Km 162,000 to 166,250 : South Island road trip

Friday April, 14th
We leave Lincoln to the South. The wild South... and then the West, the North and the East of the South Island. A 'Tour de New-Zealand' in a pulsar. Two weeks travelling in this place where we live for 3 months now...

After an American lunch (peanut butter & strawberry jam sandwiches, thanks Lizzie for having prepared us the best of the North American food) in Caroline Bay, Timaru, we stopped in Oamaru aiming to watch some penguins. No penguins but a lion seal waykeeper and lots of paua shells.

In Moeraki, as all the Asian turists of the aera, we spent some time playing with the boulders, those strange round rocks left on the beach by a volcano or some mystic animal.

We finally slept on the Brighton's beach, somewhere after Dunedin.

Saturday April, 15th
While the sun was rising , we left our beach and the South Island to the Stewart Island, the Southernmost point where we went.
What a good crossing. Just watching the albatrosses, the petrels and the shags, following us and oftent passing us.
It reminded me my chidhood and how my brothers and I were lucky to have sailed in our small ship...Thanks Mum and Dad for having given us the will to travel.
Stewart Island have been fantasticly well, even if those sandflies had fantasticly eaten us. Three days tramping in the native forest, loocking for kiwis (which we finally haven't seen) and using short cuts. Near 8 pm, we felt a smooth earthquake on the Maori Beach.
We finished our trip on Easter Monday, welcome by a good breakfast in the Halfmoon Bay, in front of the rising sun. After a last look on this island, we left the Pacific Ocean for the mountains of Fiordland.

On the way to Mildford Sound, we stopped at Te Anau, on the shore of the lake Te Anau.

The Kepler Mountains behind the lake Te Anau

The Mildford Sound, traditional pictures.. 

Friday April 21st
Ah Toulouse...I'm in Queenstown, drinking a hot chocolate with lavander which remind me Toulouse. Unfortunaitly, it's raining here and, even if a raimbow has just appeared above the Lake Wakatipu and the sunrise was beautiful, the weather is definitively not as good.

Sunrise behind the Remarkables, on the bank of the lake Wakatipu

So I'm in Quenstown, waiting for Céline and Lizzie who went to do some rafting before bungy jumping..Strange city is Queenstown : it looks like a Canadian city (may be because of the lay out of the streets and the colours of the threes in this beginning of autumn) which would have grown on the shore of the Lac Leman. Strange city is Queenstown ; lost somewhere among the tussocks and the mountains, in a place where we don't expect to find something else than tussocks and mountains. However, it's the place in NZ where someone can experiment the bungy-jumping, rafting, sky diving, bungy-swing or jetboating. So many ing-activities, so much noise and speed for me who like to link mounts to silence and quiet. Fortunaitly, we leave tomorow to the summits of the Routeburn track..

Saturday April 22nd

Correction...'to the rainy summits of the Routeburn track'...I'm wet, totally wet, despite the pretty stove of the Mackenzie Hut..

1rst day, wet ...

This tramp reminded me my Pyrénées, even if the summits were here sharper than our old mountains..

2nd day, still wet...
3rd day, wet, but drying...
On the way back...

Monday, April 24th
We left Queenstown, using a silly short-cut. We thought that the car could never climb this amazing road...Just a few minuts at the saddle, to cool the engine, to calm our uncontrollable laugh and to take a last picture of the Remarkables, before going down to the rainy West Coast...

Quickly, we went to brievly look at the Franz Josef glacier,

and the Pancakes Rocks, after a night in the car... So, we quickly passed the West Coast..

Wednesday, April 26th

We are in the Abel Tasman's area, in Motueka, leaving in sea-kayaks for two days on the Tasman Sea. The first one has been great, sunny, fun and ... wet, but "saltyly" wet.The second one has been rainy, cold and 'wavy'. Our little kayaks were dancing on the wave near the shore under the storm..Nelson, the center of New-Zealand and the artistic capital of the Southern Island, warmed us, and we came back by Picton and the Marlborough Sounds and Kaikoura, to collect some data on the Fur seals.

A great little silly trip...

yvan