Of Kiwis And Caves

You can probably imagine the story at this point. The Tongariro National Park was under a thick layer of clouds and mist, and the heavy rain made it hard to drive. According to the employee of the YHA hostel where we had booked a room, the forecast was even worse for the next days. The Tongariro National Park was the only place that we really wanted to see (and hike) in the North Island. With heavy hearts we accepted the situation, gave up on our plans and drove towards another touristic highlight of the island.

Hot ground

We cheated the weather forecasts in Coromandel, and so we hoped that in the end we might be lucky and travel with clear skies. Boy were we wrong! On the following days we got more rain and dark clouds than in the entire past year altogether.

Northern rain

The Maori name for New Zealand means "Land of the long white cloud" and we're starting to understand why. During the flight from Queenstown to Auckland we couldn't see the land beneath us at all, only a blanket of white rain clouds. We liked the South Island and weren't expecting much from the North, but the beginnings were even worse than we feared.

Last goodbyes in Queenstown

We passed by Christchurch again on our way, and again we ignored it completely. Although it still is an important city where most of the travelers start their trip around NZ, from what we heard it remains largely 'under construction' after the last big earthquake of 2011 and there's not much to see or do now. So we skipped it and made Lake Tekapo our first stop instead.

Swimming with seals in Kaikoura?

The road from Picton to Kaikoura is supposed to be one of the most scenic in the country. We may have seen too many coastal roads at this point to really enjoy it. Not to mention that we were hungry when we reached the scenic part, and not finding a place to stop for lunch didn't help. K even fell asleep as we were driving by. So instead we went right to the camping where we would spend two nights. The weather seemed good and warm enough to sleep in the tent again.

No pancakes in the north

As we started going up along the west coast, the scenery changed significantly - we still saw spectacular mountains in the interior, but the hills right next to the highway were covered with rain forest, everything was so green! We could have very well been in Laos, except the roads were not potholed and we were not riding a bus for 8 hours. However, the one lane bridges on the roads here provide excitement on their own.

From Wanaka to the Glaciers

The drive north towards Wanaka took us through the same roads that we had passed the week before, but the weather was nice enough to make it a pleasant drive again. Plus we picked up a German hitchhiker in Te Anau, and the conversation with him made the time pass faster. We left him in Queenstown and by lunch time we were already at the camping in Wanaka. It's still too cold for the tent, but hopefully not for a cosy little (heated) cabin.

Spooky Milford Sound

After leaving Curio Bay we continued further south along the Catlins coast, walked to Slope Point, the southernmost point of NZ South Island, and saw elephant seals by the Waipapa Point lighthouse. The southern coast didn't impress us as much as our guidebook promised it would have, except for the animal life of course. We were looking forward to see some mountains again!