After a full month spent in and around Auckland, on the North Island the obvious step was to get down to the South Island and explore as much of it as possible since it hides thousands (if not millions) of natural wonders, starting from beautiful beaches, through amazing, snow-covered mountains, it offers all one can think of, even more.
I will make a try to list some of the adventures I was lucky enough to experience during seven days of road tripping. I won't even try to write about each of them in detail as they are impossible to be put in words, it's the feeling inside me, remembering the moment while standing at the spot and taking the shot which has a special meaning only for me and that can never be fully shared with anyone. So here is the list:
- Christchurch, 7 years after the devastating earthquake is still heavily affected by it which is easily noticed while walking on the empty main square, surrounded by demolished buildings and construction sites which seem to be put on halt all around;
- The french village of Akaroa, 80 km's from Christchurch is so idillic that with the bike race called "Le Race" happening on the day of my visit and the presence of french bakeries and ice creamery made me feel like on the French riviera (even though I haven't been there yet).
- The road from the east to the west coast of the island is as scenic as it can get. Every curve on the road through Arthur's Pass offers a view you can hardly pass by without dropping your jaws. After a while I gave up stopping the car every kilometre to take photos, I just left the camera in my lap and while driving with one hand on the wheel and one eye on the road (of course on the wrong side of the road), the other hand and eye combo was busy with capturing something to be shown to you;
- Seeing glaciers that melt in average 5 metres a day is heartbreaking but wonderful in the same time. This was the case with the Franz Josef glacier, which still stumbles me, how a former Austro-Hungarian emperor made it as a name giver of one of the most famous glacier in NZ. Standing next to the tallest mountain of the country, Mt Cook (3.724 m), rising high above the bright blue glacier lakes and witnessing the sun set and the moon rise above it made me feel small and meaningless among giants;
- Kayaking 5 hours in the fjords of Milford Sound between penguins, dolphins and seals is an unbeatable experience which once in a lifetime everyone should try;
- After hours of hiking upwards and being welcomed by views like the one over Lake Marian and Lake Wakatipu on the shore of which lays Queenstown, are the moments when you know that every drop of your sweat was worth the climb;
Reading these couple of points for you probably took less than 5 minutes for you, I was writing it for 2 hours and collected memories for a week. I have the feeling that I could easily do the other way around too: sitting and looking at the landscapes below for 5 minutes, write about it for 2 hours and remember it for ... ever. :)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
P.S.: Stay tuned, two more posts are coming in the upcoming week about two amazing cities! I don't want to spoil you, but I really have to catch up with editing and posting the hundreds of pictures I have so that I can finally start to edit and show you some photos from the ski trip I went to last week, couple of days after getting back to Sweden.
No comments:
Post a Comment