A place like a story book - New Zealand

19.11.2016 - 30.11.2016

Let’s start with a mellow documentatioin of the jump to chilly mountain stream in New Zealand:

From Australian heat to fresh New Zealand mountains

The last days in Australia were relaxing: short walks and simply taking it easy. Now it was time to move on to New Zealand by myself. I booked the flight couple of weeks in advance.

Of course I didn’t have travel company or a plan.

Just before my flight I found an Austrian backpacker from a Facebook group who had similiar schedule than me. We decided to rent a campervan together for a week and a half to go around the South Island.

A common thought while traveling is to think the worst case scenarios. Making a deal with a random person is a potential situation for financial losses. The other person may cancel her plans when the car has already been paid. Another uncertainty factor was the deadly eartquake that occured in New Zealand just a few days before my arrival. BBC news .

Yes, it’s possible that she would cancel but not very likely. You shouldn’t lose your sleep because of that. Rather, prepare that something unexpected will happen during your trip and acknowledge that the most of the things will work out just fine. When I was traveling in Asia we once booked a hotel for a wrong day and transfered one flight to another day.

The travel plan gets its blessing

The travel plan was massaged with a a Russian priest living in New Zealand during the flight from Sydney to Christchurch.

I slept the first night in a hostel close to the airport. The next morning when I was heading up towards city center and a cheaper hostel I happened to ask the bus schedules from a man.

We ended up to talk this and that. He revealed an interesting nuance from his job. Every year he spends one month in Antarctica taking care of energy supply of a scientific station. I had to make sure that he was actually talking about the South Pole rather than the Antarctica museum next to bus station.

Tacos in the Jailhouse garden on a sunny Sunday afternoon pic.twitter.com/V67CsoYTwK
— jailhouse (@jailhouse) 20. marraskuuta 2016

The second day in New Zealand started with a taco meal offered by the hostel staff.

On the third day I went to Christchurch city center to get the rent car. It was - well - an experience to drive a manual transimission vehicle on left side roads while the car’s old engine was begging to stop.

To be honest I was terrified while navigating though the busy city traffic towards the Southern Alps. But I managed it. Besides, the first time I drove a scooter was in Philippines.

The days were mostly driving, having some food and doing short hikes to see some beautiful sceneries. And boy, was there some nice lookouts. The whole country was like painted in a story book. Let the photos tell the rest.