NZ has less than 5 millions residents all together. So you can understand you can drive for kms and kms without meeting any car or any town.
For our second night we stopped in a very little town called Gore and following the suggestion of the “lonelyplanet” guide, we went to a hostel that was an ex fire station. I’ll spend few lines to tell about that. The hostel was actually like a house, with a great kitchen with all the utensils, a great dining room with TV, sofas, a piano, books, CDs, DVDs, the bedrooms and 2 big bathrooms. The atmosphere was so familiar! And it was so clean! We were the only guest at the beginning. There was no reception, but a girl (the owner or the manager), living in the close flat, came to open and explained us about it. They didn’t have a credit card reader, so we had to pay cash. But as we didn’t have it enough, we went to withdraw and to have a dinner first. When we came back, the girl wasn’t there anymore, we had the key to enter. We found on the table in the gate an envelope with our names, asking us to leave there the money!! It was shocking for me! The girl had not asked us any document or our personal details, only our names... so she didn’t know anything about us... but she trusted us and that we left the money there before going away the following morning!
I wanted to tell you this because so much the simplicity of those people impressed me!! My travel mates kidded me that i liked that hostel a lot because I fell in love with the girl there! That’s not true, of course. Moreover, in all the hostels where we were in NZ we paid in advance like normal, but nobody asked us the ID or the passport. You know that isn’t usual in the rest of the world, where they just take all your personal datas, just in case... therefore, it was so beautiful to see that there are places in the world where the people still trust the others.
After this long digression, i really have to run to tell you the rest of my trip!
Well, our next stop was the Fjordland National Park. There we drove across green valleys, through high mountains, along lakes, rivers and streams, we walked along tracks in the forest. And many times we had the impression to be “inside” the “lord of the rings” movie. In the evening we arrived in a place called Milford Sound, where actually the road just finished. “Sound” in this case in NZ stands for fjord, that’s the main feature of that part of NZ and Milford Sound was supposed to be one of the most beautiful!
The following morning, a beautiful sunny day, we had a short cruise in this fjord. I can simply say you this place is surely in my top-three list of the most impressive, amazing places where i have ever been!
After that, we moved towards Queenstown. Queenstown has only 10000 residents, but it’s a very popular spot among the tourists. It is just on a lake and it’s in a valley with high mountains all around. More, it’s the capital town of the extreme sports, something quite popular in NZ. Bungee-jumping was just born there, more there you can find all the kinds of crazy sports: rafting, gliding, skydiving, etc... you need to be brave to do that, more you need money! That’s the only thing a bit expensive in NZ!
A couple of days in Queenstown, then we moved towards the north. While driving, we admired other beautiful landscapes: lakes, valleys, mountains, creeks, forests... I really felt so good being in such a paradise! I’d just have wanted to catch all these views and keep in my memory forever! I took a lot of photos, i want to remember that such beautiful places exist in this earth!
So, the next step was at the glaciers. There are 2 glaciers in NZ, the Franz Josef and the Fox. They’re unique in their kind as they are only few kms from the sea and they aren’t in a very big height: both of them just “start” before the 1000m. With the luck of another beautiful sunny day, i did another new experience: i just walked for the first time on a glacier. I did it with a guided tour, i’m a man from a sea place, not so used to the mountains and the glaciers! Anyway, it was funny!
The glaciers were our last stop before coming back to Christchurch. There we found some time to go to a Maori heritage centre and to see a Maori performance... and to learn something about the Maori culture and language. Just if you’re interested, “Kia ora” means hello and welcome!
After 9 days, the time to leave arrived... I was a bit sad to leave NZ, but at the same time so happy to have had the luck to visit such a beautiful country!
To all of you, my suggestion is to go there once in your life! It’s far and it’s expensive to go there, i know... but if you have the chance one day, do that! You won’t regret!!
I’m posting only few of the photos i took. But believe me, the reality is even better!
For our second night we stopped in a very little town called Gore and following the suggestion of the “lonelyplanet” guide, we went to a hostel that was an ex fire station. I’ll spend few lines to tell about that. The hostel was actually like a house, with a great kitchen with all the utensils, a great dining room with TV, sofas, a piano, books, CDs, DVDs, the bedrooms and 2 big bathrooms. The atmosphere was so familiar! And it was so clean! We were the only guest at the beginning. There was no reception, but a girl (the owner or the manager), living in the close flat, came to open and explained us about it. They didn’t have a credit card reader, so we had to pay cash. But as we didn’t have it enough, we went to withdraw and to have a dinner first. When we came back, the girl wasn’t there anymore, we had the key to enter. We found on the table in the gate an envelope with our names, asking us to leave there the money!! It was shocking for me! The girl had not asked us any document or our personal details, only our names... so she didn’t know anything about us... but she trusted us and that we left the money there before going away the following morning!
I wanted to tell you this because so much the simplicity of those people impressed me!! My travel mates kidded me that i liked that hostel a lot because I fell in love with the girl there! That’s not true, of course. Moreover, in all the hostels where we were in NZ we paid in advance like normal, but nobody asked us the ID or the passport. You know that isn’t usual in the rest of the world, where they just take all your personal datas, just in case... therefore, it was so beautiful to see that there are places in the world where the people still trust the others.
After this long digression, i really have to run to tell you the rest of my trip!
Well, our next stop was the Fjordland National Park. There we drove across green valleys, through high mountains, along lakes, rivers and streams, we walked along tracks in the forest. And many times we had the impression to be “inside” the “lord of the rings” movie. In the evening we arrived in a place called Milford Sound, where actually the road just finished. “Sound” in this case in NZ stands for fjord, that’s the main feature of that part of NZ and Milford Sound was supposed to be one of the most beautiful!
The following morning, a beautiful sunny day, we had a short cruise in this fjord. I can simply say you this place is surely in my top-three list of the most impressive, amazing places where i have ever been!
After that, we moved towards Queenstown. Queenstown has only 10000 residents, but it’s a very popular spot among the tourists. It is just on a lake and it’s in a valley with high mountains all around. More, it’s the capital town of the extreme sports, something quite popular in NZ. Bungee-jumping was just born there, more there you can find all the kinds of crazy sports: rafting, gliding, skydiving, etc... you need to be brave to do that, more you need money! That’s the only thing a bit expensive in NZ!
A couple of days in Queenstown, then we moved towards the north. While driving, we admired other beautiful landscapes: lakes, valleys, mountains, creeks, forests... I really felt so good being in such a paradise! I’d just have wanted to catch all these views and keep in my memory forever! I took a lot of photos, i want to remember that such beautiful places exist in this earth!
So, the next step was at the glaciers. There are 2 glaciers in NZ, the Franz Josef and the Fox. They’re unique in their kind as they are only few kms from the sea and they aren’t in a very big height: both of them just “start” before the 1000m. With the luck of another beautiful sunny day, i did another new experience: i just walked for the first time on a glacier. I did it with a guided tour, i’m a man from a sea place, not so used to the mountains and the glaciers! Anyway, it was funny!
The glaciers were our last stop before coming back to Christchurch. There we found some time to go to a Maori heritage centre and to see a Maori performance... and to learn something about the Maori culture and language. Just if you’re interested, “Kia ora” means hello and welcome!
After 9 days, the time to leave arrived... I was a bit sad to leave NZ, but at the same time so happy to have had the luck to visit such a beautiful country!
To all of you, my suggestion is to go there once in your life! It’s far and it’s expensive to go there, i know... but if you have the chance one day, do that! You won’t regret!!
I’m posting only few of the photos i took. But believe me, the reality is even better!
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