Categorie archieven: English

On our way to the South Island of NZ.

English, ilse, reisverslag, toerisme, Zuidelijk Eiland

We are today March 11th, sitting in Burnie in a carpark in Wanaka town with free wi-fi. The weather is cloudy and thus time to do an update of our travels on the South Island of NZ.

We took the ferry in Wellinton on February 22nd and drove from Picton to Nelson, then up to Cape Farewell with a stop in Abel Tasman National Park. Then back to Nelson, St.Arnaud with a visit to the Nelson Lakes. From there on to the Westport, Punakaki, Hokitika, Franz Josef, Fox Glacier to Jackson Bay. Back to Haast over the pass to Wanaka. The coming weeks we will travel to Queenstown, Milford Sound down to Invercargill and make our way back up along the East Coast.

As promised some more pictures from our visit to Napier.

Lots of 1900’s cars in Napier during the Art Deco WE.
Andy took us along for a guided tour from Napier. Thank you Andy and Sue for letting us stay 3 days in your beautiful house!
The whole town was in Great Gatsby style !
…in the rain but..
also some sunshine
Pouring rain on our first swingbridge in Waiohine Gorge.
A KaKa bird eating away on a toast he managed to steal from the plates of a cafe guest in Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre.
Stefan reading the manual of my camera…
Takahe, a flightless bird, looks a lot like its cousin the Pukeko.
We are in Kiwi Country ! We saw the Kiwi bird at the Pukaha centre where they protect the Kiwi by taking the eggs and incubating them. This is called Operation Nest Egg where eggs and chicks are protected from predators. The Kiwi is also a flightless bird, with hair-like feathers, strong legs and no tail. Kiwis are mostly nocturnal so very difficult to spot during the day.There are 5 species and all are threatened with extinction.
The parliament buildings in Wellington, with the Beehive that houses the Cabinet and the offices of its ministers. We were able to get a free guided tour of the buidlings.
View over Wellington from Mount Victoria.
We also visited Weta Cave where the movies Lord Of the Ring, Avatar, Great Adventures of TinTin are digitally mastered. It was a learning experience to see how much craftsmanship there is involved in these creations.
The Interislander ferry waiting for us to come aboard at 8AM
It was a beautfiul day crossing the Cook Strait.
Views on the Queen Charlotte drive to Nelson.
Views over Pelorus Sound.
On our way to Abel Tasman National Park.

On our way to Abel Tasman we stopped to admire Rawhiti Cave.
Rawhiti Cave, also known as Manson Cave, is 40m wide and 20m tall. The ceiling is densely covered in stalactites which become increasingly finer deeper down into the cave.

More pictures in the next blog from beautiful Abel Tasman and the West Coast.

NZ is definitely a paradise for trampers and birdlovers !

English, ilse, Nieuw Zeeland, Noordelijk eiland, reisverslag

February 21st, Tuesday,library of Wellington. Tomorrow we will take the 9AM ferry to the South Island. We arrived here after spending some time in Napier with an ex-colleague from Stefan. It was great to spend some time in a nice house with all the luxuries :-)) and not have to worry about the next camping spot.

Before arriving in Napier we did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing walk. Really wonderful ! Tongariro National Park is the oldest National Park in NZ and UNESCO world heritage since 1991. In order to prevent the selling off to European settlers  several Maori chiefs (Iwi) decided in 1887 to give the grounds to the Crown under the condition that it would remain a protected area. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is widely regarded as one of the world’s best one-day hikes.(19.4KM) We started walkig at 8 AM and arrived at the car park at 1.15PM with a short stop to eat our lunch. We did not have any rain that day but the next 4 days it would rain off and on.

We were not alone on the crossing, about 700 people during a WE day do the crossing.
Stefan on top of the world 🙂
Almost blown away…

Descent to the Emerald Lakes
Finally the sun came out and we could enjoy our lunch at the Emerald Lakes.
The sun makes everything so much prettier.
The snow capped moutain is Mount Ruapehu, the one with the reddish colour is Mt. Ngauruhoe. You can see the path along which we walked.
On the other side, almost there…
Mahuia River in Tongariro National Park.

Our visit to Napier was a little rained out but we enjoyed the Art Deco WE, the old cars in town and all the people dressed up in Gatsby style ! We walked to Cape Kidnapper’s (20KM along the beach) and had a beautiful (rainy) view of the Black Reef Gannet colony.

The gannet (Jan Van Gent) colony on Cape Kidnapper’s.
The grey ones are the chicks. They will all fly to Australia in April.
Wet but happy to have reached the colony and view the birds so close.

The views were really beautiful too bad the sun was not there. The reality is soooo much better than the pictures.
It was named by Captain Cook after an attempt by local Mäori to abduct one of his crew.The cape is home to the largest and most accessible gannet colony in the world.
The NZ pigeon or Kereru.
Napier in the back, Hawke’s Bay
Now, we are definitely in sheep country.

…and wine country!
Mission Estate Winery was established in 1851 and one of the oldest wineries in New Zealand. It was started by french missionairies.
Napier black sand beach.
Napier has a lot of art deco architecture constructed after most of the town was destroyed with the Hawke’s Bay earthquake on February 3 in 1931(7.8 on Richter Scale)
During the Art Deco WE people dress up in 1930’s costume and vintage cars are everywhere.

More pictures from Art Deco WE in the next blog.