Freitag, 5. Dezember 2014

New Zealand

12.11.2014 - 02.12.2014

On the 12th of November I eventually left my beloved Australia to go to its little sister, New Zealand. I felt like since I probably won’t be that close to NZ again within the next couple months, why not just go and check out what it has to offer.

After a relatively short flight from Sydney, I arrived in Christchurch on the late night of the 12th/early morning of the 13th of November, and decided to crash at the airport to save money and the transfers to the hostel and back. At 9:45am the Stray bus picked me up to get to my first stop of my three-week-trip.
My route looked a little something like this, with my first stop being Kaikoura.



 In Kaikoura we had the chance to experience wild dolphins by either watching them from a boat, or even swimming with them. I went with the latter, and did not regret the decision, even though that meant getting up at 4:45AM (!!!) and jumping into the ice cold sea. We were extremely lucky to have about 100 dolphins around us. You must keep in mind that the dolphins are wild and not trained at all!
Here’s just a small impression of how amazing this tour was, though I thought it was a bit pricey.


 Wellington's Cuba Street - one of my favorite places in NZ.
 The following pictures are a compilation of some of my favorite shots. These two were taken in a small surfer town called Raglan, on the North island.


 We stopped at a place called Lake Aniwhenua overnight and got to experience some Maori tradition. It started with a Maori hangi, food cooked in earth, and was followed by other traditions, such as bracelet weaving, bread making, and eel fishing.

 Boiling mud baths close to Rotorua. You can’t really stand close to them for longer than a couple minutes, or you will puke due to the smell.

 At the Blue Duck Station in Whakahoro, we hiked up the Top of the World for a total of 4-5 hours to get a view like this.



 Blue Duck Farm in Whakahoro.


Wifi in New Zealand is rare, and if you find any you will hardly find it for free.

SKYDIVE IN ABEL TASMAN! Pretty amazing experience and an indescribable feeling to jump out of a plane from 13.000ft/4km. BEFORE picture with my favorite Dutchies, who also attempted the skydive...










AFTER picture...



Queenstown was a bit of an adventure. This town offers anything you can think of to give you the ultimate adrenaline kick. I watched a friend drop down the canyonswing (for free, since he won it….lucky maaan) but didn’t dare to attempt it myself. We also got to try the world’s best burger (according to CNN), the Fergburger. Personally, I still prefer In-N-Out.






Lastly, I did my New Zealand trip through Stray travel, but would not recommend traveling through Stray. On one of my first bus trips the bus driver made a mistake and no-showed me, even though I had been on the bus all along. I then got kicked off the bus at the next station, in Raglan, and thus missed Waitomo, my highlight of the North island. When I called the office right after the incident, they did not only tell me it was pretty much my fault for miscommunicating with the driver, but did not offer me a reimbursement of any kind, until after my 5th e-mail, to which they replied to offer me $100NZD, which is still only a fraction of the $799NZD I paid for the bus pass. If you are going to NZ, I’d really recommend to just take the public buses, or the Intercity or Naked bus, that is not guided, but way cheaper, and in my opinion, way more organized. Furthermore, while we were on the Stray bus, we were once offered shots, if we wrote a positive review about Stray on rankers.com (something like Tripadvisor), with the best review getting an upgrade to a double room at one of the stops. The driver said that they had received a negative review that day and pretty much needed to conceal it - In my opinion not the best and most genuine way to handle negative reviews.

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