Quick overview of my vacation in New Zealand

I can not believe I am already back from my NZ trip. Time has gone way too fast and I am wondering if it was all just a beautiful dream or if it really happened. The south island of NZ is absolutely wonderful and I would like to go back one day soon to do all the things we missed out on due to our limited time. I just want to write a little outline of my trip and will explain in more details of all the different places we went to at another time.

We set out to circle the south island and pick our favourite spots, and so we did. We flew over to Christchurch on a very cheap return ticket and picked up our two berth campervan from the friendly staff at the ‘Explore More’ campervan hire place. We then got ourselves packed up and ready to explore the city centre.

Christchurch is a very small and romantic city; some old architecture and the river with its many little bridges make it a very lovely place. We then travelled south east about an hour away to a little town called Akaroa, which is hidden behind hills and windy roads. We travelled at night time and missed out on the view at night but caught up on it the next day when we returned to Christchurch and towards the north. Our next stop was Hanmer Springs, where we enjoyed a soak in natural hot springs, enriched with many minerals.

We then travelled to the north where I visited my friend in Motueka, near Nelson.

We spend a day and a half catching up and enjoyed the beaches and mountain views of the area. Then it was time to say good bye and move on heading south to the magnificent views and walks of the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. What a hike but worth every step of it.

Heading further south to visit the wonderful Queenstown, taking a lake cruise and climbing the mountains in a comfortable way, by gondola… Well comfortable for me, my partner Mark on the other hand was extremely nervous as he has a huge phobia of heights, but we made it up to the top and all the way down again, unharmed. We then had a bit of unlucky weather and rain accompanied us parts of the way to Mount Cook. Even though we were washed out by rain a bit, this was one of the places I enjoyed the most; I will definitely go back one day.

After a picnic at Lake Tekapo, we headed back to Christchurch to explore more of the city and return our van to spend our last night in a nice hotel.

It took nine days, close to 2000km, six tanks of fuel and many hours on the road, but now we have circled most of the south island and had some spectacular experiences. I will definitely go back and explore more of the southern part as we had to bypass some of the towns as we had only little time left to return to Christchurch for our return flight. We had a great time and I will tell you much more in my next blogs…