Pidrik´s Reise durch Mittelerde

Hey there!

Well, we´ve been on travels for 3 weeks now and have seen heaps of wonderful places meanwhile. As you guys have recognised, this episode´s gonna be in english again. Last time I told you about our weeding job that was pretty over, saturday March 7th we started our journey through the South Island. We went straight down the Eastcoast and passed Timaru and Oumaru, two nice little towns, Oumaru has a magnificient wildlife as there are heaps of penguins and albatrosses and stuff. We also saw the so called Moeraki Boulders, big stones, completely round like balls, sitting on the beach. Unique! Then we drove to Dunedin, which means Glasgow of the South or something. We really liked the city (120.000 inhabitants is quite a lot for NZ relations though :P), we stayed a few days and I explored the hole city barefoot. Actually I´m kinda turning into a Kiwi here, strange pronounciation and walking barefoot all the time :D. Anyway, we visited the Cadbury Choclate Factory there. It´s the only one in the world we were told that still allows a view on the actual production. Intersting and foremost: tasty. They even have a choclate-fall (a waterfall with choclate instead of water oO). Wow! Over the Otage Penninsula we made our way further south. One night we stayed at a campground in Purakaunni Bay, which was so amazing talking about landscapes. Mountains, forest, cliffs and camping with the wonderful beach right in front of our car. That was a really good debut to see, how awesome the south is. Of course, this stuff is hard to describe in a blog, but maybe the pictures that have been uploaded by Pia gonna give you kind of an impression how it looks like here. And this bay is not really special, the south and the west are really wonderful, even better than all the amazing stuff we´ve seen so far. I met an Indian and a British guy there, and we tried to make a campfire, but be failed though. Too much rain down there, to much wet wood. But it was funny nontheless. However, we went on to explore the Southland. First was an area called The Catlins, a lot of rainforest and waterfalls and the Cathedral Cove, a giant cove, high as a cathedral and only accessible at low tide. Every day we did new walks and hikes there, a beautiful place to do stuff like that. At Curio Bay (which is outstanding beautiful as well, I know I say that way too often :D) we saw a petrified forest and a yellow eyed penguin, the rarest penguin species in the world, and hector dolphins, the smallest dolphin species in the world. We also visited the Slope Point which is the most southern point of NZ. We spent on afternoon in Invercargill which seems like a really nice city to me and went on to Te Anau, the gate to Milford Sound. Milford is also called The 8th Wonder of the World, and everywhere you step, people reommend that you should visit this place. It is a giant fjordland, rugged and wild. A 125 km track of mountains, rainforest, coasts. We spent 5 days there to do lots of walks to explore this area. Where the first two days were still pretty cloudy (we were acutally IN the clouds all the time), the last 3 days the weather was perfect. One of these good days we hiked up a mountain path to a former glacier lake, and I even took a short swim (very short). But at night it got pretty cold, one night it even froze outside. Got pretty chilly in the car as well, folks. We also visited a place called The Chiasm, a wonderful blue lake and waterfall, former glacier as well I guess. Full of tourist (hole Milford track is full, but there and in Milford Sound which is the very end of the Milford track it was extreme), so first we thought we couldn´t really enjoy this wonderfull place. But fortuately, a girl on the carpark gave us the hint to walk apart from the formed paths. So we found a small way through the forest which lead us to a small glacier lake. Nice and warm as it was there in the sun, and completely alone (nobody at all there), we both decided to get off our cloth and jumped right into the lake. Freezing cold!!! But this stuff really wakes you up ;) :D. On the last day we drove to the very end, the Milford Sound. We did a cruise on a ship there, this shit really is awesome. Seriously guys, I really recommend when you read this blogpost and all the places I mention, you should look up some picture on the Internet. Pia didn´t upload everthing and it´s so hard to decribe why everthing looks so wonderful here. So if you´re interested, look up some stuff. After Milford we drove to Queenstown and spend some days there. Fergburger (gourmet burger place) and saturday nightlife inclusive. On day, we visited an ice bar. Everthing in there was made of ice, it was minus 8 degrees in there. We got jackets and gloves and stuff, but still it was soo cold there. But even the cocktails were served in iceblocks instead of classes. Funny experience. After we stepped out of that ice bar (4 o´clock in the afternoon), Pia already felt kind of drunk (good amount of vodka in there). So we walked through the city, Pia kept on drinking and I bought some burgers here and there. Nice days! We also watched a rugby game at a pub, but we still don´t quite understand how this exactly works. Then we went on to the Westcoast. Beautiful, beautiful places here. Biggest rainforest, highest mountains and the rough sea. I really liked it there. We visited the Fox Glacier and the Franz Josef Glacier, the world´s only glaciers that can be found next to the rainforest. Both glaciers have retreat a lot during years, we saw pictures from 5 years ago, where the glaciers have been a few hundred meters bigger than now. Global warming and things and stuff. The valley left behind by the glaciers were really nice to watch as well. Westcoast is Jade county too (NZ greenstone gem), so a heaps of small shops and crafters can be found everwhere, selling wonderful Jade jewellery. Pia bought a really nice neclace with an extraordinary shape and color in Hokitika. In general, the town of Hokitika was pretty sweet. They have the web address KoolLittleTown.co.nz, which is quite a suitable describtion I reckon. At the beach there were lots of skulpures made by locals and tourist out of dead wood lying at the beach. Awesome stuff. A yes and we visited the so called Pancakes Rocks which is a big rock formation, stacked like pancakes. Absolutely outstanding, and a mystery as geologists still can´t really explain why the rocks have this structure. I loved this place. Then we went up further north and arrived in Abel Tasman and Golden Bay, the sunniest region of NZ. Beauiful beaches everywhere and little islands lying in the Tasman Sea. Today we hired a kayak and did a great tour along the coast the hole day, best weather included.

Ok guys, I think that´s enough for now. Hopefully you could enjoy the words I wrote, although it´s really difficult for me to decribe properly how I experienced our journeys through the land.

Over Easter there´s gonna be a music festival in Golden Bay which we´ll attend, the week after that we gonna stay with a Kiwi family for one or two weeks (we give them a hand in the house and garden and get accomodation and food in return). This is called ¨woofing¨ and is pretty popular here in NZ. Further plans after that ain´t made yet ;)

Hopefully you are all doing well,

Cheers + greetz,

Hen