Hello everyone, or as they say here in New Zealand; kia ora! Nice that you are reading the new update again, this time from New Zealand. I was told that if you dig a hole in the Netherlands, you will end up in New Zealand. I tried to verify it, but unfortunately didn’t get that far with my shovel on the beach. But I am now officially the furthest away from the Netherlands. So, if you don’t really like me that much, it doesn’t get any better than this! 😉
We have been there for a little over a month now and have experienced enough to write a nice story about!
We flew from Brisbane to Auckland on December 2 and started our journey there. Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand and is located on the North Island. New Zealand consists of 2 islands, the North Island and the South Island. We slept there in a hostel with a beautiful view of the Skytower, which turns all kinds of colors at night. We decided to do a free walking tour to get to know the city better through the eyes of a local. This was a lot of fun to do because we got information about everything that we would otherwise not have known about. We also received the necessary recommendations for restaurants and we also made good use of them later. We noticed in our first days that the weather was a bit colder than we were used to from Queensland (Australia). That is quite logical because New Zealand is a lot further south, and therefore further from the Equator, than Australia. The advantage of this is that we have much longer days here, comparable to the summers in the Netherlands. And I really like that. It’s been a while since I experienced those long days and that reminds me of nice memories from home. 😊
We came to New Zealand well prepared because we had already purchased a campervan. However, this was in Wellington, which is the capital and located at the extreme southern point of the North Island. So, we flew to Wellington and picked up our new campervan, now the trip could really begin! It’s quite bizarre, by the way; since we were only going to New Zealand for 2 months, we had calculated how much money it would cost to rent a camper. However, it costs more money to rent a camper for 2 months than to buy a camper and not sell it. So, think about what the difference is if you sell the camper and get money in return. Could be a good tip for those who also want to make such a trip.
Anyway, with campervan and all, we decided to take the ferry to the South Island because Samantha really wanted to see the Lupin flowers. As you can see in the photos, these are very beautiful colored flowers that only bloom around November/December and can be admired in various places in the South Island. The ferry journey itself was breathtakingly beautiful, and that would actually apply to the rest of the South Island. Writing about it doesn’t do it justice, and the photos are never as beautiful as when you are there yourself. But I can say that the South Island of New Zealand is the most beautiful place I have ever been. It is so rich in beautiful nature. And we were also very lucky with the weather, because the weather can also be bad here. In fact, we had almost no days of rain and the sun shone most of the time. We also went to the place where the Windows 10 background photos were taken. There is one in a cave and the other with someone running on the beach. We didn’t have the photos on our phone (and there was no internet connection), so we tried to recreate them based on our memory. You can judge for yourself how we did. 😊
We are very active here and therefore hike regularly. For example, we did a hike in the Abel Tasman National Park. That was fun, we hiked along the coast for about 6 hours to a beautiful beach and to a waterfall where we swam. And we had a water taxi that took us back to the starting point. We also did a hike to a viewpoint of the Franz Josef Glacier. You used to be able to hike to the glacier itself, but because several people have died, this is now prohibited. The only way to get to the glacier itself is by helicopter. That viewpoint was also very beautiful and you can see how diverse nature is here. One moment you are in a kind of rainforest next to the beach and if you drive further you are near a glacier. By the way, I made a few videos of these hikes and posted them on YouTube, initially just for family, but hey, you’re kind of family too, aren’t you? So, if you would like to see more moving images, you can click here or search on my YouTube account jarivaningen2180. There are more videos coming but I’ve been a bit lazy lately so I still need to finish them.
In addition to these hikes, the South Island also has a few beautiful towns. Queenstown and Wanaka were two very beautiful places. Both located on a lake and surrounded by beautiful mountainous nature. For me it is somewhat comparable to some places in Switzerland, only slightly more beautiful. Just to indicate how hippie we live at the moment, besides the fact that we live in a camper of course. This camper does not have a shower and there are not many gyms with showers on the South Island. There are occasionally other facilities to pay for a shower, but I must admit that a few times I jumped into a lake instead of taking a shower.
I think everyone knows the Northern Lights, those beautiful green lights that you can see in the northernmost points of Norway, for example. Here in New Zealand they have the Southern Lights, and we managed to capture them on camera. Not green, but purple and a unique phenomenon to see. That could also be added to the long list of beautiful nature here.
We then did a boat tour through Milford Sound, which was also breathtakingly beautiful. And then we drove to the east of the island via the southern coast. We saw sea lions and penguins there! We even saw the rarest penguin, the yellow-eyed penguin. It is nesting season and the penguins return around sunset from a full day of catching fish to feed their little ones. They store the fish in their stomach and then cough them out to feed their baby. Of course, it is a protected animal so we had to sit somewhere at a distance and be lucky that they came, so we saw them! Afterwards we also saw another penguin (the blue penguin) that we were allowed to get closer to. Yet another animal crossed off the checklist.
Then we went to the two most famous lakes, Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo. If you Google the south island of New Zealand, there is a good chance that you will see photos of these lakes. We had a beautiful camping spot at Lake Pukaki with a view of Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. We also did several hikes at these lakes. Then it was Christmas time and we decided to celebrate in Christchurch, quite an appropriate place to celebrate Christmas, we thought 😉. We met up with some other travelers and celebrated Christmas Eve at our campsite with delicious food and had a picnic on the beach before Christmas. Still a different Christmas than in the dark and in the rain. It was nice to meet up with other travelers and celebrate the time together.
The trip on the South Island was over and we took the boat back to the North Island. We celebrated New Year’s Eve in Wellington, I think we’re the first in the world where 2024 started, so that’s nice too. We went out for a nice dinner and then to a sky bar where there was music and also a good place for the fireworks. We met 4 guys from New Zealand there and actually spent the entire evening with them, which was a lot of fun. It can sometimes be difficult to get to know people as a couple and when you travel in a camper, but here it’s actually more than fine 😊.
That’s it for now. We still have about 4 weeks in New Zealand to explore the North Island and then we continue. I will tell you where next time, but for now: lots of love and see you next time 😊