Category Archives: 23. New Zealand

Vegemite

Day 284: Gone Are the Vegemite Days

Christchurch, New Zealand – Sydney, Australia – Jakarta, Indonesia My alarm set off at 4am. I packed my sleeping bag and went to check in for my flight to Sydney. By 8am Australian time, I was at Sydney airport, with 5 hours to kill before […]

Country road

Day 283: Collapsing Space

Blenheim – Christchurch, New Zealand Hanna and I woke an hour earlier to pack up our backpacks and clean up our campervan. We were so getting used to the routines of disassembling the bed and reassembling the dining table that it was sad to finally […]

Too many chocolate

Day 282: 2 Much Chocolate

Farewell Spit – Takaka – Aoraki – Nelson – Blenheim, New Zealand This morning it was raining so hard, that Elys actually thought we had been swept away by the sea during the night. Fortunately, we found the car still standing where we had stopped […]

Wish you were here

Day 281: Wish You Were Here… Improvised

Abel Tasman – Motueka – Collinswood – Farewell Spit, New Zealand Back to Hanna writing: It turns out that the kayaking we were planning for today is not going to happen after all. Apparently, the tours all leave at 9 in the morning as the […]

Digging for gold

Day 280: Fool’s Gold

Hokitika – Pancake Rocks – Motueka – Abel Tasman, New Zealand Another day’s entry which Guillermo the Argentinian hitchiker should have written… I’m taking over again. Hokitika = awesome Western cowboy sorta town. Famous for Whitebait and gold panning. Having no clue what Whitebait was, […]

Bridge in the sky

Day 279: My “Mate” Swimming Pool Dream

Haast – Fox Glacier – Franz Josef – Pukekura – Hokitika, New Zealand This is Elys writing again. So… I thought I managed to con our Argentinian hitchhiker, Guillermo, to write the blog entry for today. He agreed to it but as of now I […]

Scenic route

Day 278: Out in the Wopwops

Queenstown – Arrowtown – Wanaka – Haast, New Zealand We woke up to a view today – again! I get the feeling, that this view is following us around ever since we first made it to the summit road in Akaroa on our first day […]

Fish!

Day 277: Something Fishy

Milford Sound – Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand It is raining – again! Fortunately the rain stops before 10 am today, so we finally get to see the lovely river we are camping at and actually end up making our morning coffee from – as our […]

Looked like we were speeding

Day 276: It’s the Wong Way!

Te Anau – Milford Sound, New Zealand It is raining! All morning, we listen to the drops hammering on the roof of the camper van. This is not a good start to a new day and we stay in bed far longer than we ought […]

The southernmost point in NZ

Day 275: Next Stop: South Pole?

Kaka Point – Catlins – Te Anau, New Zealand Our first stop today is the Nugget Point light house, set on a cliff high above the ocean and reached by a short walk along a small trek with cliffs falling down to the sea on […]

Baby sea lion

Day 274: Hanna’s Take on NZ

Dunedin – Otego Peninsula – Kaka Point, New Zealand As Elys caught a cold and does not feel too good in the evenings, she asked me to take over writing the block for the time being. So here we go… Once again our instincts brought […]

Mount Cook

Day 273: Mirror Image

Mount Cook – Dunedin, New Zealand Before going to bed last night in the campervan, Hanna and I knew that we had awesome sight outside. But this morning, when Hanna told me to look out from our van, I went “Holy shit” on the view […]