3 hours over the water

Day 40

Glistening turquoise water, the rugged yet green forested coast of the North Island, and almost I would have said the hair blowing in the wind and in the face, but that no longer exists.

We are on the ferry.

We have just left Wellington and therefore the North Island of New Zealand behind us and are on our way to the South Island. The destination is Picton. Another two and a half hours of travel. I am on a side deck with a view of the coast, sitting on a bench. Currently, I have the small deck all to myself, but enthusiastic people come by from time to time to quickly take a photo from this perspective. When I look at the sea, specifically at the "Cook Strait", as the sea route between the North and South Islands is called, the only thing missing to make the postcard picture perfect is a few dolphins jumping in the air. When I look ahead, it could also be the coastline of Scotland or Ireland. Although I have never been to any of those countries, that's how I imagine them at least. Hilly, green landscape, and beneath it barren rock. What slightly ruins this image is the light blue water or the magnificent sandy beaches behind it, which both would rather fit the Caribbean. So much for the topic of "land of the seven continents."

I just noticed that this great, because lonely, side deck I'm on here is the smoking area and now there are a few people with cigarettes around me. But oh well, the view is worth it.

Five and a half weeks on the North Island are now over, and now comes the South Island.

"The South Island is much more beautiful than the North Island. You will like it," is something you often hear when talking to locals and telling them about our plans. Hard to believe considering the diverse landscape and the sometimes breathtaking beaches we have already seen. But we will be surprised and excited. What definitely belongs to this part of New Zealand is that the further south you travel, the colder it gets. Logically, we are in the Southern Hemisphere. It gets colder on the way to Antarctica, while it can get really warm in the summer in the far north of the country. Something Germany could introduce as well.

However, since we are probably not going much further south than Christchurch due to lack of time, we will probably only experience the really cold days in the south of Argentina. And you can't really speak of "cold" anyway, as we will soon have summer. "Colder than on the North Island" is a better description.

The last two weeks have been very diverse and exciting. Even though we had a lot of rain at the beginning and of course not everything always worked as we imagined, a lot has happened and we have experienced a lot. We were at beautiful beaches, slept alone in the most beautiful nature, hiked in the rain in the jungle, had problems with the car, solved them, talked to many people, witnessed a small earthquake, received four lamb steaks from a nice guy at a campsite, drove along the coast, covered distance, saw people, villages, cities, and many different landscapes. And then we arrived in Wellington two days ago.

Wellington. The capital and seat of government of New Zealand. And by far the most beautiful city we have seen so far. Even though the southernmost capital in the world has only about 200,000 inhabitants and is therefore no bigger than Lübeck, it feels like a real metropolis with its tightly built and finally tall buildings. No boring metal huts like in many other places, but culture and innovative and modern architecture perfectly integrated into the historical and older structures. Many young people, a pronounced bar and cafe scene, and the colorful Cuba Street in the middle of the city, where street artists and young musicians do as they please. Art on facades is not uncommon, and open, vibrant people looking into the future are not either. The harbor, characterized by hip cafes and interesting city planning, with the free and gigantic National Museum "Te Papa," and of course Wellywood, the WetaCave film studio where Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and co were produced. In short, we liked Wellington, it's a city to feel good in.

If you want to compare Auckland with Wellington, you can't. Auckland is nothing compared to Wellington.

Enough raving. We will inevitably have to return to Wellington anyway when we have traveled the South Island in about four weeks and it's time to return to the North Island.

Now I see the coast of the South Island in front of me. At first, it has a lot in common with the one I saw earlier. How the landscape will change in the next time, we will see. We are almost there. In Picton. First, we will go towards Nelson, a city that is a bit further west and reportedly has the most sunshine hours in New Zealand. And then we will continue south until we have to turn around and start the return journey to Auckland.