Wellington, Lord of the Rings Tour and the rugged wilderness on the South Island

Oh children, so much has happened since the last blog entry... I'm afraid this one will be a bit longer. Well, let's get started.

After the Tongariro Crossing, we didn't do much for a few days, partly because my blisters needed to recover and partly because there wasn't much to see further south. We stayed at a few beautiful freedom camping sites, including one at Cape Palliser. Beautiful black sandy beach with rough waves and seals!

After that, we continued with a Lord of the Rings filming location tour, which we all visited in one day and what can I say... you know me, I could hardly contain my childlike joy, even if sometimes all you saw was a river and a bridge. My personal highlight here: the Putangirua Pinnacles! (Dimholt Road)

The Rohan River:

The Anduin River:

Rivendell (Rivendell):

After that, we continued on to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. We visited the free (!) national museum there and it was absolutely stunning! Great exhibitions about the nature, history, and various cultures of New Zealand. In the evening, we had a delicious meal at a street food market. The next morning, we had a great breakfast and then drove to the ferry because we were headed to the South Island.

When we arrived there, we took advantage of the good weather and did a small but very beautiful kayak tour through the Marlborough Sounds and I even went for a swim. Then it rained for a few days, so not much happened. New Zealand in the rain is not so fun when you live in a car. So, during these days, we had a lot of take-away food and did some organizing.

When the weather improved, we continued driving down to Kaikoura. What a beautiful little town! It's right on a beautiful beach. Of course, we went for a little walk along the coast. Here we saw albatrosses, seals, and many other animals. Unfortunately, we didn't know that it was nesting season for all of them, so the atmosphere was generally a bit aggressive and I was attacked by a bird (I wanted to photograph a seal and apparently stood too close to the nest). As Kaikoura is known for dolphins and whales, we also went on a whale-watching tour the next day and it was totally worth it! We saw a humpback whale, a sperm whale, and hundreds of dolphins. They were also very curious and kept coming up to the boat.

After that, we continued on to Christchurch and both of us found it to be the most beautiful city so far. The atmosphere was more like a small town and it was very pleasant. There was also live music happening on that day, a street food market, and much more.

The next day, we had planned to do a walk along the Banks Peninsula, but unfortunately, we couldn't drive there with the car, so we did a nice little cliff walk at Diamond Harbour instead.

So, the next day, we continued to Lake Tekapo and I have to say, sometimes I feel a bit fooled by the landscape here. How can a lake be so blue?? And with a beautiful mountain range in the background as a backdrop... Sometimes it just doesn't seem real at all. But no matter where we have driven along the South Island so far, we have been surrounded by mountain ranges everywhere. But back to the topic: at Lake Tekapo, we also did a little hike. After that, we drove to a freedom spot, and no matter where you go, the landscape is even more beautiful than the one before. So was the lake where our freedom spot was (I found Lake Pukaki almost more beautiful than the touristy Lake Tekapo).

Next, we went to Mount Cook and once again, it was an almost surreal landscape and a beautiful hike, where I once again got blisters...love it.

So now you're up to date again. Christmas is also approaching here, by the way, although it still feels strange when supermarket employees shout 'Merry Christmas' to you and you, completely sweaty with your ice cream in hand, are a bit confused at 27 degrees.

I hope the next blog entry will come a bit earlier because otherwise we'll be spending 10 hours at the library with so many pictures. Goodbye.