New Zealand

So.... I finally had time to upload some photos. We had thousands. Literally. For the first time our new Olympus camera internal memory reached it's limit. We were on our way back to Christchurch (one day before flying back home) when it got full, so we pulled over on the side of the road and downloaded the photos to my little laptop. Procedure that normally takes 2-3 minutes... this time it took half an hour to download, that's how many photos we had taken. Can you believe it? So you can imagine, it wasn't an easy task to pick the best few to upload to the blog. First time around I picked out about 40. This was still too many, so I had to go through them again and cull some more.



Our holiday started in the beautiful Christchurch. (At this point, I feel the need to warn you that I'm going to use the word "beautiful" a lot in this article.)


The town is so pretty with gardens and parks everywhere full of flowers and colour. Oh, and the Botanical Gardens... whow...


Next stop - Kaikoura. The place where sperm whales live. Apparently the ocean is so deep off the coast of Kaikoura, it's like an underwater great canyon.


Unfortunately we didn't get to see the whales, they were too far off the coast that day.

We stayed at B&B on Kaikoura peninsula. That was my first Bed and Breakfast experience and it was fantastic. The house was tastefully renovated small mansion, surrounded by perfectly manicured garden - full of flowers. And the views.... whow, you should have seen it! You step out of the house to look at the mighty mountains with the snowy white caps. What a way to retire for those B&B owners - lovely couple who's kids have grown up, decided to buy a property there, renovated the house and opened up a B&B. We had a lovely breakfast with the family upstairs in their dining room with the million dollar view.

Next day we headed towards Hanmer Springs. We had heard about the thermal mineral water pools & spas and decided to check it out. The winding road through the mountains was an experience on it's own. One thing that we really noticed was traffic or I should say - lack of traffic. We drove for miles without seeing another car passing. It's OK to pull over at any time for a photo opportunity without having to worry about traffic behind you. Another surprising thing about New Zealand roads were one-lane bridges. Basically, when approaching the bridge, you have to give way to oncoming traffic and only when they have passed, can you cross.

After 3 hours drive at Hanmer Springs we had a swim in the mineral water thermal pools, the hottest which was 42C. Air temperature was quite cold there, as you can see, I'm wearing a warm jacket but it doesn't matter when you're sitting in the hot water.
Mineral water smells like boiled egg.

After a swim and a lunch, we were on the road again. For another couple of hours until we reached place called Greymouth. The plan was to take a helicopter or a small plane scenic tour over the mountains and the glaciers but closest point where to catch a plane was Hokitika, so we only spent one night at Greymouth and headed to Hokitika the next day. Hokitika was gorgeous little town on the beach. Lots of art and craft, glass blowing studio and jewelers.

Our scenic flight though, was cancelled because of cloudy weather. We could have still gone but what's the point of spending all this money if you know you're not going to see the amazing Mount Cook and glaciers. It's not cheap either. We were disappointed but decided that we have to go back one day for that.

There's another fantastic picture I took from the moving car. It had just stopped raining and the mist was raising from the forest on the side of the mountains... it looked amazing.

Never mind the scenic flight, Hokitika had so much more to offer - it turned out to be the best place we visited.

First of all - The Hokitika Gorge! What a mystical place! I have never seen water the color of ... well look at the photos, can you believe the color of this river?!? We spent half an hour walking around, taking pictures and admiring this place and believe it or not there were no other tourist. We were completely alone, just the sound of water, few birds and mosquitoes. I couldn't help but imagining Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee walking through the forest, stepping on rocks and tree stumps covered in green soft moss carrying The Ring. Truly magical experience.

On the way back from the Gorge, we decided to take the route around Lake Kaniere which was another breathtaking experience. We had rain and sun and rainbows...

When we got back to town it was late and we were hungry but there was only 4 or 5 restaurants in Hokitika, most of which were closed at 8pm. Lucky for us, a French cafe/restaurant was open and we had a beautiful meal after a long day. This photo in the mirror was taken in the restaurant and is pretty much the only "family photo" of this trip. There just weren't many people around when good photo opportunity presented itself, so we took photos of each other but not many with all three of us together.

This is it. From Hokitika we drove back to Christchurch and next morning flew back to Sydney. I wish we had more time... there's too much to see and to do in NZ! I would definitely love to go back one day.

Jacob didn't share our excitement though. After 3 days he started to ask when are we going home already, because he wanted to play with his toys and watch TV! He got bored looking at the mountains and it's understandable, we spent quite a bit of time in the car and he just wasn't amused. So yes, in that sense, one week was enough.