We are undoubtedly in the middle of the Eifel

On 10.03 I got to know the airport in Wellington when I picked up Hannah there. Considering that Wellington is the capital, it is pretty small and the parking lot is bigger than the actual building. You enter and are already at the baggage carousel ... there doesn't seem to be much more at first glance. And it is expensive too! I paid $2 for the 15 minutes. But I already knew the prices in Wellington.

The „Hannelore & Lisbeth“ duo was complete again with Hannah and we stayed in Wellington for three days. As soon as Hannah arrived, the rain disappeared and we had a very nice and warm day in Wellington City.

We visited Te Papa again (now I have also noticed that Lake Taupo is an active volcano that shows regular activity, and the lake is the volcanic crater - good thing we took a boat ride on it!) and finally looked for and found the Cable Car after a long time. We thought it would be more obvious, but it is quite hidden. The ride was pretty fast (5 minutes) and nothing special, but still cool and the view from above is pretty awesome. Especially with the great weather we had!

There is also a museum about the Cable Car ride, which was small but pretty cool. This one is over 100 years old and you can sit in it, etc. There were costumes at another Cable Car to take a photo that matches the time period, but we didn't do that.

In addition, there was a huge park that you could walk through and an observatory with a pretty cool sundial. You should stand with your back to the sun and put your arms over your head - you were the sun pointer and it actually worked!

On the way back, we had lunch at 'München', which is a Bavarian restaurant. The menu is more or less in German, the waitresses wear lederhosen or dirndl, and the food is really tasty! Our waiter then forgot our drinks, and we got them for free as an apology. The pretzels with butter and obatzda were really good!

On Tuesday, 13.03, the alarm clock went off at six in the morning and after a lot of traffic and still half asleep, we turned our back on the North Island. With the Interislander we crossed the sea to the South Island for 4 hours. But the ship was quite comfortable and I was just glad it wasn't a repeat of Taupo. You could already see the big difference between the South and North Island from the sea - the South Island is basically all mountains. When we got off the ferry and drove towards Blenheim, we also thought that we had landed in the Eifel.

We heard from many backpackers that the South Island is supposed to be more beautiful than the North Island, and I couldn't quite understand that. But when I landed in Auckland, I wondered if the whole of New Zealand looks like that and why I spent three days on the plane. So the South Island gets another chance.

But Blenheim was nothing. If you don't want to do a wine tour, there is nothing to do in Blenheim, and it looks more like a village than a city. Since it was still early, we decided to drive to Nelson. A friend of Hannah's currently lives there and recommended it to us. Nelson was definitely nicer than Blenheim (and the parking meters give you the first hour for free) but also not a place where you want to stay for a week. We only spent the night there - quasi in the parking lot of the campground because everything else was full. The nice employee tried his best to accommodate us.

The next day we drove off without a plan, like we often do shopping - we get inspired along the way. We actually wanted to go to Golden Bay, but there is only one road leading there and it was completely closed. The construction workers only open it for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon ... so we spontaneously drove to Abel Tasman National Park, which is supposed to be THE national park here. We didn't see it like that - it was at least not better than others we have already seen. But we saw a lot of crabs that wanted to attack us :D

Either we are now spoiled when it comes to nature, or I am too much in 'the South Island sucks' mood - but for me, everything looked a bit like dune areas in Holland. There is a spot where there is always a 'low tide' with minimal water, beach, and mountains.

But then it was still early and since Jacky said that most of the beautiful things are below Christchurch, we drove the three hours back to Blenheim to spend the night there. From there, we will continue to Kaikoura, which is supposed to be really beautiful! Hopefully this time for real xD