Last day on NZ!!!

It's the last day on NZ which is quite incredible. Time really flies when you are having fun. The last couple of days have really been filled with fun especially the black water rafting in Waitomo, the place we went to after Rotorua. The Waitomo is made up of karst which is limestone that have been weathered and eroded into large underground tunnel- and cave systems. Water is important in this weathering process so usually you can find lots of water in the tunnels. We went in wearing wet suits and carrying a floating ring that we used going through the parts with deep water. I think everyone had the most fun though jumping backwards over small water falls holding the ring against the bum. You could get quite a good splash from that jump.

From Waitomo we drove up to the Coromandel peninsula which we didn't get to see much of the first day since we drove that after dark. It wasn't too exciting in the day light though except the huge Kauri trees that can become thousands of years old. Most of them were cut down in the beginning of the last century but a few are still standing looking amazing.

Yesterday we drove into Auckland. We are staying at a hostel in the central part and will get two hours today to do the city. We had a walk around yesterday (city excursion), but didn't get to do any shopping so I will do my very best today. I know a few stores that I want to visit.

The flight to Tonga leaves at 3.30PM and we will arrive at 7.20PM (Tonga time). We are being picked up from the airport on the main island to go to a smaller island where i guess you only can find the resort we are staying at. It is supposedly very narrow and 3 km in length.

I think this will be the last I write on this trip. I hope you all have enjoyed it!!! I will let you know when I am safe and sound at home!!! First a couple of pictures though!!!


Flying over Napier.

2500 meters up in the air on the volcanoe Mt Ruapehu. The crater lake is visible in the background (if you look really close).

Getting ready for the black water rafting experience in the Waitomo caves.

From Napier ... to Rotorua

Hello again!!!

It's getting harder and harder to get some useful Internet time here. But we got four hours off this afternoon in Rotorua and the price for Internet at the public library was the best so far.

We left Napier on Sunday and drove quite a slippery gravel road for a while. The big vans didn't have a problem, but the Mazda was all over the place for a while. Luckely it wasn't the most busy street on NZ. At night we ended up at the bottom of the largest mountain (it is a volcanoe) on the North Island. I don't remember the spelling of the name (there are lots of Maori names up here) but it was one of two volcanoes that was focus for the Lord of the Rings movies. The other one was visible from the first one.

The next day we went on a guided hike up to the crater lake of the volcanoe. I think the hike took about 6 hours in sometimes quite steep terrain. It was a beautiful hike though since we were lucky with the weather again!!! Probably the best part of the day was sliding downhill in the thick layer of volcanic ash. It was also an efficient way to get down. I think it took about four hours to get to the crater lake and walking around up there and one to two hours to get down again. I think the guide said that the volcanoe is the largest ski area in NZ or maybe it just was on the North Island. Anyway the moon landscape with lots of boulders laying around everywhere gets covered with about 4 meters of snow in about a month. There were a few glaciers on top too, and a so called dead ice which was more of a glacial field because it was all flat except some holes into the ice.

On the way to Taupo that afternoon we stopped for a visit in a geothermally heated pool. It was great especially since the lift ride down from the volcanoe was quite cold.

Today we have only driven from Taupo to Rotorua which is about one to two hours drive. We still managed to stop at Crater of the Moon (a geothermally active spot that more or less was craeted by humans when too much water was used in a geothermally power station which made the ground around the station to collapse and g. activity reaching the surface) as well as at the power station that created CotM.

We were planning to visit a Maori centre today, but the prices had risen so much since last time our supervisor was there so we decided not to. Instead we are spending the afternoon in Rotorua trying to work on our project.

Tomorrow we will drive to Waitomo Caves for some exciting cave activities with glowing worms!!! I'm excited!!!

Napier...from the air!!!

Y and I arrived late Thursday evening after a long drive from the ferry terminal in Wellington. The drive wan't very pleasant since it was pooring rain and got dark already around 6.30 PM. I drove the whole way though :O) since it was quite exciting to drive in those conditions.

We tried to sum up our field work yesterday but also had time for a long walk around some parts of Napier (we were searching for the town center but ended up in the container harbour).

Today I got the opportunity to see Napier and surroundings from the air which was really cool! Y and I wanted to do that on the South Island too, since we knew we could get a great overview of our study area. We never got arround to it though, not until now. It was a very small plane with only four seats and I thought it would be more scary than flying with a "regular" plane, but it wasn't. It actually felt more safe.

We are back on the road tomorrow for some last days on the North Island. We are flying out of Auckland on the 26th.

Nelson!

We are staying at the highest rated BBH in Nelson at the moment (but still cheaper than four of the other places we've stayed at). It is really great especially since Wireless Internet is free to use. So I will finally be able to tell you what have happened the last couple of days.

Before leaving Bank's Peninsula we went for a long walk out on this volcanic remain in the middle of the Akaroa caldera. The weather was beautiful so Y even went for a swim. We planned to go all the way to Lake Tekapo on the 10th but ended up in Methven which is situated a few hours north of LT. There was to much to see along Rakaia river so we didn't have time to drive any further. Our stay in Methven wasn't to exciting, but at least breakfast was included in the price for the YHA.

On the 11th we continued our drive south. The big adventure for the day was the hike pretty much straight up a hill. I think it was about 1 km straight up into the sky. It took us about an hour. What was kind of funny with that walk was that when we got half way we saw this car parking in the car park below and before we new it we had this jogger passing us. He ran straight up the hill!!! At least the view was amazing when we got to the top!Finally we managed to get to Lake Tekapo. The hostel wasn't that nice though, but we met the first couple of Swedes on this trip (we didn't really hang out thought). The next day we probably found the best excursion locale on the whole trip. Mt John by Lake Tekapo. From the top of Mt John you could get a good view of the glacial processes that had been at work in the area as well as the fluvial processer that have been at work since the last ice age.

From Mt John we drove all the way to Wanaka. To get some excitement into the car we actually picked up a French hitchhiker that was going in the same direction. We didn't stay at the same place in Wanaka at last time and I don't know if the place we chose was that much better, but at least we got our separate toilet and shower this time. We decided after this night to only pick small places to stay at since those usually are more cozy (e.g. the hostel at Barry's Bay).

Before driving over Haast Pass (again) to the west coast we made a little de-tour (again). This time to Mt Aspiring National Park. We couldn't get all the way at first though since we didn't want to push our little Mazda over a deep ford. After some convincing from another car driver we made the swim over the ford with our Mazda. We didn't do the whole walk when we finally reached the parking lot though to a valley where there supposedly would be Kea-parrots. We were quite happy with our lunch stop though with a great view of Mt Ansted.

It took us about six hours to get where we wanted to stay for the night (Okarito). It was really worth the long drive. What a wonderful place. We couldn't see much of it at first though, since we arrived in the dark. Okarito is a small west coast village just 25 minutes from Franz Joseph glacier. It was difficult to find the hostel in the dark though especially since there were no one else staying in the hostel in it had a self check in system. The hostel used to be a small school until 1945. It only had 12 beds in two separate rooms. You could really hear the Tasman Sea through the night. This picture is from the morning after. Is it not just too cute? CAMILLA!!! I you read this we left a message for you in the guest book. Even if you are staying in a camper there is a camp site just one minute away which we recommend, and since it is a very open hostel you could always walk in and read what we wrote!

Before leaving Okarito which we wasn't to keen on we walked along the beautiful beach for quite some time looking at coastal processes of course. We could see both headlands, sand dunes and lagoons. During the drive along the west coast the weather changed from sunshine to rain which shouldn't be surprising since it rains a lot on the west coast. So we got the see the Pancake Rocks in a drizzle. We didn't mind though since we both spotted penguins and Y spotted dolphins (I was not too sure it was really dolphins though).

We spent the night in the middle of no where on a farm in a place called Inan..hua Junction or something. It was an alright stay even though we didn't appreciate all the flies.

Yesterday the weather was crappy. We had sunshine for about 5 minutes. We were able to find a very small hot spring that Y was very keen on trying out. It was not the best experience though since the place was full of sand flies. That's why Y is only in with her feet and wearing a mosquito hat. Before we left the hot spring we had to kill probably 30 to 50 sand flies in the car. And all through the day we killed a lot more than that.

Since the weather was bad we didn't get much done since we couldn't see much. So we headed of the the coastal town of Nelson where we are planning to sum up our experience today. We are staying at the Bugs (bil=bubbla) BBH where everything is surrounding the bug. We are staying in the Love Bug...but at least we got our own room! We even got chocolate on our bed...guess the shape of the chocolate - bug shaped of course. And they have egg cups formed as bugs too!

Tomorrow we are taking the ferry to the North Island! We will certainly miss the South Island.

Remember 100 is not the target!!!

All the way to the west coast!!!

It's been a while since I wrote last. I've seen a lot since then, mostly beautiful landscapes. I don't have much time now though, but thought I would just let you know that I'm still alive and enjoying the last couple of days of the South Island.

Wanaka's own bear enjoyed in the sunshine (again) waiting for the rest of the group to arrive (Y and I always seemed to be at least 30 minutes earlier than the rest to every new place).

More pictures...

The bridge to get to the Black Pools! There are lots of hanging bridges around and also one lane bridges for the vehicle traffic. (Left)

This is the beautiful house we stayed at during our visit to Blackball. Isn't it charming? (Down)

Pictures?!

What an amazing day at Franz Joseph glacier!!! Look at the sunshine!!!

Banks peninsula!!!

We have finally left the group and are doing the South Island all by ourselves. While the others have left for the North Island and Napier we are studying the SI more carefully. Banks peninsula have been the target for today (and probably for some time tomorrow). It is made up of two old shield volcanoes that have been eroded since Tertiary. We are staying at this beautiful hostel in Barry's Bay. We recommended it very much!!!

I've driven our Mazda for the first time today. I think Y survived the ride. I thinkn it went pretty well, but I have not dealt with any intersections and stuff like that yet. It is really confusing to have the blinker on the right side though.

This place actually has a wireless Internet connection (that is free) so I will do another try at uploading some images.

Our next plan is to do the Mount Cook route again. Our eyes were not really trained last time we drove that road so we are giving it another try. After that we are doing the Arthur's Pass or Lewis' Pass route.

On Thursday of next week we will take the ferry over to the North Island to meet up with the others at Napier before some touring of the island.

No pictures....this time either

It seems to be very difficult to upload any type of pictures on this blog. I've tried for 30 minutes now without any result. Men det som vantar pa nagot gott vantar ju aldrig for lange!!!

Wanaka...Fox...Blackball...Kaikoura

We have now come all the way to Kaikoura on the northern east coast. The trip here took us past Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph glacier where we made a walk on top of the glacier. From there we went to Blackball which is just east of Greymouth on the west coast. There we stayed at this fantastic charming hotel called Formerly the Blackball Hilton. The owners added Formerly to the name after being sued by Hilton International. One of the students had a less enjoyable evening because his bed was full of bed bugs that bit him all over. We had a quite long drive yesterday from Blackball to Christchurch over Arhur's Pass and then north to Kaikoura. Today though we have a day off more or less. Some are swimming with dolphins or whale watching. Four of us decided though to just be for the day. Y and I have to plan for our field work. The group is heading of to the north island tomorrow while we are staying down south. The weather so far has been wonderful. Sunny and warm. It was really nice climbing the glacier in sunshine. Today though is a bit worse. But no rain so far at least!

From Wanaka to Fox

It has been an exciting day! We have seen both the plate boundary between the Australian plate and the Pacific plate and some really nice coastal processes. The Tasman Sea is something special! We have also gotten to know the sand flies. I wouldn't call it a friendship :o). Tomorrow is the day for the big glacier walk (or whatever it is). NZ changes its time from summer to winter time tonight so we will all get an extra hours sleep which is needed!!! Gotta go! Time's up!

Alone

I wrote earlier that Y and I were following the rest of the group for the first 10 days and in the end of the trip. We are following, but not spending so much time with the group which I thought we were. Y and I are mostly out on our own adventures. We have all the groups luggage though so we always need to end up at the same place in the end of the day.

Hookers glacier...Queenstown...Wanaka

We had a beautiful day walking up to the Hookers glacier early in the morning before all the tourists invaded the place. It was about a three hour walk. After a lot of the time in the car the day before it was nice to move around for once. The afternoon was also spent in the car though going to Queenstown. It took about 4 hours from Mt Cook including a de-tour trying to find a road that wasn't there. We didn't get to see much of Queenstown, but Y and I will spend the whole day today in Wanaka. This is a beautiful but windy town where Y did her field work two years ago for her bachelor thesis. Hopefully we will get some stuff done organizing all the pictures of geomorphological landforms today. Tomorrow we will head up to Fox for a close up of a glacier (Franz Joseph). No pictures today either. Sorry!

Christchurc and Mt Cook

After about 28 hours in the air we finally arrived in Christchurch. After an afternoon (sunny and warm), evening (with HEAVY rain) and a morning (sunny) in C we began driving to Mt Cook, only stopping for geomorphological phenomena like the Canterbury Plain, especially the Rakaia river system. Now we are staying at the Alpine Lodge at Mt Cook until tomorrow when we will head to Queenstown after some glacier adventurs.

Hope to post some pictures soon!