Hello there again.

Although by the time this is being written, my journey in Oz is about to finish and next one in Asia to start, I will try to cover my time in this land down under as well as I can.

I can divide my time here into 3 parts:

I - Welcoming the Oz
II - My life here as a maintainace person
III - Exploring the outback

But once again, everything in it’s own logical order. Have a bit patience, and you will read about this fabulous country as best I can possibly deliver.

cheers

There it is. Beginning of the end. After 3 weeks on the road packed with driving, seeing and experiencing the kiwi, it’s time to take some days off before leaving. Just doing not much at all. A perfect place to do that is not far from Christchurch and called Akaroa. To make things interesting, it’s accessed again by a single road, that can’t be more than 50km from Christchurch, but takes more than an hour to do because of the roads that are going up and down, left right, u-turns etc. But once you get there, it’s just perfect place to sit down, relax, have a glass of wine and think about the recent events.

Night before handing over the hired Palmy keys to rental company, it’s last chance to test it’s limits to the really extreme. 10 km from Christchurch there is this good road with almost no traffic at all that has the curves and has the edge (of falling 100m downhill if not having brakes on time). And as a cherry on a cake, there’s awesome cliff on top of the mountain where one can use climbing skills to get on top of it. Quite bit of free fall on the sides. Probably not meant for going on top. But, hey, we’re just silly tourists, eh.

And about Christchurch. Well, it’s a nice town. Yeah.

And this is it. The end of this sub-journey. It’s been good. And it’s been even better while writing this all down along these 2 months afterward. Living it all over again and bringing you - or at least trying my best while at it - the feel of this country. If I managed to make you even just a tiny bit jealous, then don’t worry. 50% of it is Photoshop and other 50% are the stories I exaggerated a bit

But next one is just about to begin. See you in OZ!

More time on the road. Destination: Milford Sounds / Fjordland. One cannot underestimate the beauty of this region. Photos that I’ve seen from this place have been totally amazing. Milford Sounds can only be accessed by a dead end road from down south. With no petrol stations on the way or in the end kind of mystify that place even more.

But once again. Let’s not rush things ahead of us.

There are kilometers uncounted, scenery unseen, roads untraveled, glaciers not conquered before the destination. First time throughout the beeing in NZ, this is the first really cloudy day (probably due to the geographical position it’s like that in this region most of the time). Therefore, the famous glaciers with the fastest moving everlasting ice on it, remain in the distance of a view this time.

After a quiet start in the glaciers, Te’Anau is the target for tonight. It is the closest place to Milford Sounds (a bit under 200km) to spend the night in. But thanks to exceeding abilities of the good old Palmy on the mountain-roads, the 7-hour trip is cut to 6-hour one and nice cottage on top of another mountainside is waiting for the sleepy and tired travelers few hours before midnight.

Next day. Milford Sounds.

Starting this journey along the ‘road that has an end’ of course surprises with the road sign of ‘better tank up if you wanna make it back’. And thanks to the fact that this sign was about 25 km-s forward from the last gas station, it means an instant 50 km extra. I mean, what the hell, why didn’t you put the sign after the last gas station? But, no worries. Palmy is quick and Palmy is enthusiastic.

All good, the journey starts. Half of the road is nicely on flat between gigantic hills.

And continues through these.

And this is it. Milford Sounds. Unfortunately, it’s way way to windy here. So the picture of crystal clear fjords between snowy mountains is only a dream today.

After a 3 hour boat-cruise along the fjord up to the ocean and back, it’s time to head back to the civilization again. So, was the whole thing worth it? I think it was. Not quite what I was expecting, but then again, lot of places never are, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it. Maybe in some quiet and still early morning during the sunset, the place would look a lot better. Maybe next time..

Waking up about 6am to catch the morning ferry. To make things more interesting, there are huge winds, rain and sky looks like there’s gonna be storm arriving any minute. Nice weather for crossing to south island!

However, once we get on the ferry and start moving, things settle down a bit. And sun is peeking out behind some clouds.

By the afternoon, when reaching the famous winery region in Marlborough, weather couldn’t be better. Another good example how suddenly can nature and conditions change here.

After tasting more than 20 wines and back seat loaded with wine bottles, it’s time to take heading for Able Tasman National Park for ocean-kayaking and some great mountain trails. Fellow travelers who we’ve met have spoken great things about this place. Hopes are high.

And we didn’t have to disappoint. It was great! Although when gearing up and instructor showing how to use emergency signal fare, it felt a bit insecure. But only for a brief moment..

Following day continues on the road.

And there it is - Niva - a proud product of soviet era. Just sitting on the side of the road. With modified steering wheel for left-side traffic, this all-wheeler has seen quite a few days on these New Zealand rough tracks. With broken glasses and few hits and bumps taken along the way, it seemed to be in surprisingly good working order with not so worn tires and decent interior. Wouldn’t mind taking few rounds myself chasing sheep or just spitting mud under the wheels

Nightfall comes with enormous ‘pancake rocks’ on the coastline. A sight worth seeing.

Sunday’s highlight

Last days in north island.

Wellington. It’s a nice town. Or a city. Or maybe a mix of them both. A bit of creativity is in the air around here. You have these nice old houses in contrast with modern citylife. If it weren’t so windy here I could possibly even live here. There are couple of good interactive agencies here also. Definitely a place worth checking out longer than my 2 nights.

Okay. First things firsts. This is somewhere on the way. I’d say it’s fair to consider sheep to be the national animal of NZ, and not kiwi. Cause you these guys everywhere. Even in the back of a ute as you can see, though they look better on landscape, purely from a photographic perspective. As for kiwis - the birds that can’t fly and supposedly lived here (and only here) - I couldn’t see even one other than in museum.

So what’s happening? Take a look for yourself. Don’t hesitate to use fullscreen again.

To be really honest, it’s not really a standard saturday. But then again, I have not spent another saturday here except this one, so I can’t really be sure. Maybe they do that every week. Which would be kind of cool I guess.

It all starts from sports. Like in every british colonised country. Either footy, soccer or as in this case - rugby. As it turnes out, it’s the final of the Sevens (apparently biggest sports event in NZ - a rugby match). So what they do here is close the streets and put the big displays out for people to watch the final games. In the city center. I mean, think about the dedication to the sport. They go wild, just for this one game. It’s incredible. And since the game is being held here in Wellington stadium then there’s a tradition that people make their way around to the streets of city center partying afterwards. Of course everybody is dressed up and all. But not into these fancy dresses and partywear. They find it more interesting to do it in make-out-your-own-costume sort of way.

Oh, and we are probably the only people who did not plan to be in Wellington on that saturday night. Just another coincidence to be here in this time. Good luck of a dumb traveller again. Nice!