The South Island

Hello friends, here we are again. Due to our new motto, drive, eat, sleep...repeat, we were unfortunately unable to maintain our blog... But now, on the penultimate day of our stay in New Zealand, the time has finally come!

After the turbulent night in Wellington, we crossed over to the South Island by ferry. The journey itself was a highlight! It started in fog and rain, but after about an hour, the clouds cleared and the sun shone from the sky. The sea was brilliantly blue and the deep bays of the Marlborough Sounds welcomed us in all their splendor. Upon arriving in Picton, we immediately saw that the earthquake had wreaked havoc here and the storm had left its mark. The roads had cracks, we saw numerous landslides and uprooted trees. Our first stop was a beautiful campsite in a bay by the sea. Due to the ongoing tsunami threat, we were instructed to camp on the slope. The house and reception building of the ranger were heavily damaged and looked quite devastated. The poor man still seemed quite confused when we arrived.

So we drove to the designated spot and... got stuck in the mud. We couldn't move forward or backward. Fortunately, four very helpful New Zealand retirees jumped in and together we pushed the cart out of the mess. The same game repeated 10 minutes later with a French couple...

The next day, we continued through the Marlborough Sound and enjoyed this beautiful landscape. We turned into the French Pass, a approximately 100-kilometer gravel road that leads to a dead end. We had fantastic views of the sea, gentle hills, and steep cliffs.

We spent the night directly by the sea in a stunningly beautiful bay. After a hearty breakfast, we continued towards Nelson.

In Nelson, we prepared for the Abel Tasman Greatwalk. We reserved two nights at the campsites and the water taxi that would take us back. We bought food for three days and a gas cooker. And then we set off, our first multi-day hike with about 12 kg on our backs.

The track follows the coast of the Abel Tasman National Park. We walked along the beach, tackled steep ascents to wooded hills, and descended again. We passed incredibly beautiful bays, impressive waterfalls, and fairy-tale forests. We crossed suspension bridges through deep gorges, walked for kilometers at low tide, knee-deep, barefoot through the mudflats. The hike was stunningly beautiful and incredibly challenging. Our calculated food was a bit scarce, especially Nina often reached her limits.

We were rewarded on the first evening with a beautiful small campsite directly in a bay and on the second evening with a spot on the beach. We fell asleep at nine o'clock and were able to enjoy the sunrise at six in the morning. Simply indescribable!

As exemplary sports-motivated hikers, we walked four daily stages in three days and still arrived a bit early at the beach where the water taxi was supposed to pick us up. When we arrived at the beach, a water taxi was just leaving, but fortunately, it turned around when it saw us and picked us up, as two planned passengers were not there yet. Our luck!

Because what happened next was simply sensational! After a short ride, about a hundred dolphins appeared just a few meters away from the speedboat. They swam happily alongside us, frolicked with their children in the water, and jumped meters high through the waves caused by our boat. We were speechless and moved. We were allowed to watch the spectacle for minutes and even Dennis wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye.

Now the journey continued south. Since the weather on the west coast was predicted to be bad, we decided to deviate from our planned route. We went over the first of three possible passes that connect the east and west coasts. The Lewis Pass! We drove through breathtaking high valleys with gigantic waterfalls. In the evening, we had a very secluded campsite with a view of the mountains. Dennis finally got to fulfill his boyhood dream of making a campfire. Although the fire was smoking like crazy, we were visited by New Zealand's nastiest creatures. The sandfly! An inconspicuous little black fruit fly that settles unnoticed on you, cuts the skin, and feasts mercilessly. What remains is days of unbearable itching. Despite armies of combative sandflies and light drizzle, we didn't let the fun be spoiled and sat by the smoking fire until late into the night, enjoying a beer or two.

Next stop Hamner Springs, a small chic town behind the Lewis Pass, known for its hot springs spa facilities. However, we skipped the hot springs and instead climbed a mountain, enjoyed the panoramic view, and admired a waterfall. Arriving on the east coast, we spent the night in Springfield, where the only attraction is a huge donut that was set up there for the premiere of the Simpsons movie and is still a popular photo opportunity for tourists to this day.

Since it was raining again, we skipped the planned hike at Arthur's Pass and only drove over it by car to end up on the west coast again. In the tourist town of Hokitika, we had greasy fish and chips, unfortunately not a really good culinary tip from the Lonely Planet. At night, we admired millions of glowworms in a small forest area, competing to shine the brightest. Unfortunately, the idyll was disturbed by trigger-happy Asian hobby photographers and selfie masters who tried countless times to capture the glowworms with flash.

The next destination was the Franz Josef Glacier. Named after Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, as the first explorer of the glacier was an Austrian. The glacier's outflows reach down to 400 meters above sea level, which means that the glacier extends almost into the tropical coastal forests. On our hike through the impressive glacier valley, we could walk almost to the glacier, passing glacier lakes and through moor landscapes. The valley was dotted with impressive waterfalls shooting down from the mountains.

Passing the Fox Glacier, we continued south, crossing the third pass from west to east. The Haast Pass led past two picturesque lakes. We spontaneously decided to take a break. We spent two relaxed days at the Lake Hawea nature campsite and recovered from our drive, eat, sleep...repeat tour.

Then we continued to Queenstown. The first truly beautiful town on our journey welcomed us with a breathtaking panorama. Situated on a lake surrounded by high mountains, we climbed Ben Lomond in six hours of alpine hiking in the sunshine and enjoyed the impressive view of snow-covered mountains.

Next on our itinerary was Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park. This is one of the number one tourist hotspots. A long and impressive valley leads through mountains and forests to the fjord. We hiked a short section of the Routeburn Great Walk up a mountain through a nature reserve. Unfortunately, the view was not as impressive as expected due to the fog, but the landscape was still stunning!

The next morning, we continued towards Milford Sound. The route took us through the Homer Tunnel, which was carved into the mountain massif and is dimly lit and single-lane. After the tunnel, we drove into a wall of fog. Despite the good weather forecast, we thought we had now caught the typical Milford weather, fog, rain, and wind. But a few kilometers further, the sun rose and the sky showed itself in its most beautiful blue. Perfect! With anticipation, we boarded our tourist ship, even though it was still early in the day, there was already quite a crowd.

The 15-kilometer fjord is lined with snow-covered mountains and impressive waterfalls that are much higher than Niagara Falls and plunge loudly into the sea. Our skipper had the fun of driving right under the waterfalls, the perfect vacation photo opportunity for Asian selfie masters with a waterproof camera!

Rainbows reflected in the waterfalls and seals and sea lions basked on the rocks at the edge of the sea.

They say Milford Sound is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and at this point, we can only confirm that.

Looking for penguins... our journey took us to the southeasternmost point of the South Island and the furthest point from home. We arrived in the Catlins after hours of driving on a scenic route through mostly uninhabited areas. The Catlins is visited by only a few tourists due to its remoteness.

In the Catlins, we did a short hike to a waterfall. This one deserves special mention because although we have already seen countless impressive waterfalls, this one was the most beautiful, the most impressive, and the most peaceful of all.

In the evening, we went to Nugget Point via Kaka Point. There, a small path leads to an observation hut from where you can see penguins if you're lucky. And indeed, we were lucky and were able to observe rare yellow-eyed penguins, which exist only in New Zealand and are endangered. They returned from a day of hunting at sea to their breeding ground on land.

It was truly moving to be able to observe these rare animals in their natural habitat.

We spent the following night again at a beautiful nature campsite right by the sea. During our morning walk on the beach, we saw sea lions waddling out of the water and hiding in the meadows behind. Simply amazing!

And finally, the time had come... for weeks, Dennis has been talking non-stop about Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. After two days of driving from the remote south, we finally reached Mount Cook. In front of the mountain stretches a huge unreal turquoise lake, along which we drove until we reached the foot of the mighty and powerful Mount Cook. There, we hiked through the high-alpine Hooker Valley, passing glacier lakes and through moor landscapes. At the end of the trail, we had a beautiful view of the huge snow-covered colossus.

We spent the next two nights at the unreal turquoise lake (the color of the lake is due to the abrasion of glacier rocks, which reflects in the sun) and had a really nice campfire without smoke, sandflies, or rain.

Our last nature stop on our journey was Mount Somers, where we wanted to do another day hike to the summit. We didn't expect anything special anymore, as the mountain is hardly mentioned in the guidebooks. The summit climb unfortunately didn't happen, as it would have been a two-day tour. So we changed our plans and did a six-hour circular hike, which was challenging. We climbed up through alpine, difficult terrain, then walked on the plateau through marshy meadows and were fascinated by the endless expanse and the view of the surrounding mountains. Then we went steeply downhill through rocky canyons, past a waterfall, and steeply up narrow paths along rock walls. We hiked almost the entire day and saw only a few other hikers, so we had this incredible landscape almost to ourselves. An impressive gift with which New Zealand rewarded us once again at the end.

Now we are sitting near Christchurch at a campsite, finally writing our blog, and looking forward to our Christmas vacation with all our dear family members and friends. Before we continue with Nina's brother Thommy on the Banana Pancake Track in Southeast Asia in early January.

New Zealand summary

●Nature:

8 weeks, 6,500 kilometers on our road trip through stunning, diverse, unreal, and picturesque nature. We saw dreamy beaches, green glowing hills, millions of peacefully grazing sheep, endless expanses, picturesque lakes, snow-covered and glacier-covered mountains with a color play that is more intense than anything we have seen in our lives so far. Until the very end, we were fascinated and impressed every day by this unique country.

We had the feeling that the whole country is designed to be traveled with a camper. The roads are well signposted everywhere and really every worthwhile spot has its own information board, even if only a gravel road leads there, there are countless campsites, from stuffy with all the amenities, to very simple but breathtaking nature campsites.

On the roads, you see more campers, caravans, and other travelers than locals.

●People

The locals are incredibly friendly, very helpful, and often even exuberantly friendly!

Thank you, New Zealand, for this unique and unforgettable time.

We conclude the New Zealand blog with a quote from Kapelle Petra, Naturfilme:

"We look at each other, we love each other completely and when night falls, we start to dream

Yes, and then you ask me what I like to watch the most and I say nature films because there you can see how beautiful the world is... and when everything is done, we have a beer"

We wish you all a peaceful, joyful, and beautiful Christmas!