New Zealand

South Island

Christchurch

We arrived in Christchurch by plane and we slept at the airport since we had to get a rental car the next morning. It wasn't easy to sleep there, but we were not the only ones doing it and we saved on accomodation and transport from and to the airport. We felt like hobos! It's no coincidence if we've been listening to the song "Like a hobo" for the whole trip, it was a perfect match! :) 

Etienne managed to sleep: he had to be in good form to drive the next day!

The next day, we went to have a look at Christchurch but the city is not so pretty... There's still a lot of works being done following the massive earthquake of February 2011.

We've spent the night in Christchurch in a cabin with kitchen to get a good night of sleep, then we hit the road in direction of Tekapo lake.

(You'll see that New Zealand was mostly about beautiful landscapes so there's not much text in this article)

Tekapo

The landscapes are beautiful: a turquoise blue lake with snowy mountains in the back!

Tekapo lake

We did quite a few small hikes (about one a day in NZ) and that was great, especially that landscapes are beautiful! The following pictures have been taken on Mount John, which overlooks the Tekapo lake. It was a steep ascension!

The shepherd has lost his sheeps!

Here's one of his ewes ;)

Wanaka

Then we went to Wanaka. We had to go around town quite a few times to find a decent hostel: there are all expensive and internet is nearly always extra! Finally, we got lucky and  found a nice one and we were the only ones there!

Yeah, snowboarding! :)

As usual, we went for a hike to get a good view of the nearby lake and the city:

Queenstown

Queenstown is well known for its extreme sports: bungee jumping, paragliding... Not really our cup of tea. As a result, we took some time to work on our blog, to walk around the lake and to take a few pictures.

NZ without sheeps wouldn't be NZ

A nice turquoise blue torrent

Queenstown lake, nice, isn't it?!?

Dunedin

After a short stop in the not-so-interesting Dunedin city, we went to the nearby peninsula. We were looking for penguins but it wasn't the right time of the day... On the other hand, we got to see seals!

We swear it is alive!

On the road between Dunedin and Oamaru, we took a break to have a look at Moeraki boulders. It's a geological formation in boulders shape created through erosion: nothing exceptional but it's on all tourists maps!

Oamaru

We had something on our mind: to see penguins! We persisted and waited for an hour and a half on top of a cliff to see 2 yellow eyes penguins pass by. We were quite far from them as they're shy animals but we loved to watch them waddle!

The beach at sunset, because it's when you can see the penguins

Of course, we could see a lot of lambs and sheeps all over the country:

"The silence of the lamb"

In order to be fair, we also want to show you the black sheeps:

Are they the deadly ones from the horror film???

Oamaru is fairly nice city: there's an old harbour reconverted in art galleries and craftsmen shops. We spent a few hours hanging around this area and then went for a hike in the nearby forest.

The old harbour

It's not an apology to cigarets, it was just a funny looking cloud :)

Akaroa

And we're back to Christchurch since we need to give the car back soon, but before that we made a stop in Akaroa. It's a very cute city, partly built by French colons and surrounded by mountains and volcanoes.

The French touch ;)

The surrounding mountains were nice to go hiking once again. The nature is beautiful, there are sheeps everywhere and the area is so peaceful.

There are cows too!

Aurore had a very passionate conversation with Margaret the cow! :)

We met Yusuke, a Japanese man travelling by hitchhiking all around NZ!

We gave him a ride to Christchurh,

@Yusuke: we hope to see you in France one day!

We arrived a bit late at the rental company to give the car back and to get the rental campervan we rented for our 2nd week in Peter Jackson's country. We found a very good relocation deal with Apollo: we had to bring the campervan from Christchurch to Auckland and we paid only 1$ per day! They also paid for a big part of the ferry crossing and gave us 250$ fuel credit, not bad?

Anyway, maybe it was the excitement to get a campervan again, like in Australia, that made us arrive late or not plan enough time to do everything before the rental companies close, but we had to sweat a little bit to get everything done!

Aurore had to keep the guys in Apollo busy and ask them 1000 questions about the van while Etienne was bringing back the rental car to the other company. She remembers about one very stupid question she asked about the water tank: "When do we know that we need to fill it up?" The lady from Apollo looked at her with a strange look that Aurore will never forget... She was ready to do everything she could to keep the agency open until Etienne came back... and we managed to do it!

On the road again

The van was brand new, however the interior was less functionnal

than the one we had in Oz...

North Island

The landscape was amazing during the ferry crossing

but Aurore's stomach does not manage boat trips very well...

After arriving on the North island, we drove half way between Wellington and Rotorua and made a stop in a crappy campsite. On the road, everything is green! (except for Etienne of course!)

Everyone has his way to express joy when facing such a nice setting!

Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!

Acrobatic joy!

We stopped by to some waterfall with an impressive flow: Huka falls.

Rotorua

Maori Art

After a long driving day, we finally arrived in Rotorua.
As we did not find any quiet place to sleep, we had to fall back to a carpark near a public garden with some toilets but closed for the night. :-/

Aurore was ashamed to do the dishes in the sink of the public toilets because there was a lot of people: a market was now open for business on the carpark! The song "Like a Hobo" was again more than appropriate!

Rotorua is a very touristic city thanks to its volcanicity: there are geysers and hot water springs everywhere.

There's boiling water just under the thin ground!

It didn't smell that good though...

New Zealand people apparently play a game similar to the French petanque except that the pitch is way bigger, the balls are a little bit bigger too and they dress up like cricket players!

We went for a hike in the forest around Rotorua and we found the famous plant representing the country: the silver fern.

You Jane, Me Tarzan!

Hot Water Beach

We hit the road again to get to Hot Water Beach where we were supposed to dig a hole and bath in the thermal water. Unfortunately, you can only do that at low tide and that day it was either at 4am or 5pm. And we still had a lot of kms to do before reaching Auckland and give back the van the next day...

Anyway, we still enjoyed the day by going to Cathedral Cove and went for a walk there.

The cove was absolutely beautiful!

The view from the top of the trail

Before handing over the keys, we stopped for a few photos of the van! :)

The 1st picture could be on an Apollo flyer, we can't say the same for the 2nd one ;)

Auckland

Auckland is a coastal city where we took some rest. We were quite tired of the last few days because of a lot of driving. There's not much to see in Auckland city anyway.

The harbour area is very nice:

A beautiful sailing boat

Ok, our next world tour will be on a boat! :)

Gigantic sun bathing seats on the quays

We're starting to lose our tan...

Next stop: South America!

To conclude, New Zealand is a beautiful country to discover if you like nature and amazing landscapes. It reminded us of Ireland, in bigger of course, but without the Irish people :( We missed the ambiance... Moreover we did not find the authenticity we look for in every country since the start of our trip. Maybe we're less impressionable?

One thing to note, campervan trips in NZ are not cheap, it's difficult to find a place to sleep without paying for a place in a camp site, the opposit of Australia where everything is made for this kind of trips.