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.