Tramping in Southern NZ

A guy from New Zealand once told me that you can walk around blindly anywhere in New Zealand, stop somewhere, take a picture and it will be a gorgeous one...
If that might not be true for all of NZ (Auckland??), it is definitely true for the Abel Tasman National Park. Lush forests, gorgeous beaches, fantastic treks, cristal-clear water - and at this time of the year: Not so many tourists as well (during the summer months there are about 10x as many tourists tramping in the Abel Tasman)...

Unfortunately I couldn't really live out my happy snapping after my camera fell into a (salt) water pool just 2h after I began to walk...So for the next 4 days of tramping my camera was either not reacting at all or just took random pictures which were not saved on the card. On my last day in the national park just shortly before I reached the end of the trek my cam fortunately worked again and I took some pictures...uploaded them here already.
Apart from the beauty of the nature in this park, I also had some very good encounters with fellow travellers. Funny was the hitch-hike back to the place I started when a guy gave me some marihuana after taking me in his car - just like that (I must have looked terrible after the trek... :) ).

Shortly afterwards I headed to Nelson (nice little city, good starting point for several treks in the region), Punakaiki (fantastic blowholes and rock formations - called the Pancake Rocks), Greymouth (very nice road in direction of Christchurch over the NZ-Alps), Christchurch and then back to Auckland...All in all I really had an amazing time here in NZ and will definitely visit this country again...

Now I'm already on the Hong Kong airport waiting for my connection flight to Delhi...looking very much forward to see Franziska again there in 3 days...

Hitch-hiking in New Zealand

If you'd dig a hole in Switzerland you'd end up (sooner or later) in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, but if you'd go just a little bit further south to Portugal/Spain you'd most probably land in the middle of a sheep herd here in New Zealand. On every one of the 4 Mio people living here (whereupon 1.3 Mio alone live in Auckland) there are 10 sheeps living here as well on an area which is about 6.5 as big as Switzerland. Amazing...

I just arrived on the South Island of New Zealand - supposingly even more beautiful than the North Island even though the north was already rather fascinating...
When I arrived in Auckland it felt quite weird to be in such a big city again (after the calm and relaxing atmosphere of Fiji) so I decided to leave the place for Rotorua a bit further south. I first had to get accustomed to the constant sulphur smell in the air because of the strong geothermal earth activity here, but due to the many hikes, the hot pools and the great landscape around the city (particularly the nearby Whakarewarewa Forest - called The Redwoods), it was a fantastic stay in this city.

I then made the decision to go to the Lake Waikaremoana and try my first Great Walk here in NZ. Buuut that was quite a challenge... I didn't find any way to go down to the lake by any means of transport (except by car on a very bad road) so I decided to try it from the other side and took a bus to Napier (a cute little town at the sea). Because there was also no possibility to reach the Lake from this side either, I walked out of the city and began to hitch-hike. After 6 (!) different hitch-hikes where they sometimes left me in some really remote areas (I once had to wait 4h in one place where there was approximately one car per hour), I still didn't reach the lake - but nearly. I put my tent and walked the rest the next day. Unfortunately the weather was changing and I couldn't go on the Great Walk. But the journey was definitely the reward on this trip because I met some very interesting people...When I hitch-hiked back I found a family who first invited me to their place and then drove me all the way back to my hostel (2.5h) where I started my little hitch-hike-journey. The people are incredibly friendly here!

Tomorrow I can finally go on my first Great Walk in the Abel Tasman Nationalpark here on the South Island. Looking very much forward to that...