After five weeks in superhot Australia (yes, on our last day in Adelaide, the thermometer hit 42°C), we were ready for a change. We both loved the red continent but imagined that New Zealand has lots of lots of stuff to offer as well. And we should be right. Never have my eyes seen so many different landscapes in such proximity. There are glaciers, there are volcanoes, there are turquoise crater lakes, there is freshly green rainforest, there are dolphins, there are parrots, there are remote villages, there is lovely Welligton. I could go on and on and on with this enumeration – New Zealand is a country where your eyes get spoilt, for sure!!! But not only the nature convinces tourists like us to come again, the people in NZ are just amazingly friendly, relaxed and always ready to help!! We felt so welcomed!
After having been on the road for five months and always having to rely on public transport, we opted for a camper van in NZ – our baby PACMAN! We could finally unpack our backpacks for THREE weeks!!! and had a place to call “home”. Whenever we felt like going some other place, we did so. I really enjoyed this completely different, yet extremely free and unlimited, way of travelling. Although driving more than 4400km in 23 days, it was fairly easy driving and thus we thoroughly enjoyed the countless hours we spent inside the car as much as we loved hopping out the van and going for a hike. In fact, the day we had to drop off “our” PACMAN was a sad one. Suddenly we had to carry our backpacks again, had to share a hostel room with other people, were “stuck” in Auckland and had to take the bus again to get to places. However, being able to go and take a shower whenever we wanted rather than sneaking into hostels and looking for the bathroom without revealing that we weren’t actually guests in that hostel, was one of the great advantages staying at a hostel again 🙂
Auckland was the last stop of our travels through NZ. Luckily we even spotted a Kiwi bird at Auckland Zoo on the day before we left the country. What a great end to an amazing time in down under!!!
missionweltreise2013 