thanx

to Nessi ...

... for safty driving through all road conditions

 to Niki ...

... for predicting the right way to next destination

to all Kiwis ...

... who crossed our life-line on our journey through New Zealand

to you folks...

... for staying tuned and reading my blog 

And finally my very special thanks goes to Flora...

... for sharing all these undescribeable moments!
... for attending brave in all crazy adventures!
... for being a incredible travel mate and friend!
... for making my day with all your daily comments ;-)
... for taking care on me (fasten seatbelts, fire alarm, protecting against sunburn,  ... )

PS: have a look at her detailed blog

http://catfairytales.blogspot.com/

quotes to remember ...

... privat flushmaster, kamikatze, blinker fail, have u seen the flash? which flash its nice weather? aha then it was a speedbox, cookie! yomnomnom, horse race,  blanket-thief, to the all black store? (3rd time a day), chocolate mint! yomnomnom, u might get killed, drive on the left side, doublechecker, schlurf-schlurf "good morning "schlurf schlurf" *close bathroom*, chocolate now!, did u wanted your chips?, don´t drive so quick - why don´t u overtake him?, from north to south toiletpaper get thicker,  the car leaks! no. i see it! gas? no! what else? I dont know! have a look! ahja well air condition, kiwi enter sandman headbang, skill 211 (grapping waterbottle behind seat), 212 (grapping waterbottle behind seat without look), I have the feeling to tell kiwi-grandma we are on the way, horses are sensible, cheeseplate! yomyom, I hate blue cheese!, 10% of iceberg, stop! *break* why do u stop here?, iik iik iik iik, look! what? hey keep your eyes on the track!, when u eat an apple u bounce during your drive, from which hight should i jump - 9,000 or 12,000? rock, paper, scissors - 12,000! oh fuck!, and to the fergburger some fries please! fuck that´s half an kilogram! here u are i´m full!, when i cant finish my meal i convince other to eat. how? i put it on their plate!, tiktiktiktik (noise by searching a radio frequency), where are the towels and blanket?, cool - italian dish from germans in new zealand - wtf?!, (waitress) anything else? that´s all! hä? (waitress) das ist alles! (Flora) hää? sounds german!,  salatburger - a burger without meat with salat, don´t picture me when i take photos, make a photo from hip above! hä where is my head?, u´re so slowly - in case of an emergeny (fire alarm) u have to be prepared and grap all your stuff at once! what had u done when we are on fire? ähm i would grap faster?!?, how should i close my suitcase? bind the shoes outside! hey cool more space for gifts and souveniers! i don´t listen to you! well i haven´t say anything!? what noise is it? such a brummen! how does it taste? as such things!, *closing drivers sunshild by fellow passenger* i´ve got the feeling u can not see on the track! WTF?!, looks like a high plateau, doesn´t it!? mhh ... well cause of the light (Licht)? How smells (richt) a high plateau? LIGHT .. cause of the LIGHT! You have to say "thank YOU" and not "u´re welcome"!, don´t worry about the trousers on the picture. I will cut this weg, there was a forest park in the middle of the green, there are no radio stations in the forest, on which side do you want to sleep? - I've already decided, would you like have something to sleep before eat?, Sheeep!!! - Look on the street!!, ALTER SCHWEDE, are the dings in the front?, uuuuuuuuuiiiiiii, I am, I have, I must sleep, Reumannplatz - umsteigen zu den Linien 66A, 67A und 70A, ...

THANX 

Manuel

leaving a place like home

Neither Flora nor me talked a lot in the morning. We did check out at 10am and ordered a shuttle bus to delivery us to airport at 8:00pm. We stored luggage at hotel and moved towards harbour for whale watching experience...

Happy holding boarding card for the boat in both hands, we hat a plenty of time. So we strolled down the dock.

After short lunch we entered boat and our capitain shipped us to a few smaller island in front of the coast to watch out for whales. Sitting first row on a boat at windy weathter means getting wet - we sat first row - AND yes - we had some salty shower along the way :-)

first row :-)

Finding a whale in open water without any technical equipment takes time. Whales just move to surface for 30 seconds and than dive into deep for next 3-5 minutes. In this time they change directions, which makes it not very easy to follow them. But finally we had luck and saw a small whale popping up twice to take breath close to our ship.

Returning to harbour we enjoyed the beautful skyline of Auckland and internalized all last appearing impressions.

skyline Auckland

Back to solid ground we searched a restaurant for our last dinner in New Zealand. And lucky we are, we found a pretty nice and really amazing one in a side street of Queen Street named Cassette.

look at the phrase leftside behind us... ONE OF THESE DAYS

Jep! True! It was ONE OF THESE DAYS .. we will never forget!!!

AND finally thus ends the story, because this is not the right place for any emotional bits and pieces!! ;-)

But believe - neither it was easy to take a convenient seat at airplane nor breathing constantly during take-off   ...

New Zealand - ka kite anò!

 

 

Auckland

Last day in New Zealand. Days ago, we booked a whale watching tour as a final experience of our vacation. Before we started walk to harbour we got up the Skytower to have a full 360° view over Auckland.

On the way to the top of the city we had to pass another Weta store at the entrance (elevator) of Skytower - and we swept away into world of shown attractions ...

Back on the bottom, we explored city on the way to harbour. There are a lot of shops at Queen Street.

Our frustration was so big, as they told us at whale-watching office counter, that our trip was canceled coused on rough sea. Most visitors would get seasick, so what?!?

Puuuhhh, that was not really planned indeed - and we were really sad. Even the fact, that the friendly woman at the counter put us on bookinglist for next day generated any joy. Now we had more than 5 hours which we had not expected to have ... and what do speed addicted people when they have time? Right! Get the next kick. We entered office of Scream Machine Ride, which is similar to Shotover Jet Ride in Queenstown - just in harbour and on open sea.

Well I have to say - this was not that thrilling ride as we had in Queenstown, but after 40 minutes, we were completely wet from tip to toe. Having lunch at a sunny place on esplanade of harbour to get clothes dry, we moved back to hotel and started second shopping tour on the way :-)

Finally the moment we were afraid of appeared - packing suitcase for leaving New Zealand...

leaving south island

Day moving forward  to north island has come. By leaving Dunedin, we noticed how quick days and weeks of our vacation has passed. And there were only 2 days left to return back to Europe :-(

So, the very fist hour of travel towards Christchurch was really quiet one. Neither Flora nor me could divide  happiness. Even weather was similar to our feelings - cloudy and a few raindrops falling...

leaving Dunedin

On the way to Christchurch we stopped a few times to catch and inhale last impressions of beach and lonely seasites.

lonely beach

last walk on beach

Sun came out and with her happiness back. The thoughts of soon end of vacation disappeared finally by a funny pic shooting on a playground close to beach...

see ya

feel free

inhale last impressions of loneliness beach after shooting

In a town in between half way from Dunedin to Christchurch we saw a colony of pinguines.

Before we returned rented car we descided to drive through Christchurch. Well, a lot of streets were closed, many houses were damaged or even completely destroyed by earthquakes of the last weeks and days. Affected by these pictures we moved onreturning the car.

I can recommend ACE Car Rental Service, because...

• it was cheap, 
• they have a realy good service 
• and the return was quick and easy. 

At airport we had time to finally say good bye to southern hemisphere by chilling at the green in front of tower.

Flight with Jetstar was without any problems. So we arrived in Auckland at 8:00am at took a taxi to Skyhotel.

First we thought our hotel would be close to the famous Skytower BUT our hotel was directly located at bottom of Skytower :-) It was an amazing view looking above by entering the builing for check-in.
 
2 nights to go before leaving New Zealand at all... :-(

chocolate, beer and cinema

Dunedin is almost a sweet city, because of the chocolate factory named Cadbury. So, it was a must to do the guided tour to get all necessary facts about.

We booked day before a tour at 11am. Well, our guide remunerated each correct answer on questions after motion video of Cadbury. Guess?! Right, Flora did a great job, and earned some sweet! During tour we had experience to be within the world biggest chocolate-fontain. It was a scary noise as chocolate started to fall down, but it was really amazing. Used chocolate will be recycled and used for this attraction for at least a year, befor feed to pigs.

left silo contains chocolate fontain :-)

 Well, after tour Flora was in heaven because tour ended directly at THE CHOCOLATE store :-)

Flora @ chocolate-heaven

It was an interesting tour, but for all male readers, who gonna join Dunedin I recommend tour of Speights brewery as well :-D

Before guided tour at the brewery started, we had a plenty time to sightsee Dunedin.

train station (at the end of street)

chinese garden

After short lunch, the tour at 2:00am guided us through all stages of brewery process. AND attention please: The tour ended directly in men's heaven - a tasting bar with possibility to draw beer on your own for next 30 minutes to come. Aja, there are a plenty of different kinds u can draw and should taste :-D I actually read few days before a perfectly fitting phrase ... "beware hangover by stying drunk".

6 different kinds of beer to draw

Beer-mission accomplished we fall back to serious culture sightseeing. During exploring city we decided spontanously to watch new Sherlock Holmes movie at Dunedins cinema Hoyts. After changing wardrobe we were prepared for cinema.

it is not Sherlock Holmes banner, but I like MIB, too :-D

So the evening ended after a sweet startup in the morning at Cadbury and tasty beer at Speights, with big popcorn and coke at Hoyts - good day, wasn't it?!? :-)

By the way, this cinema was really comfortable! Back to hotel, we fall late asleep and looked forward to our last destination on southern hemisphere -airport Christchurch.

Dunedin

Leaving beautiful landscapes of Te Anau we drove today ahead next stop in Dunedin.

Well, it was a ride of 2 1/2 hours to get us from westcoast to eastcoast of southern hemisphere.

Actually it was an unspectacular ride, though we passed a street which crossed runway of an small airport closed to Dunedin. Well, it was a little bit confusing, reading the sign beside road "stop by flashing lights", whithout seeing any crossing.

Tomorrows aim is to explore the city and take part in guided tour through chocolate company Catburry and Speights brewery, too.

Milford Sounds

First night in Te Anau was a hard one.

• First ...
  ... there were no blankets or towels in our room, because it was an Holiday Park - that means actually u have to bring with all your own stuff.
  
• Second....
  ... the bed were so weak and u could feel each single spring of mattress. 

Evening before, we met 3 nice and funny Dutch men, who sponsored free beer. Thanks guys, we had a great evening.

Nevertheless we had to get up early morning, because we booked a boat trip in fjordland of Milford Sounds. Bus picked us up at 7:30am at hotel reception. The ride to Milford Sounds took about 2 hours with a few stops at wonderfull places of landscape along the rode. There was a stop at the mirror lakes, or the mountainpass we had to pass.

Mirror Lakes

mountain pass

Arriving in Milford We walked directly on the big three-master. But we did not hoist the sail but gone pushed by engine.

Milford Mariner

It was a wonderfull and hot day, but on boat it was really windy so we packed ourselves into warm windproteting clothes. On tour through the fjords we saw dolphins, seals beautiful landscape and waterfalls.

After 2 1/2 hours we returned to harbour and got back to bus. On way back to Te Anau we stopped again at several lovely and beautiful places.

The Chasm

Due to the fact it was a really hot day and short sleepless night, Flora soon fall asleep on the busride. Well, now we need a good chiropractor to fix her neck, because at her "power naps" she behaved like a slow-motion headbanging rockstar :-D Back at hotel, we had a short walk to supermarket and soon fall asleep after a long day.

Now days of extreme speed entertainment has gone, and we look forward to practise in sightseeing in Dunedin and Auckland too.

would u?

It was day we had to leave Queenstown. Lagguage already packed day before, I jumping out of bed to check weather behind dark curtains. Blue colored sky - perfect. 

We did check out but left car and all lagguage at hotel and walked to NZONE office at Shotoverstreet. Cause we had a plenty time Flora started thinking about a skydive jump, too. So she descided to give it a try from in case there was an opportunity to do. Well, actually we played Paper Stone Scissors at which hight (9,000 or 12,000 ft) she has to leave plane - 9,000 ft vs. 12,000 ft ... guess! Right 12,000 ft was the result :-D

After short motion video, and signing a paper of risks (don´t worry about the sentence "u might get killed"), we were driven to a small airport (well - let's call it a loooong green line) placed in southeast of Queenstown. Flora asked at office desk - and lucky girl she is - there was possibility to get on plane as well and do a skydive. From then on, we both were excited at all. But seeing jumpers landing save we were absolut convinced, doing right decision.

Getting prepared and introduced by staff how to beheave in free fall, do the "banana" and how to hop off the plane - adventure started.

It was a really small airplane pushed by propeller. Flora and me ordered full package, which means getting a DVD and pics from each jump! So camera man attend flight/ jump all time. So 8 people entered that small plane.

• One guy from Australia with his tandem master (he didn't ordered any package), 
• Flora her tandem master and her camera man, 
• me and mine 2 "jump-buddies" as well. 

The higher plane rose, the more adrenalin was pumped through veins. Doors opend first time and the Aussie left plane. Soonly followed by Flora. After each jumpoff plane shaked very strongly. This is a really undescribeable feeling.

My camaera man read a few sites of a book. Cause they do it 10 times a day, they get used to the thrill as quite normal.

Green light flashed. We prepared goggles and gloves. Bonded to tandem master Steve, we slipped to openening door. Plane become again slowlier and first cam guy climbed out beside plane to film my bail out. Man - believe sitting on the edge, watching deep to mother earth, seeing cam man having a big grin on his face, ...

... and off u go with a spin so that u see plane getting out of your focus...

... finally spin back towards diveposition ...

... these are seconds u are not able to explain to anybody else. 15,000 ft means 60 seconds free fall with 200kmh. In those seconds we spinned round cam guy and made faces for movie. Stopped in a jar when parachute opened, Steve and me floated 6 minutes towards ground. Even this feeling hanging above in this hight and gliding through air - awesome awesome awesome!!!

Back on earth Flora and me had the biggest grin ever on our faces! Full pumped with speed and happiness we got back to hotel and drove to Te Anau.


First hour was really a quiet drive cause both we stll captured in this freefalling-feeling. Finally we arrive small village Te Anau.

... back to question ...
... would u jump out of an airplane in 15,000 ft (5000m)?!?

WE DID!!