From Janury 23rd until January 31st 2007, Jasmine and I were driving around the South Island of New Zealand.
For this blog entry I used some screen shots from Live Search powered by Microsft’s Virtual Earth.
From space the Island of New Zealand looks like this:
Unfortunately we arrived at 11:54PM. We went through Immigration, picked up our luggage, went through Customs, picked up our rental car and at 12:30am in the morning we were ready to go out on the town in Christchurch. Unfortunately we didn’t find anything to do. So we went back to the airport and slept in the car. Christchurch is a city of 350,000 people and was designed by Colonel Light, the same person who designed the layout of Adelaide, South Australia. Christchurch is called "The Garden City", most likely because it is very green and in some places has nice flowers as can be seen in the photo below:
For breakfast on out first day (January 24th 2007) we decided to drive 75km from Christchurch to Akaroa which is meant to be a French colony on the South Island. The way we took to get there can be seen here:
Here’s some photo’s of Akaroa. Unfortunately the weather was a bit cold and wet.
We then drove back to Christchurch and checked into our hotel, where we slept for 2 hours as we didn’t sleep too well the night before. We walked around, spent the night in Christchurch, went to McDonalds for breakfast where while looking out the window we saw an "Emo" jump onto the back of a moving bus. I guess he was bored.
On the 25th January 2007, we drove 220km from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo:
Lake Tekapo is a lake that is filled from melting glaciers, and has a lovely blue colour as can be seen in the photos below:
It was a lovely day, very relaxing.
New Zealand is full of sheep. Here’s some near Lake Tekapo that look like Merinos:
The weather was interesting. The direct sunlight is very hot and very bright, but when it goes behind a cloud it gets very cold. In summer the days are very long, the sun comes up around 6:30am and stays in the sky until around 10pm.
The next day (26th January 2007) we drove from Lake Tekapo to Mt Cook, and then we drove 450km to Dunedin.
Along the way we visited a Salmon farm, and fed the fish:
The man there caught one of the salmon for us, and cut it up so that we could eat it. Being so fresh it was very nice.
Of course you have to like eating raw fish, which I do, and so does Jasmine.
I took some scenic photos on the way to Mt Cook. The South Island is full of beautiful scenery.
Here is Mt Cook:
Here’s the mountain next to it:
In Dunedin we visited a Penguin reserve:
The next day (27th January 2007) in Dunedin we went to Baldwin Street, "World’s Steepest Street":
It’s a hard run to the top:
From Dunedin we drove 400km along bending roads to get to Milford Sound:
Some interesting scenery along the way:
The road to Milford sound has a single lane tunnel cut through the rock:
While we were waiting there for the light to turn green (note the red light), some green parrots started chewing at the car, I tried to poke them away with my camera tripod but they wouldn’t leave the car alone. Eventunally I got them to get off the car by throwing some chips on the ground. I guess they are used to tourists feeding them, and hence have become a pest:
In Milford Sound we went on a boat cruise:
Up on the top deck it was very windy:
The scenery is fantastic:
We saw some Sea Lions:
The boat cruises go into a waterfall:
From Milford Sound we drove 250km to Queenstown. It’s a bit of a round about way to get there, but that’s the way the roads go:
We got to Queenstown at night, and checked in late into out hotel room. Here’s the view from the hotel room:
Here’s the same shot in the morning (28th January 2007):
Driving into Queestown the night before there were a lot of bugs splatting on the car. Here’s what the front of the car looked like:
That day in Queenstown we caught the Gondola up to the Skyline Restaurant where we also went on the "Luge" ride:
We were going to go Jet boat riding, and maybe bungy jumping, but unfortunately a storm blew in, so the rest of our day got cancelled. That afternoon we drove 90km to Wanaka.
The next day (29th January 2007) in Wanaka we went Jet boating with "Clutha River Jet" which was awesome. Out there is where the boat goes:
It was a bit wet, and the rain was hitting us hard in the face, but it was really good fun.
Afterwards we went to a little puzzle town for amusement:
From Wanaka we drove 200km to Franz Joseph:
In Franz Jospeh we stayed in a Tree House hotel room:
On 30th January 2007, in Franz Joseph we went for a walk on a Glacier:
From Franz Joseph we drove 100km to Hokitika where we stayed overnight at the Beachfront Hotel:
From Hokitika on 31st January 2007 we drove 200km to Christchurch airport, with a slight detour to Greymouth:
Then we caught the plane back home to Adelaide, South Australia.
