Helicopter near Mount Rahapehu

When we visited the three volcano's on the North Island we arrived at a ski village called Iwikau.

A helicopter was moving all kinds of construction materials from one place to another.

Active volcano on North Island

This is one of the three active volcano's on the North Island of New Zealand.

The mountain is so high that it's summit is in the clouds (clierwds).

Kiwi with Egg

Here you see a Kiwi (with egg).
The Kiwi is New Zealand's best known bird and since it is a night bird, you can only see it at night and...................it can't fly and it's sight is very bad and that's why it can't fly in the dark because otherwise it would fly into anything at once.
That's why.

On the road

When we driving around the North Island you can see these kind of mountains; all rather young volcanic mountains.

Today is 26th. November 2009.
We are not sure whether it is Wednesday or Thursday. We have no newspaper or something else to look what is the exact day today (I am writing this off line).
I know now; it is Thursday. (Dat was even schrikken).

Yesterday we were in the neighborhood of Rotorua, a well known place for:
- its Lake
- thermal baths
- scenic lookouts (you’ll find these everywhere)
- hot water springs
- steaming cliffs
- the famous “White and Pink terraces” destroyed in 1886 as consequence
of an eruption of Mount Tarawera (height nowadays 1111 meters)
- the “Buried Village” about which more later.

We camped in a place called Waitake, a camping with hot pools.
The camping was a nonety but the pools were nice (mostly 38 degrees C) and we lay in them all. No swimming, just sitting around in the nice hot water. But I wrote that already yesterday.

The “buried village” (I called it yesterday “ the hidden village by mistake”) was called “Te Wairoa” and I don’t know the reason.
In the same eruption of Mount Tarawera of 1886, this village was smothered under lava, hot ashes, rocks, etc. and some people died.
Nowadays there is a small hike through the diggings of this buried village and it looked like the Chinese gold digging village we visited a week ago on the South Island.
The difference was that lots of artifacts and utensils were grey (from being buried for a long time under ashes of the eruption) in this village and in the other village they were just rusted.
There was a waterfall too and I filmed that one.
But very interesting, of course like most of the events, functions, reserves, lookouts, parks, views here in New Zealand, and we were very, very happy that we didn’t miss this very interesting site.
The New Zealanders know exactly how to attract tourists.

Last night we camped in a place called Whangamata.
It has a beach with rather large waves and some guys were surfing and now and then they succeeded in surfing and that was nice to see.
The beach was very clean and the weather really nice, so we stayed for a few hours on this beach but we didn’t swim (much to cold).

Today we would visited one of THE tourist attractions near the city of Coromandel (well known to the New Zealanders as a historic gold town). It concerns a railway (with a very small track like the rails are only 50 cm’s apart) of not less than 3 Km’s with lots of turns, tunnels (2 but 4 of you go back the same way!! which you have to, otherwise you have to walk down the mountain), bridges, wissels (I don’t know the English name, but I know the “wisselwachter” in German which is: Reichseisenbahnknotenpunkthinundherschieber) and lots of interesting things like:
- pottery along the track (the builder of the railway has a pottery as well),
- empty bottles as walls to keep the earth from burying the track,
- all kinds of rusted iron tools along the track,
- signs with names of trees (Kauri*, Muri, etc.)
- little station buildings built by the potter himself,
- a lookout tower which is called the “Eifeltower” and here too I don’t see
the reason and it does not look like the Eifeltower at all,
- etc.

* About the Kauri I could tell you some stories but I don’t.

After this awesome view in the life of a potter we set for the camping where we are now. We are in a place called Hot Water Beach near a place called Hahei. Hahei is well known for its Cathedral Cove, which we are going to visit tomorrow.
Well, you already understood that there is hot water on the beach.
When it is low tide and you dig holes in the beach near the waterline, water of about 60 degrees C erupts and mixing it with seawater, it should be:
- nice (if not to hot or to cold)
- very healthy because the water contains all sorts of very healthy
minerals like (salt, calcium and all other sorts of very healthy minerals).

The weather is nice today although we have lots of wind (I have never visited a country with so much wind and with so much sheep).
For people who love sheep this must be really heaven, especially the South Island.

Today is Tuesday, 24th. November.
We are in Waitike.
Waitike is well known for its thermal spring, the Waitike Thermal Spring.
But…….about this hotspring later.
First , when we were on the road from where we were the day before yesterday (that was in Wanganui, a dead holiday village on a beach with black sand en nothing more on the south west coast of the North Island of New Zealand; so that you understand where we were) to Motutere on Lake Taupo, there were some things I have to mention:
- no sheep (for people who love sheep, the North Island is certainly not
heaven, compared to the South Island which is really heaven for people
who do love sheep),
- three volcanos (still working) although the last eruption was - as far as
I know - in 1995 (the names of the volcano’s: Mount Ruapehu 2797
meter high, Mount Engauruhoe 2291 meter high - both with their
summits in the cliewrds – and another one of which I can’t remember
the name but not high enough to have its summit in the cliewrds)
- an iron train bridge - The Makatote Viaduct - (a bridge over the river
Kwai look a like) which collapsed during Christmas eve in 1953 during
an earthquake leaving about 150 people dead
- Iwikau village, a ski village, without snow (it’s supposed to be spring or
almost summer over here) and I must say, without much hope for snow
the next winter because of all the snow machines we saw.
This village lies in the Tongariro National Park (the first National park
in New Zealand).
Since there is no snow, the village was dead apart from a helicopter
which was moving construction materials from one place to another.
- the Grand Chateau (something like the large hotel near Lake Louise),
- a hike to a waterfall (Tawahi falls).

After this eventful journey we arrived in Motutere, a place on lake Taupo.
The weather was fine and we sat on the lakeside in the sun, drinking, eating and reading our books (after I did my chores, waste water, tanking water, etc. and cleaning the toilet). We also had a new roll of toiletpaper.

We slept well and this morning and we set for Waitike.
During our trip today we visited the Huka Waterfalls in Taupo, the Waimangui Thermal Valley (lots of hot springs and steam and the stink of rotten eggs), the Moon Crater National Scenic, Geothermal, wildlife and heritage Park (with steam out of fissures in the ground and a mud - bubbling - crater) and lots of other things like waterfalls, scenic lookouts, historic places and Maori whatever’s.

And in the end of the day (it was 15.00 hours) we found this camping with thermal pools, springs and spa.
The water is about 38 degrees and it’s nice to lay in the sun in such a pool.
Ankie did some laundry and we cleaned the campervan.

Now it is past nine and I am going to end this story of today and yesterday.
When you read this it will be Wednesday (no internet here in Waitike but they have sheep. (For people who love sheep, etc. etc).

All is well with us.
Tomorrow we will visit Rotorua with near by “the hidden city” a New Zealand Pompei but then here in New Zealand.
And after Rotorua (we will buy groceries there, I hope) we will drive to Waihi on the east coast of the North Island.

Strand Wanganui

Ankie near a big treetrunk on the beach of Wanganui. The picture is a little dark, but that is because the sand is black.
This is a volcanic area and that's why there is black sand.

Sunday, 22nd. November 2009,
Castle Cliff Seaside Holiday Park Wanganui.
Wanganui is on the west coast of the North
Island.
It’s mostly flat country here and on the seaside
there are dunes (black sand).

This is the camping where we are now today.
As you understand we are near the seaside.
Only a two minute walk from the camping to
the sea.
The road from Wellington (as a matter of fact
it was a township near Wellington called
Lower Hutt) to Wanganui was uneventful,
although we had a piece of road of about
30 Km’s with only one lane, with lots of
hairpins and other corners. This was a tiring
piece of road……. and you never knew
whether somebody else was driving in the
opposite direction.
So I honked a lot as a sign that somebody was
coming: “us”.

We started with rain and after a while it
dried up, the sun showed now and than
(we bought groceries in a place called Levin)
and when we arrived we sat in the sun,
next to our campervan, reading our books.

We had lunch on the beach of Waitarere
(I will never remember these names because
of Alzheimer, Korsakov and the
unspeakable names of the places here).

About places with difficult names.
On the North Island is a village with a
name which has at least 100 letters or more.
I wonder whether people are able to pronounce
this name even if they live over there.
It starts like:
Taumatawhakatanghihangakoaauauotama
and so on.

This village lies near Porangahau, on the south
east coast of the northern island.
If you don’t believe it, look it up on the map.

We made a hike to the sea and on the beach
for a few hours this afternoon.
There was not much to see (besides the sea and
waves, black sand, all kinds of trunks on the
beach and not too many shells and the sky)
and almost no people on the beach.
And there are floating stones (If you don’t
believe this, ask Ankie) a sort of lime stones,
with lots of holes in them like cheese.

After we returned we drank something and
ate something like cheese and salmon on
toast and we swapped books with the camping
library.
In half an hour we’ll have dinner, Ankie will
do the dishes and we’ll read again for an hour
or so and go to bed.

Nothing much to remember but for us a good
day of our vacation.

About vacations.
Lots of motels and B & B’s have vacancies.
Must be lucky people to have their holiday
when we are here.
And then there is something else; when they
have no holiday they have a sign which says:
“no vacancy” which means they are at home.
Strange people those New Zealanders.

About cars.
On the southern island we mostly saw Toyota’s, Datsuns/Nissans and Fords. Almost no other car brands.
On the northern island you see the same but more other brands like VW, Saab and even, now and than, a Volvo.

About Supermarkets.
Most supermarkets are open on Sundays.


About sheep.
People who love sheep have to go to the
South Island of New Zealand.
As far as I can see on that island are the
most sheep.They also keep sheep on the
north island but there are much more sheep
on the South Island (as far as we can see in
two days).
For people who love sheep the South Island
must be really heaven.

So this is it for this Sunday.
I’ll try to get this on my blog tomorrow-
morning, which is then: today.

Sheep

In Wellington there are no sheep (at least we saw none).
For people who love sheep, Wellington is certainly not heaven.
Today is Sunday.
We are on our way now north on the North Island, direction Upper Hutt (I think).

Ankie doing her favorite chores

Ankie in the camper, doing her dayly favorite chores.

Wedding pictures near Te Papa, Wellington

Leaving the museum there was this couple having pictures taken in front of the museum.
This is certainly something else than seals or flowers.

Ankie by a large GREENSTONE in Te Papa

Ankie near a large piece of greenstone, the material of which the Maori made jewelry, weapens and utensils.

This picture was teken in the National Museum Te Papa in Wellington.

Wellington

On Saturday November 21st. we stayed in Wellington.
It rained almost the whole day (“We are going on a summer holiday” after Cliff Richard) and this was a good reason to visit the national museum of New Zealand, the Te Papa National Museum of New Zealand.
Ankie wanted to see this museum anyway, so we went.

The outside is OK but not as spectacular as, for instance, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (well known by some people as the Koekenhijm Mjoesieum).
I know one can differ about art. So I won’t indulge in the things lots of people call art in the Koekenhijm in Bilbao and, since we are in Wellington I’ll keep to the artifacts and art and all they show here in the Te Papa Museum.

I was a little bit skeptical about this museum and my expectations weren’t very high, I must admit (according to the museums every village and every town here boasts). But, I was really amazed about what we have seen here today.
If somebody writes (or says): “You have to go to the Te papa” than he is so right! I have seen some museums around the world and this one is in my top 5.
I have never seen a museum which is so informative about all kinds of different matters like:
- how New Zealand was created as the consequence of the coming
together of two tectonic plates accompanied with a virtual ride to a deep
sea volcano,
- the New Zealand treasure of the “Greenstone” of which the Maori made
beautiful artifacts like weapons but jewelry (lots of pendants) as well,
- the geological forces that shape New Zealand’s landscape (including a
visit to a house which shakes during an earthquake; it’s awesome),
- the amazing variety of New Zealand’s animals and plants (with
skeletons of all the animals and birds who live in and around New
Zealand and lots of dioramas about wildlife)
- lots about the Maori (how they lived, how they warred, how they
survived in the hostile environment on some coasts of New Zealand,
their houses and meeting places (nowadays we call ‘m community halls),
their ships, their tenacity in both world wars, etc.
- modern architecture with beautiful pieces of work (we have “Manhattan
on the Maas” but you should see Wellington),
- contemporary art (we even thought we saw one of Lex’s paintings but
there is apparently a painter who made “written paintings” as well),
- (They have Rembrandt’s too!!)

- a large exhibition about the Treaty between westerners and Maori to
create New Zealand as it is now (politically),
- Tapa (bark cloth), the traditional clothing of the Maori,
- lot’s of information for kids with workshops, etc etc.
- lot’s about the islands around New Zealand in the Pacific which we call
“Oceania” , the people and living over there, etc.
- an exhibition about people from all over the world who made New
Zealand their new homeland (Hungary, Scotland, Ireland, India,
Holland, China - of which we visited the remains of their
gold digging village on the South Island a week ago - and lots of other
countries),
- an exhibition about household utensils (like Boymans has too),
- an exhibition about modern silver and gold jewelry,
- an exhibition about the biggest squid ever caught in the sea with
beautiful movies about the catch, how they examined the beast, etc. etc.
- etc.etc.etc.

We were almost four hours at they museum and we didn’t have the time to see everything and all.
In short, it was worthwhile and really nice.
Now we are back at the camping.
I did my chores (clean water, getting rid of the grey and other water, etc.) and again I am hammering away.
It is still raining.

Our food.
If we don’t eat we will starve, so we buy groceries almost every day.
In larger towns, like Wellington, there are lots of supermarkets and big ones.
In smaller towns and villages sometimes there is only one shop (and this not seldom the local gas station as well).
In the big supermarkets you can get everything you want (they are bigger than Albert Heyn in Holland but about as big as the Sobey’s in Nova Scotia).
When we are in a bigger city we buy more and in ten villages we only (often) buy the things we really need.
What do we eat?
- In the morning: breakfast.
Bread with cheese and jam, honey, strawberries, cereal (Ankie), tea.
Ankie makes also coffee for “on the road”.




- Lunch around 13.oo ‘o clock.
If possible I try (we try) to find a nice place with a view (and often we
Succeed doing so).
We eat bread with cheese, some meat like salami, honey, ham, roast
Beef, salmon (tinned), tomatoes, honey.
We drink milk (usually).
- Before dinner.
We eat toast with cheese and smoked salmon and or soup.
We drink wine or some other spirit or so (whatever we have with
alcohol).
- Dinner.
Ankie always makes dinner.
Meat (Porterhouse or Sirloin steak or schnitzels – pork - or chicken but
Also salmon and, for instance tomorrow chicken liver, ha, ha, ha, ha)
and vegetables such as beans, broccoli, spinach, maize, carrots, etc. and
a salad of some kind.
And we drink a glass of wine (or two).
The day before we had a good wine called “Jacob’s Creek” from
New Zealand (Very good stuff).
For desert we often have yoghurt or fruit.
When we are driving we eat KitKat, fruit and other sweets.
In the evening we drink a glass of tea.

This is it for today.
It is still raining and we hope that the weather will be better tomorrow.
Tomorrow we will go somewhere else, but I don’t know where (Ankie will decide).

Seal in New Zealand

En om het af te leren nog een foto van de zeehond die we gisteren ontdekten aan de kust bij Foulwind Bay (of zoiets).

On the ferry from Picton to Wellington

When we arrived at the coast of the north island of New Zealand I made this picture of one of the capes near Wellington.

Flowers along the road to Picton

The road from Murchison to Picton

On our way to Picton we saw lots of beautiful orange flowers along the road.

I made a picture of those flowers.

On the left you see vinyards.

This is in the neighbourhood of the city of Blenheim and there are lots of vinyards there.

Seals on the coast of the South island.

Arrived at the North Island

Today is Friday 20th. November 2009.
We started this morning in Murchison, on the southern island.
We woke up at eight and an hour later we hit the road to Picton.
On the way to Picton nothing special happened. We crossed lots of one lane bridges (we allways seem to have to give right of way to the other side; it's the same in chosing a qeue in the supermarket, allways in the wrong lane) but, since there is not much traffic (we saw this morning even three cars and a bus in one row and this is a mircale) we could drive through almost every time we arrived at a bridge.
Those New Zealanders are not the most stupid people on earth. When you need a bridge, why build one with two lanes if one lane is enough?

The New Zealanders drink very much (I found out and I feel at home here; but alas no Ketel I)
We were on a campground and there were baskets for garbage (caarbits):
- one for rubbish (non recyclable stuff)
- one for paper
- one for plastic (bottles)
- one for carton
- one for metal (for cola tins, etc.) ....................................................
- and four for glass (beerbottles).
And the basket for carton was full of beercartons (they don't use crates for beer, only cartons).

Our trip to Picton was uneventfull and we could drive rather fast although now and than we had lots of wind.
When we arrived at Picton we bought ourselves the boatticket and one half hour later we were on the boat to Wellington.
Because there was (still) much wind we were mostly on one of the covered decks (the sundeck was to cold) and that was it.
In Wellington we had our first trafficjam (Friday evening around 18.00 hours did probably the trick) but soon enough we found a camping where I am right now, hammering away.
Ankie did some laundry and for a change (we do this every afternoon) we had:
- Port Salut (or something like that),
- blue cheese which is called: "Blue Vein" (Sharp with a bite)
- smoked (New Zealand) salmon,
everything on toast.
And this together with some drinks (of course).

So, this is it for today.
I have to correct something.
The New Zealander doesn't say "Cloudy" but (better than I wrote somewehere before) :
"Cliewdy". So you understand a little about the language here.

Greetings from Wellington and till the next time.

Beautiful views

Driving along the east coast of the souther island we saw lots of mountains.

The "Southern Alps" are beautiful.

So, this is it for today.

"Maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight,

It's a wonderfull feeling,

To see you back on my site"

(vrij naar een popnummer van 30 of 40

jaar geleden).

Weka

Since most animals in New Zealand are protected (except possums and rabbits as far as I know) you can see often signs on the side of the road to be carafull when driving.

We also saw lots of Possums, dead on the road.

The "Weka" a New Zealand wild chicken

On the west coast of the southern island you can often see the "Weka" (Most birds in New Zealand are called after the sound they make).

The Weka is a chickenlike bird which is not afraid of people at all. You can almost touch them.

Another seal at Cape Foulwind

After we filmed the first seal Ankie sat in the sun (the sun was shining later on the day) and I went to look for more seals. After some climbing on the rocky coast (I am a well known climber as most of you might know) I found another seal.

I was able to get very near this seal (about three meters distance only) and it ignored me (if I were the seal I would have done the same) and I made some ten small videos.

It is still different from the seals in Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam.

Seal at Cape Foulwind

The seal we saw at Cape Foulwind.

Cape Foulwind (maybe somebody farted?)

Ankie went looking for more gold but she couldn't find more so we both left for Cape Foulwind. First we had our lunch in a restaurant with a deck, from which we could look over the bay of Cape Foulwind. Was really nice and the chowder was very good.

After we finished lunch we hiked to the cape and, guess what, we saw a seal. So I made this little video.

Old goldmineshaft

To get the gold, the people at that time had to dig holes in the ground to reach the goldore. So they made lots of shafts in the hills around the coast. This is a picture of an old shaft; look at the rusted rails on which the trolleys, full of ore (coming out of the mine) were pushed to some sort of crushingmachine.

When they were emptied, the men had to push the empty trolley back, into the mine again (if they don't do that they run out of empty trolleys, ain't it?)

There is light on the end of the shaft, because they dug the whole mountain behind it, away.

Sorry, this is not a very exciting picture, but not all of my photos can be spectacular.

GOLD !!!!!

The whole westcoast of the southern island is well known for its goldmines. Our guide tells us that at the time they found gold in New Zealand it was one large pandimonium (the guide says that Klondike was nothing compared to what happened here on the south island around 1870).

So we vesited an ancient goldmine and guess what, Ankie found a nuggett of about EUR 500,-!

I left her there for looking for more gold and I went off to Cape Foulwind. The name has probably to do with ships that run aground on this rocky coast.

Punakaiki Pancake rocks and other rocks

Punakaiki Pancake rocks

This morning, November 19th. we left Greymouth and it rained (a little). We set for Murchison, in the middle of the southern island.

After an hour or so we reached Punakaiki, which is famous for its "pancake rocks" (see picture) and its blowholes (the guide told us).

The pancake rocks are special.

The blowholes we didn't see.

But all in all it was a nice stop apart from the drizzsle now and than.

Hokitaki

A picture of the centre of the big city of Hokitaki on the west coast of the southern island of New Zealand.

In the background you can see the "Southern Alps".

Hokitaki is famous for its New Zealand Jade.

Practically half of the shops in this town sell jade jewellery of typical New Zealand style (Maori style).

Franz Josef Glacier

The F J glacier again, but from a totally different angle and without clieds and with lots of sun and still very cold and uninviting (that's something else, don't you think?)

Franz Josef Glacier

The Franz Josef Glacier from another angle and..................look, no clouds (clieds).

Franz Josef Glacier

The Frans Josef Glacier lies moreless next to teh Fox Glacier. They are both:

- cold

- made of ice (pressed snow)

- of the same colour.

The diffrence between teh both glaciers is that the Fox glacier has lots of clouds (clieds; see the pictures) and the Franz Josef glacier has no clouds at all.

Fox Glacier

The end of the glacier (in 1750 the end of the glacier was at least a kilometer farther to the west and the glacier is still getting shorter and shorter (global warming and all).

Fox Glacier

The "mouth" of the glacier, morealess in the middle of the picture.

Lots of glaciers have a "mouth", a sort of cave at the end of the glacier.

Fox Glacier

Ankie near the Fox Glacier (It was not to cold but there was not much sun either).

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier from another point of view.

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier.

This is one of the two or three glaciers on the west coast of the southern island of New Zealand.

Rainforest

A large part of the southern and western coast of the southern island of New Zealand consists of rainforest.

Interesting are the ferns on trunks like here almost in the middle of the picture.

They are everywhere.

Something totally different from our garden in Capelle aand en IJssel.

Haast Beach.

Beautiful but cold and the water is very cold too; no warm gulfstream on the coast of New Zealand.

Now in Greymouth

Today is Wednesday (or Tuesday) the 18th. November of the year of our lord of 2009 or so. I don’t know the exact day because I don’t keep track of the days.

I’ll start with yesterday.
We were at the Fox Glacier, mid western Southern Island.
Glaciers look more or less the same.
But still they are different and, since we don’t have a glacier at home, it’s always exciting to see one and look at it.
We saw a big glacier, some 20 years ago, in northern Pakistan near the Rakaposhi mountain, even walked on that glacier and it was awesome.
We saw glaciers in north west British Columbia (the southern part of Alaska near Stewart; three or four in a row) and we saw glaciers in the Rockies, like Edith Clavell (she was a sort of Canadian Florence Nightingale, shot by the Germans during the first world war somewhere in Flanders) and, well, this was beautiful again.

Today we were at Franz Josef (as I thought yesterday the late Emperor Franz Jozef of Austria), a little town called after the glacier next to this town.
Today the weather was fantastic. No clouds (they say here “clieds” or something like that – the New Zealanders speak a language which I only
can follow with difficulty I must admit, although I think I speak or at least understand English rather well ) and we had consequently lots of sun.

The glacier (Franz Josef) looked very good (as good as a glacier can look) and we had fun seeing the sites.

After visiting this glacier we went north to Hokitika where we lunched somewhere on the coast (with a sea view).
Those names here in New Zealand; they are so different that I can’t remember most of them (Korsakov plays a role maybe too).

We visited the gold town Ross and we saw real gold nuggets.
That’s something totally different from Chicken Nuggets and the latter taste much better.
In Ross they are still digging for gold nowadays.
After Ross we arrived in the city of Greymouth (on the mouth of the river Grey). The camping is OK and we will stay here for the night.
Tomorrow we will head north.


This evening/night we had dinner together with a Belgian couple whom we met already 4 or 5 times during our trip trough the southern part of New Zealand. Almost every 2nd day we meet them at some camping and it is nice to have conversations about:
- the federalization of Belgium
- “De Syphon” in Damme
- the weather in New Zealand
- Buys Ballot’s law (the wind should come from the east but comes from
the west)
- beer
- world politics (Bush and Obama)
- our kids and grandchildren
- food
- etc.

Driving around here in New Zealand means seeing lots and lots of sheep.
For people who love sheep, this must really be heaven (I am sure).

Greetings from Greymouth (New Zealand).
And till the next time.

Haast Beach

Ankie near driftwood (very large tree trunk) on Haast Beach.

We were the only ones on this beach at the time.

From Manapouri to Haast and to Franz Jozef

Today is Tuesday.
I found an internet-cafe on the camping where we are staying right now.
It's difficult because:
- there is almost no space (everybody wants to do something on the internet it seems)
- there is no Wifi (so NO pictures today, alas)

The day before yesterday we were at Wanaka. At the lake.
Beautiful camping with a nice vista on the mountains we were going to.
The waether was still cold and very windy so there was not much to do than....take a hike, which we did.
Just next to our camping was avineyard and we went there.
They apperantly grow lots of diffrent wines like:
- caberne sauvignon,
- pinot noir,
- riesling ,
- gewurztraminer,
- and others.

We walked between the wines to the lake.
We saw some rabbits and the lake of course.

The next day, yesterday, we went to Haast (Haast beach).
We had a nice camping (with lots of fishermen having a party) and we took a walk on the beach.
It was still very windy but we had some sun and the walk was nice.
Didn't see any penguins or seals or something like that.
Made some beautiful pictures (we hope) but you'll have to wait till the next time or the time there-after.
Just when we came back to our van it started to rain again, so we kept ourselves dry.

Today, Tuesday, we drove form Haast to Fox-glacier. It was a "long and winding road" ** again but the views were nice.
** See/listen to : " The long and winding road" of the Beatles
Somewhere we made a stop and wanted to look at seals again but when we came to the place where they should be we were fucked (sorry) again (it appeared to take a walk of at least 3.5 hours over a pebbly beach) and we thought that was a little to much, considering that it was already later in the afternoon.
We walked however on this beach for a little and set for Fox Glacier after that.
Fox Glacier is one of the biggest glaciers on the west coast of South Island.
We drove to the car-park and walked, as far as we could, to the "mouth" of the glacier.
As you may know, lots of glaciers have a sort of cave at the end of the glacier.
We saw that for instance in Canada (Edith Clavell).
All in all it was a very nice hike and the vistas were awesome.
We had to cross some little streams (jumping from stone to stone) and I made pictures of Ankie, but she didn't fall in the water.
When we arrived back by our campervan it started raining again so we kept dry feet this time as well.

We are now in Franz Jozef (I still have to find out where the name comes from; probably an Austrian Prince who visited the glacier some 100 years ago or some other guy with the name).
Franz Jozef is only 25 Km's from Fox Glacier.
Tomorrow morning we will visit this Glacier (Franz Jozef) as well and we'll see what happens:
- will Ankie stay dry?
- will the weather be nice?
- will there be lots of tourists like Japanese (Japanese women who stick up their umbrellas when
the sun shines so they don't get coloured; I told one of them that it wasn't raining at the time
and she was looking at me with very big eyes) who walk right before you when you are taking
a picture?
- will there be sheep around as practicly allways (In New Zealand there are some 4.5/5 million
sheep; for people who love sheep, this must be heaven, really!!)?
- do we have to pay or not?

I gat a pain in my neck because the PC stands much higher than my little chair I sit on, so I am
ending this part of my blog soon.

Everything is OK out here.
We are both very much alive and enjoy our holiday to the max.

Tomorrow we are heading for Hokipika and Greymouth.
I wonder what we will see tomorrow but I'm sure there will be lots and lots of sheep around (and cows for that matter).
For people who like cows, New Zealand is heaven too (lots of cows around).

Till the next time.

Complaint

This picture was made by Ankie.

What will happen if the sea runs dry to the left side of the picture? What will become of sealife? Where are we going to swim in summer? Where are we going to put the sailingboat which Manu is going to buy for me? How powerfull the ships engines must be to sail from left to right?

All serious questions to be answered soon and if not...........?

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the 15th. November, we will drive from Manapouri to Queenstown and, depending on weather and the road (wet or dry), we will end up in Wanaka.
Wanaka is famous because of:
- lake Wanaka
- the river Clutha (which runs into Lake Wanaka),
- all sorts of outdoor recreation like hiking, mounteneering, fishing, paragliding, bungyjumping,
rafting, jetboating, etc. (all in summer),
- Mount Aspiring National Park,
- wintersports in the winter,
- sheep,
If you love sheep, Wanaka must be heaven on earth.
- retirees (the climate is apperently nice).

We'll find out tomorrow and I will inform you all in due course.

See you later.

Seals on the rocks

Another picture of seals near the sea on the Doubtful Sound. Luckily there was a spell of better weather so the picture is OK.

We are now back at our campground (it's late) and I going to stop for today.

It was a nice day of our vacation and although we had lots of rain (Ankie even got very wet on the boat, when she was up deck, when the boat was going through a big wave) I can advise everybody to visit this part of New Zealand, but you have to love rain and sandflies.

For people who love sandflies this is really heaven.

seals

When we reached the sea we saw seals on the rocks.
This made our (wet) day a little.
Seals like water so they don't mind whether it rains or not.

Waterfalls at the Doubtful Sound

We sailed south to the sea and during "This voyage" we saw many waterfalls, little ones and big ones and all full of water.

Doubtful Sound seen from Milford Pass

To get to Doubtful Sound you have to get of the boat near the Powerstation (They say here "Pewrstaitiun") which we visited for half an hour.

We went down in the ground for 200 meters and saw the big powerturbines. It seems to be New Zealands biggest Public undertaling ever (something like the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas).

After this exciting event we drove over the to the Milford Pass by bus to the end (our start) of the Doubtful Sound and because it was raining like there is no tomorrow (Fokking niet normaal meer) we saw a lot of grey water, rain, grey mountains, grey rocks, grey waves (lots and lots of wind; almost storm) and lots of other grey things.

Lake Manapouri II

Ankie with anti-sandfly cap (present from Kooi and Kim and Jan and Mia). We had to use this gear because there are lots of sandflies (especially when there is little wind and when it is humid).

We had some sandflies in the camper, but they lived only a few minutes (I killed them without regret, ha, ha).

During the trip we used "Deet" and it helped and
we were not bitten (till now).
The flies don't like rain and wind and since we have lots of both life is tolerable over here today.

Lake Manapouri

We are camping at Lake Manapouri, in Southland, New Zealand.

Today, 14th. November, we were to go to the Doubtful Sound, an inlet from the south of Southland which goes op to the north for kilometers and kilometers.

First we had to cross Manapouri Lake (deepest spot is 444 meters) to the Powerstation (Manapouri Hydro Power Station).

Before we left the weather was moreless OK (no rain) but as soon as we took off it started to rain and it rained till we came back (that is now).

Our camping in Marapouri (Fiordland NZ)

As I wrote somewhere before, we are today (13th. November) in Marapouri, near Te Anau.
These places are well known because they're near the Milford Sound and Doubtfull Sound, two large inlets from the arctic sea.
Every tourist visits these inlets (or at least one of them) because they are very beautiful.
The area is called Fiordland, because it looks like the Fjords in Norway.
You can go only by boat or plane and we are going to go by boat tomorrow, from a place called Pearl Harbour??
We hope the weather will be OK because it rains here more than 220 days a year. Today the weather was fine (we even had sun the whole afternoon) so, with a little luck, we have good weather tomorrow too.

We are on a small camping near Marapouri with lakeview and we were fucked again because the lake is very near but.......no view. For the rest the camping is nice and it has all the utillities we need.

In New Zealand they have other swans than we have in Holland.

Here they are black and they have a bright red beak.

Two seals near Nugget Bay.

This is a video of our second penguin on Oamaru beach. The video is somewhat dark but it was made in the evening just before sunset.

This is the last picture of the coast of the most southern part of New Zealand.

It 's calles Cozy Nook. It is something totally different.

In the honour of Carel we have chickenlegs today, french fries (we ate them earlier this afternoon), white wine (Riverstone Riesling from Auckland for the wijnkenners) and green salad.

On our way from Slope Point to Manapouri (where we are tonight - Friday 13th-) we saw a sign "Monkey Island".

As you can see this is certainly worthwhile visiting this island.

We didn't see any monkeys though.

I wrote yesterday or the day before that here in New Zealand you can see all sorts of cows we used to have in Holland too.

Here you see some scottish highlanders. Look at the huge horns the cow in the back has.

Ankie by the lighthouse in Nugget Bay.

A little video I made from the avalanche we saw when we climbed Mount Cook. If you look carefully, you can see the snowclouds in the middle/top. It's not spectacular but who cares.

Today is Thursday 12th. November 2009.
We drove from Portobello (Otago Peninsula)
to the most southern point of the south Island
of New Zealand.
It’s called Slope Point.

The weather is not to good (rain now and
than) and it is cold. According to the
weather report on the radio it would rain and
it did and the temperature would be like 16
degrees Celsius. This last part was not right.
Although we don’t have a thermometer it is
Probably something like 10 degrees and the
fierce wind (from the Arctic) makes it a lot
colder.
But since we have a holiday and a heater in
the van we shouldn’t complain.
Lots of people wear ski-jacks, woolen caps,
etc. like it is winter (and it seems like that).
We only brought summer-clothes.

During our trip today we stopped at a place,
called Nugget Point near a village called
Kaimataitai.
At Nugget Point there is a lighthouse.
We took a hike to the lighthouse and on the
rocks, below the lighthouse we saw (and
photographed) some seals or sea-lions.
From the top of the cliff to the sea is more
than hundred meters or even more, but still
it was nice to see.
Big waves on the rocks make always nice
views.

So that I don’t forget I have to tell you that we
saw yesterday a Maori woman in the Albatros
Observation Centre, with facial tattoos.
It just looked like she was wearing a beard.

On our way we visited the New Zealand Niagara
Falls. The falls were only very, very small.
Here in New Zealand they do everywhere
everything to attract tourists.

All villages have a museum, old buildings
(even older than 1900) and everything is advertised
on colourfull signs. You can’t miss them.
Today we saw again thousands and thousands
of sheep (for people who love sheep, it must be
heaven overhere).
They have lots of cows here too (Blaarkoppen
and Lakenvelders); I don’t know the English
names. These cows we used to have in
Holland too (50 years ago or so) before the
nowadays cows who just give milk and that’s it.
For people who love cows (and especially older
races or versions or whatever) it must be heaven
too.

We are camping now at Slope Point, a few miles
from the ocean.
It is a campground (farm-camping) for some tents
(no tents today because it is to cold) and two
campers.
We are the only people camping here tonight.

Buys Ballot’s law doesn’t seem to apply here,
because there are (the last so many days) only
westerly winds and I thought that in the southern
hemisphere the winds come from the east??
The trees think so too, because they all have
grown with their branches and treetops to the
east.

We enjoy our trip here very much because every
time the landscape differs from meadows to
rainforests and from flat country to high, snow-
topped mountains.
The coast does resemble Scotland and Nova
Scotia very much and is, for that, beautiful and
sometimes even awesome.

This is it for today.
Hope to “post” this tomorrow.

Aheap of (three) sealions.

You can see other lions lying on the beach, somewhat further away.

There was an icecold, fierce wind blowing from the sea (sometimes so hard we couldn't look at the beach) and we both had sand in our hair, clothes, shoes and other places (for instance later also in bed).

The water was almost freezing cold.

Another big sealion

Here two pictures of one and the same sealion. I was only a few meters away. Imagine!!

This is the first sealion we saw on the beach.

Sometime later it appeared to be two sealions, one big one and a small one.

We were very excited to see thes animals, not even knowing that around both corners (left and right) there were more and bigger lions to see.

Today, Tuesday, we woke up at 8 in the morning.
It was cold tonight (must have been around zero
or so) and there were a few tents on the camping,so they must have been cold in the night.
At 9 we drove to the big town of Twizel, well
known in Twizel itself and surroundings.

In Twizel we bought groceries and after this main
event we set for Oumarua, a town on the seaside.
Here we will see (we hope) penguins.
And………………..yes, we saw two penguins.
We visited a special place on the beach where
Penguins come from the sea, where they were
fishing, for their partners who stay on the beach
to hatch or to look after little penguins or
whatever.
Lots of people were looking from a special
shed (they paid $ 20,- for a busride to the beach
and back and we just drove down there) at the
beach where one penguin was standing, looking
at the sea.
He (or she) stood there almost for one and a half
hour and almost didn’t move.
Because no other penguin showed itself all the
people left again and Ankie and I waited a little
longer and “YES” there came another penguin
out of the sea and I have the beast on video.
Of course this is very spectacular.

This morning we set for Dunedin (a sort of copy
of Edinburg) also on the east coast of New Zealand,
Southern Island.
We found ourselves a nice campingplace on the
Otago peninsula, in a very little village, called
Portobello.
We àrrived early (we were the first today) and
after doing the administration we went to a
beach, called Sandfly beach.
We should see there:
- Sealions (Pakaka in Maori)
- Penguins.


As I wrote there was a strong wind (I think at
least 9 or 10 beaufort) because you could lean into
the wind and the sand bit in our eyes.

We started on the high cliffs and walked down to
the beach via a “long and winding road”, through
the sanddunes beneath the cliffs.
We were halfway and we thought to see a sealion
on the beach and soon it turned out there were at
least 15 big sealions (and a small dead one too) on
the beach, sleeping.
You could walk up to them, as close as a few
meters.
It was amazing to be so near to these big animals
who didn’t give a shit about us, being close by.
We photographed them all.
They just lay around on the beach and although
now and than one looked at us, they didn’t pay us
any further attention, flipped a little with their
flippers and went on sleeping.

The way back, up the cliffs was tiresome.
And……….…we didn’t see any penguins today.
Maybe tomorrow, who knows.
All the villages and towns have their own penguins
and we’ll be able to see some more, I think in the
coming days.

We also went to an albatross observation centre.
Prince Charles of England was there before us, in
2005. Maybe he chased the birds away.
It was cold outside, because of the strong cold
wind, so we decided to drink something and looked,
in vain, for an albatross (a bird with a wingspan of
3,5 or 4 meters when mature) from the observatory.
Probably the birds were doing something else than
having us have a look at them.
After this event we went home.

No pictures today (no wifi although we paid for it).
Shit happens.
Till the next time.