New Zealand (1)

Thailand recently had its "Songkran" (Thai New Year) celebrations, which more or less coincided with Easter this year. We took the opportunity to go on a two-week holiday to New-Zealand. Our trip focused on the South Island. We will not bother you with the details but here is a short summary of the itinerary for those interested: after an 11-hour flight, we touched down in Auckland, NZ's biggest city in the North Island. From there, we took an internal flight to Christchurch on the South Island. We could already see the magnificent landscapes, made famous by the "Lord of the Rings" movies, during our internal flight. NZ is bigger than the UK but has only 4,5 million inhabitants but a lot more sheep, so there are still vast open spaces and most cities are very human in scale. Christchurch is such a pleasant city even though the weather was not cooperating while we were in the city itself. Autumn just started so we had cold and rainy weather during our second evening there. During the day, we had visited the gorgeous Banks peninsula (with the old "French" village of Akaroa) nearby. To help cope with the weather, we quickly bought some local NZ sweaters, made out of merino wool and possum fur. Possums are imported (from Australia) furry animals who devastate the forest land in NZ and have not natural enemies except for cars and people. Under the motto "the only good possum is a dead one", the New Zealanders seem to be aiming for these mammals while driving as the roads are littered with squashed possums. The most famous local fauna are the birds, especially the kiwi and consorts but they are under threat from imported predators such as cats, dogs and rats. In fact, except for a few bats, all mammals in NZ have been imported. 

After Christchurch, we headed south for Aoraki Mt Cook, the highest mountain in NZ rising 3754 meters above sea level. On the way there, we passed the beautiful Lake Tekapo, with a backdrop of snow-covered mountains. From the mountain village, we did an excursion on the lake formed by the Tasman Glacier. After this Alpine experience (the mountain range is called the "Southern Alps"), we continued the journey towards Dunedin via the Moeraki boulders, huge round rocks on a beach. Dunedin is a quaint city founded by Scottish settlers near the coast. From there, we explored the Otago Peninsula, where you can see a seal colony, penguins (we saw 1 lonely chap) and an albatross colony (we saw 3 babies). Next stop, after a long drive through the fields south of the mountains, was Te Anau. Te Anau is the starting point to explore Lake Manapouria and Doubtful Sound in Fiordland, a region which offers some of the most stunning scenery in NZ (mainly majestic fjords as you will have guessed). We also did a trip via Lake Te Anau to a 'glow worm cave', where you can see how glow worms glow (greenish light) in complete darkness. All very impressive. After these intense nature experiences, we were ready for another city: Queenstown. More about this in our next blog. 

The pictures above are a random selection from the first leg of our trip.