning swim both mornings we were there!

Napier is also a good starting point for exploring the wine region and we went to visit two of the bigger vineyards just outside town; Church Road and Mission Estate. Mission Estate is located in a beautiful building and spot overlooking the valley but the wine was actually pretty mediocre. However, we had lunch in their outdoor garden restaurant and it was excellent! So we would definitely recommend it for the view and food, but not perhaps for the wine…!! Church Road on the other hand had some good wine and Robert bought a bottle of their syrah.

Victoria in the wine cellar

On the way out of Napier heading south back to Wellington, we drove through Hastings and North Havelock which also were lovely little towns with that ‘local’ small town feeling to them. In North Havelock we stopped at the Strawberry Patch where you can pick your own strawberries! We picked and then over-indulged in freshly picked berries! In fact, Victoria ate so many she feels she could probably survive a few days without seeing another strawberry….

Strawberry fields

Robert and a sign telling him what not to do...

Strawberry tasting...

Mmmmm... strawberry icecream

They also sold local produce and fruits and it is a feast for the eye to see all the fresh vegetables piled high! The only thing we had a ‘problem’ with, is that while we have met many very nice New Zealander or ‘Kiwis’, and seen a real Kiwi bird, it seems as if all kiwi fruits are imported from Italy!!!! Why on earth would somebody transport Italian kiwi fruits to New Zealand?? Well, it turns out the reason is the same as why you can find apples and other fruits from New Zealand in Europe during spring….. the kiwi fruits aren’t in season yet!

Our tour of the north island came to an end when we reached Wellington again and this blog post has been written from the ferry crossing the Cook Straight back to Picton. While the waves aren’t as bad as the crossing last week, there are still some swells that make your stomach go on a rollercoaster ride and there is an unmistakable scent in the air of toilet disinfectants…. However, overall, our week long tour of the north island has been really fantastic with many great experiences and an increased appetite to one day come back for more!!!

written by  Victoria & Robert on March 23, 2010 from Napier, New Zealand
from the travel blog: The rest of the world
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Since we returned to the South Island, we've had over a week driving south and we are right now in Queenstown.

To take a step back, we started driving slighly west from Picton (The ferry terminal) with the aim to reach Nelson which we have heard many good things about. After missing the turn off to the most direct way there, we spent an extra hour touring the countryside around Picton and Nelson which actually was ok as we drove through the beautiful wine country.

Lotsa sheep!

We eventually found our way to Nelson and stayed two nights at a nice place called the Warwick house just outside the very centre of town.

B&B in Nelson

Nelson is a very nice town that is big enough to 'have everything' but that still has a small town feel to it. It's known to be a hotspot for artists, galleries, sculptors, and other people interested in handicrafts and artsy stuff. We decided to take a good look at Nelson but also the overall region.

Right outside Nelson there is a place called Stoke which of course made Robert laugh as it was a small pleasant village with a nice community feel with a fire station, rugby, netball and cricket clubs! So, you wonder if the person who came from Stoke in England named it for a joke or decided (new Stoke) would be a totally different place than the one we know and avoid visiting in the UK!

Stoke fire station

Stoke, New Zealand!!!

We explored Nelson a bit and went to the Founders Heritage Park which is an area where a lot of old houses and workshops have been saved and moved to create the look and feel of an old town. Some of the buildings are displays of what it used to look like, but some are occupied by operating businesses such as the brewery (making handcrafted organic beers), a bakery and some others which host local artists.

We also took a look at Nelson's farmers market which takes place every Saturday. Lots of local merchants show up to sell everything from locally grown veggies, fruit, home made breads, jams, honey etc. etc., as well as things such as ceramics, pottery and arts. We bought some organic fruits, veggies and meat as we stayed in a self contained cabin for the last two nights and had access to a kitchen.

View from our bed in our cabin- with a horse right outside

So after two nights in Nelson itself, we drove around in the countryside about 20km along the coast which is where we found this awesome place that rented out cabins. It was located on a hill overlooking mountains and the local fruit growing valley and there were horses, sheep and chickens right outside our cabin. We even saw some New Zealand kiwi fruits! It was nice to be able to cook our own food especially since we had picked up such goodies from the farmers market.

Kiwi trees!

New Zealand kiwi fruits

We also took a look at Rabbit Island which is an island located just off the coast and a popular recreational destination which a beautiful beach a lots of opportunities for picnics and just hanging out. We strolled down the beach and collected some beautiful shells that were washed up on shore. Not a rabbit in sight though!

Victoria on the beach of Rabbit Island

Rabbit Island

The Abel Tasman National Park is just north of the Nelson region and we had first planned on doing a boat tour along the coast. Unfortunately the rain was pouring the day we wanted to go so we decided to just drive through it on the outskirts.

Abel Tasman National Park

Abel Tasman National PArk

Abel Tasman National Park

After four days, we decided to head off and drove down the West coast to Greymouth where we only stayed one night. On the way we made short stops to look at some 'wildlife' such as cows, sheep, goats and chickens! (ok, not so much 'wild' life, but very entertaining. Robert decided to feed the chickens with pretzels which they loved!).

Belted Galloway cow

Robert is feeding the chickens pretzels.....

Easter chickens....

We drove through Franz Josef and took a look at the big Franz Josef glacier which very much reminded us about the glaciers in Canada. So much for Global warming, Franz Josef is actually advancing! Then we continued on south to Fox Glacier where we stayed the night. It was rainy and damp but very beautiful. As we are now approaching areas where the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed, it is easy to recognize the landscape.

Waterfalls

Franz Josef Glacier

Once we reached Queenstown, we decided to stay a couple of nights since driving can be quite tiring (which is why Victoria has a short nap on every journey). The roads in New Zealand are at times VERY windy so an observation is to not recommend a longer road trip for anybody who has any tendency to get car sick....

Queenstown is a small town where the number of tourists outnumbers the local residents. As the town is catering to the tourists, there are plenty of good shopping and eating options and we a really nice dinner in a French (!) resturant. It has a bit of 'Whistler' feel to it with lots of activities such as skiing, paragliding, bungee jumping, whitewater rafting and anything else that the adrenaline seeking person could ever wish for. Robert was contemplating a bungee jump but after seeing the prices decided against it. Victoria found a swimming pool which to her seemed to be a much more relaxed and inexpensive option to get those endorphines going...

We are off south today but as this is being written we haven't decided exactly where to go. As usual, that decision will be made once we hit the road and perhaps not until we reach an intersection which will force us to turn left or right!

Kiwi goat

Not sure who is more afraid of who....the goat or Victoria....

Victoria feeding the goat.