Road Trip: Two girls (+ 1 boy), 17 days, around 2185 km and a lot beautiful moments later!! :) - english version

Yes, exactly, two girls and one boy! :) Chris, our Swiss friend, decided to join the girl’s road trip! :)  Now there were three of us! The only difference to the old plan was, Bine and Marleen had Mario und Chris his Lydia (his car) :)

Arthur´s Pass

Arthur´s Pass

From Christchurch we drove to the Arthur´s Pass. A breath-taking landscape! Mountains and nature how far your eye can see! Bine couldn´t stop taking photos! :D First stop was “Castle Hill”.

Castle Hill

Castle Hill

Next stop was a waterfall named „Te Tautea o Hinekakai“.

Te Tautea o Hinekakai

Greymouth

We spent a night in Greymouth. Including funny pictures on the beach! :)

Greymouth

Punakaiki - Pancake Rocks

The rocks look like a stack of pancakes, that’s how they got their name. We were there during the low tide, so unfortunately we missed the really big blowholes.

Pancake Rocks

Campsite Lake Mahinapua

Franz Josef Glacier

Franz Josef Glacier

The first glacier on our list. Acutally we thought that you can go really close to the glacier. But no, you can´t! There are fences and signs which won´t let you through. :( We took some pictures and went back. On our way back, Chris had this idea to build some “stone people”. What the f*** are stone people!? :D Piled stones from big to small - ready are the stone people! :D Some tourists even took some pictures of our stone people! :D

Franz Josef Glacier

Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier

Our next glacier. The same as with the Franz Josef Glacier. Fences and signs didn´t allow to go close to the glacier! The river with the big ice cubes was so close but on the other side so far away from us… we thought just a second and the other second we jumped over the fences and ran to the river. We came back with an ice cube in our hands – jummy! :) NO RISK -  NO FUN!! :D

Fox Glacier

Direct next to the village Fox Glacier you can do a small walk around the Lake Matheson. Actually you have a great view to the Mount Cook, if there weren´t all those clouds! :D The Lonely Planet says: “If Mount Cook is hidden by clouds, go into the souvenir shop and buy a postcard!” and so Marleen did! :D The salesgirl told us, that Marleen isn´t the first person who did it, almost 90 % buy this postcard! :D

Lake Matheson

Wanaka – SKYDIVEEEEE!!!!

What are we doing? We are crazy and we don´t know what we do!! :D 12.000 ft and 45 seconds free fall! Of course I took the video and pictures options so you can see and believe for yourself that I did it! :)

Bine was really relaxed, it wasn´t her first skydive! At the end stone-scissor-paper had to decide if she took the pictures and video as well. And she won! :)

Marleen´s hands were sweating and her legs were like pudding. She was just smiling to hide her nervousness. But now, everything was too late! We jumped in the clothes and right into the small airplane. We had amazing weather and a beautiful view over Lake Wanaka and Mount Cook! :)

We were ready! We reached the high we needed for the skydive. Bine was first, Marleen was the third person! There was no time for second thoughts, everything went so fast. I couldn´t realise what was happening, weather I was floating, flying or falling the time was too short as well! It was just amazing!!!! I would do it again!!! 

I screamed and laughed because I was so happy, an indescribable feeling!! After 45 seconds everything was done, the parachute opened and we made our way back to the lovely earth. After another five minutes we were back on the ground. And I still couldn´t believe that I did it!! I hope the video is following soon! :) But for the beginning already a few pictures! :)

Skydive

So if you have sometimes the chance to do it – DO IT!!!! You will never forget it!! :)

Meanwhile Chris rented a bicycle and did some downhill in Queenstown. :)

Wanaka

Queenstown

Queenstown is a small and stressful city. Full of tourists and a lot of attractions you can do, for example jet boat, bungee jumping, skydiving and much more. But we didn´t actually anything of that but relaxing! :) We did only a small walk to the top of the gondola skyline went out for party and we had a delicious meal in a restaurant. Of course we had a burger from Fergburger (the Lonely Planet says that’s the best burger!!) waiting in a queue and after 45 minutes we had our burgers! :D A big burger and it was nice, BUT you got New Zealand’s best burger in Abel Tasman at the Fat Tui!! FOR SURE!!!! :)

Gondola Skyline walk

Gondola Skyline walk

Queenstown

Milford Sound – 16km kayaking

Milford Sound

Routeburn Track

On our way to Milford Sound we made a stop for the Routeburn Track.

Routeburn Walk

Routeburn Walk

On our way to Milford Sound - Campground

Kayaking

Actually we booked the trip for the morning (Meeting at 5.45 am), but something was wrong with the booking, therefore we had to change our trip. There were two possibilities either we do a similar tour in the morning (starts at 7.00 am) or we do the same trip but in the afternoon. The afternoon tour goes the other way around. The whole way till the end of Milford sound with the water taxi and kayaking the way back, fortunately in the same way like the waves! :) Kayaking was a lot of fun and really hard to get through the waves! Three kayaks with two people in it and the tour guide. Bine and Marleen were in one on the kayaks, Chris with an American guy and in the last one were a couple. We past some waterfalls and we saw seals they relaxed on the rocks. And the best thing we saw a school of dolphins. There were around 20 of them and they swam right next to our kayaks!!!  By the way, they are pretty big! :D The day went by and the waves got bigger and higher! What do you think the guys were doing? For sure, there were far far in front of us and on the next second they capsized! :D Only from watching them we almost capsized as well, but we had a good reaction and pulled our bodies against the waves!! Good luck for us!! Our tour guide yelled at us, we had to go DIRECTLY in the safety position with the couple! Very close with the kayaks and hold the other kayak. More stability! Cool was that we made a sail ship with a huge plastic blanket out of our three kayaks! After six hours, and a break for 1,5 hours, we finally arrived back and were very tired!!

Short comparison of what we booked and what we actually got:

We booked: kayaking on Milford Sound

We got:

·         Kayaking, for sure! :)

·         Seals

·         Dolphins

·         Sailing

·         And a lot of fun! :) :)

PS: By the way – if we had done the kayaking in the morning, we wouldn´t have seen the dolphins!!

Milford Sound - kayaking

Milford Sound - kayaking

Milford Sound is just beautiful!! :) Worth to go there!!! :)

But there is one think that dim the idyll – SANDFLYS!!!

Worth knowing about the sandflys:

They look like small fruit flys, seem harmless, but in reality they are the devil in a fly costume! :D As long as you walk or the wind is blowing, everything is fine, because they are too small and light so they can’t land on you. But they love when the wind stops blowing! When you already feel the bite it is too late! It didn´t stop itching and it lasted for at least one week! Kiwis (name of the New Zealand people) say sandflys protect the most beautiful places in New Zealand. Because of them you can´t stand more than one minute on one place. They come and bite you!!! Take a picture and go somewhere else! The other myth is, when you see a black cloud in the sky or a black wall in front of you, that’s the sandflys, millions of them!!! Only the female sandflies bite you. They need your blood to lay more eggs!

Dunedin

Dunedin

Let´s go to the steepest Road in the World!! :)

Dunedin - steepest road

Otaga Peninsula - Sandfly bay

A good place to see penguins! At 4.00 pm we made our way to the beach. After a picnic in the sand dunes we went to the lookout point. The lookout was specifically built for the tourists to watch the penguins when they come out of the water and go to their hotbeds. 

Unfortunately we weren´t lucky, after two hours waiting we didn´t see nothing! By the way, we already saw one earlier, but he was far far away and was just after a few seconds in the sand dunes. But we saw a lot of seals and sea lions, they were lazy on the beach! :)

Sandfly bay

Sandfly bay

Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo – finally a nice view on Mount Cook! :)

Lake Pukaki

Our highlight was Lake Pukaki! The campground was for free, next to Lake Pukaki and the most beautiful view over Mount Cook! :) The colour of the water is just unreal! It looks unnatural!! Glacier blue, like the sweets we know from back home – ice sweets :) The first time, that we saw a lake with this colour! We decided very fast to stay there for our last days!

In the morning we went for a swim to wake up, for lunch to cool down and in the evening we took a bath in the lake! :) Just amazing!

Lake Pukaki

Lake Pukaki

The best spot in whole New Zealand. Unfortunately Marleen couldn´t share this moment with Fabio. But he was always in Marleens heart!!! :-*

Lake Tekapo

Bine and Chris did a short walk on Mount John. Marleen preferred to go directly to the hot pools. :) We were relaxed at 35 till 39 degrees. That was totally the best thing to do for our last days! :)

Lake Tekapo

The goodbye of Bine and Chris and reunion of Marleen and Fabio in Christchurch

At some point every nice time is over! Bines flight was on the 6^th of February. Back to Germany! Chris already sad goodbye at Lake Pukaki. He didn´t like to say goodbye! He travelled further to Mount Cook and back to Queenstown again.

THANKS TO CHRIS for the last weeks! You are just a very lovely and nice person and good for every joke! And THANKS for the delicious dinner every night you cooked for us!! We will see you again, for sure!! :) We will miss you!!

Moments of Chris

Bine and I made our way back to Christchurch. Finally after three hours we arrived in the hostel. I took Fabio in my arms, so good to have him back!!! I missed him soo much!!! :)

THANKS to Bine as well!! Thank you for this great girls road trip! :) Thanks for the really funny conversations and that we had to pose the whole time for THE best picture! But, yeah, well, we needed all this pictures, to choose the right one! :D I was so lucky, that you were here! There is this saying in German: “Actions speak louder than words”! THANK YOU!!  We see you in six month back in Germany! I´m really looking forward to it!! :* And Fabio as well! ;)

Moments of Bine

A really big hug and a bigger kiss to you guys!! I love you!!! :) THANK you so much!!!!

Moments of Marleen