Last day in New Zealand

It's slowly coming to an end, our trip in New Zealand. Actually the end has been moving really fast. We are both pretty tired from our nearly two months of sightseeing and now we're quite happy to go over the Tasman Sea to do some true vacation.
But first a resume of the last couple of weeks. We left you off in Dunedin, and it's just after that we pick up again.


We left Dunedin on a sunny day heading for Aoraki/Mt Cook inland again. It was beautiful in the valley. What you see here is however not the highest mountain in NZ but some really pretty glaciers . We took a little day walk up to a terminal lake (that is the lake formed from the melting glacier ice) to get a good view of the peak, but this was actually prettier.

After realizing we couldn't realize what to do more in Mt Cook we decided to spend some of our remaining days back in Wanaka. So back we went to the same hostel with the same friendly couch with lake view. We spent three nights there and did some serious relaxing on the beach with ice creams.

A few beers got consumed as well in the sun which didn't hurt at all.


We did however do another day hike up to the face of the Rob Roy Glacier. It was (again) a fantastic day and a good way of spending time.


We even got to do some sun-basking at the top. Happy days!


After Wanaka it was time to slowly head towards the final destination. To shorten the drive we stopped for one night in Lake Tekapo, as the guide book says: "surprisingly located at the lake named Tekapo". Not wanting to climb any more we drove up to an observatory just to take in the views. Tragically nothing really measures up to the Routeburn (see previous post if you've forgotten or missed it) anymore...

Our final stop was Banks Peninsula right outside Christchurch where we stayed a couple of nights in the most charming of places, Le Bons Bay. We got to do the most price worthy boat trip so far with the owner of the hostel where we saw heaps of Hectors dolphins, baby seals and even two penguins. It was a gorgeous day and a great experience. Kept us happy for a very long time.

Even though the beach in Le Bons Bay was close to perfect the water earned a "shit-the-Pacific-is-cold"-dance, and there was no swimming happening that day.


Last but not at all least we stayed in Onuku Farm Hostel, a place that served us superb views, great company (a guy from Jersey - a semi independent country neither one of us had ever heard about! Talk about learning new things!) and a scorching sun.

That was the last evening on Banks P. and now we're back in Chch for some last minute shopping before the flight to Oz takes off tonight. It's getting fall here and the nights are colder, so it feels like a good time to take off for some heat again.
It's been great, and it still is. New Zealand is a recommendation to almost anyone and there is still no good reason not to move here, except the far away part. We're both dying to pump you all full of stories (knowing some of us they might come up several times), to share what we can and just try to explain the rest.
Beware all you listeners: we're coming home soon!