My New Zealand Trip (IMG HEAVY)

***Swiftwind*** · 11-10-2007, 11:50 PM

Hi everyone!

Ok, so it's taken me like two weeks to write this and finally post it, but better late than never, huh?

I visited New Zealand for two weeks, and it was absolutely spectacular!!

We started off our holiday in the north island, in a city called Wellington (such a cute place, it reminded me of Europe). Wellington is nicknamed the 'WindyCity', and that is such an accurate name for this town!

We did a Lord of the Rings tour that went for one whole day. It involved going to different filming locations and a little bit of reenacting movie scenes (

). Cheesy but lots of fun! Unfortunately I have no photos from the tour. I DID bring my camera with me, but forgot to put the battery pack in it. My step dad got some photos though, so I'll upload them here when I can.

There was one point on the tour when we were on a mountain side, in a mini van, and the wind got SOO strong that it was rocking the van from side to side, and it even blew the side-mirrors in! I thought we were seriously going to get blown off the side of the mountain... let me tell you, that strong wind was NOT fun!

We estimated it was going about 90km an hour (about 56 miles for you guys in the US).

We visited the filming locations for Rivendell, the AuduinRiver, the Gardens of Isengard, Hobbiton Woods, BucklandForest, and Lothlorien. Lothlorien was probably one of my most favourite locations. It was set on a property called Fernside Lodge, which housed a grand estate built in the 1930's. This is where the beautiful white bridge of Lothlorien was located.

The next day we headed to Picton in the south island. We travelled by ferry (to be precise, the 'Interislander'). This was about a 3 hour journey. The ferry was much bigger than I had expected, and very comfy too.

View from the ferry

We drove from Picton to Kaikoura (about a 2 hour drive), and came across some lovely scenery. Kaikoura was a lovely beach town with SPECTACULAR views of mountain ranges. We encountered wild New Zealand Fur Seals, which were absolutely adorable (and I took LOADS of photos of them). There was a group of seal cubs playing with each other in a rock pool, which was just so fun to watch.

View of the beach in Kaikoura

A mother seal

After one day in Kaikoura we headed to Christchurch, another ‘big’ city in NZ.

We stayed in Christchurch for one day, and spent our time at the lovely Botanic Gardens. Spring turned out to be such an amazing time in NZ. There were baby ducks all around the park, and the flowers were in full bloom. Such vibrant colours!

We also visited a really cute cupcake shop! Mmm I love cupcakes!

The next morning we caught a train to Greymouth. We had a bit of drama as daylight savings had kicked in in NZ and it turned out our clock in our room hadn't been changed, so we woke up 40 minutes late that morning, and we had only 10 minutes to get to the train station! We didn't have any time for breakfast but luckily we made the train on time! Phew! The lovely owners of the B&B we were staying at had packed a breakfast for us to have on the train.

We caught the Tranz Alpine train to Greymouth, which went through glorious scenery (mountains everywhere, and GREEN grass... not the brown grass we’re used to in Australia!

). It was about a 2 hour train trip to Greymouth. Once we got to Greymouth we drove to a town called Franz Josef. In Franz Josef we went glacier climbing. Let me tell you, this is scary if you hate heights like I do!!

It was such an amazing experience though, and I’m so glad I did it. We had to climb up really steep sides of the glacier with our special spikes on our boots, and we had to walk through an ice tunnel at one point, which was really cool!

My step dad and I in the ice tunnel

***Swiftwind*** · 11-11-2007, 12:05 AM

Next we drove to a very, VERY small town called Haast. On our way there though, we stopped off at the Fox Glacier to have a look at what that was like compared to the Franz Josef Glacier. It’s so weird that there are snow-capped mountains all around, yet the rainforest is so close by!

Fox Glacier - this gives you a slight idea of what the Franz Josef Glacier looked like

Moss - evidence that the rainforest was right next to the glacier!

Haast was, umm… an experience! There was only one restaurant in town, and we didn’t expect much from it, but the food turned out to be AMAZING! I noticed that the people in NZ are sooooooo much nicer than the people in Sydney. There were all these tough-looking biker guys staying at our hotel, but really they were so friendly!

After Haast we headed to Queenstown, a cute city (tiny yet again). While we were there we visited the ‘Deer Park’ (I thought it was a hunting ground, but thankfully I was wrong! Haha). Deer Park was like a conservation park for various animals. The following is some of what we encountered there:

What would Deer Park be without any deers!

View from the top! On the left is the town of Queenstown

The 'Remarkables'

Next we stayed in a town called Te Anau. At night we went to visit a glowworm cave, which was so magical! Unfortunately we weren’t permitted to take photos inside the cave, but I would have loved to show you the pretty blue lights of the glowworms. If I remember correctly, the cave was discovered more than 100 years ago, but it is considered a relatively new cave.

The next day we took a boat trip around Milford Sound. A beautiful fiord – tall mountains surrounded us, and waterfalls were absolutely everywhere! There was one spot where there were three big waterfalls right next to each other, and the guide said they were called ‘the three veils’. We saw a couple more seals lazing around on the rocks.

Our cool looking boat

Size comparison - look at that tiny boat amongst those huge mountains! That boat was the same size as the one we were on (without the mast)

On the way to and back from Milford Sound we had to drive on this really skinny windy road up a mountain (I thought the car was going to slip off the side because it was sooo steep!). We had to drive through a really long tunnel carved into the mountain, and the first time we went through it we were like “Oh my god, it’s so dark! How are we supposed to know where to drive?” And then I realized we all had our sunglasses on!

Still, even after we took our sunnies off it was still pretty dark. We had our highbeams on and it was STILL hard to see (there were no lights in the tunnel).

Next, we spent two nights in Lake Tekapo, a cute little town with a GORGEOUS lake.

The view of Lake Tekapo from my hotel room

While we were there we visited Mount Cook National Park. We went on three walking trails, the longest being three hours. It was tiring the the views were well worth the effort! We had to cross swing bridges, rivers, and scramble over many rocks.

Absolutely gorgeous lake, so dream like!

Can you tell I was in heaven, taking all these photos of the gorgeous scenery?

It's me!

One of the 'Blue Lakes'... though it's obviously green...

It was back to Christchurch for us the next day. We spent the Saturday at an antiques fair. It was kinda disappointing because everything was so overpriced, though I would have loved to buy these really pretty antique cake stands I saw.

Sunday morning, back to HUMID Sydney….

I miss New Zealand!

I ended up taking more than 900 photos! I got to test out my ‘new’ lens (75mm to 300mm) and it is fantastic! I could zoom right up to far away mountains and seem like I was at the top of them!

***Rivsky*** · 11-11-2007, 01:04 AM

WOW there are so many absolutely amazing photos in there Swift - you are awesome with that camera!!!

New Zealand looks like such a beautiful country - did you get any photos of the baby fur seals - I'd love to see some if you did!

***Swiftwind*** · 11-11-2007, 03:34 AM

Aww thanks so much Rivsky!

It's a great little camera, isn't it?

Yup, I got heaps of photos of the baby seals...

***Rivsky*** · 11-11-2007, 03:37 AM

Thanks for the baby seal photos - they are soooo cute!!

***Cassiepeia*** · 11-11-2007, 04:08 AM

Wow! Outstanding photos, Erin!!!

If you don't become a professional photographer, you're wasting your talent.

New Zealand looks glorious. I'm so jealous you got to go. I'll have to try to get over there one day.

Love the seal pups too.

And the duckling shot should be on a post card or a greeting card.

Cass.

***Swiftwind*** · 11-11-2007, 04:12 AM

No problem!

They were such cuties, so fun to watch them play with each other.

Thanks so much Cass! I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to go to NZ sometime. You should definitely go if you can, it's just fantastic!

Cass, I've got a little surprise for you, but I'll post it tomorrow (if I have time). I'm sure you'll love it!

***Cassiepeia*** · 11-11-2007, 04:36 AM

I LOVE surprises! WooHoo!

Cass.

P.S. Is it tomorrow yet? **fidgets impatiently**

britishbandit · 11-11-2007, 06:28 AM

Incredible pics! OMG!!

I have a bunch of pics by professional photographers of scenery as backgrounds on my computer, and yours are so much better than those! LOL I totally agree with Cass, you should definately be a photographer, heck, even as a side job you'd make a killing!

Looks like you had an awesome trip, and New Zealand looks like such a beautiful country! I'm sooo jealous! Both you and Cass have had such wonderful vacations recently, I wanna go somewhere now! haha My cousin is teasing me as well, she just spent time in Australia and South Africa, and showed me pics of her going skydiving (something i've ALWAYS wanted to do), and a good friend of mine has been travelling Europe, and in Spain right now, and got to go scuba diving. NO FAIR!!

PawNclaws · 11-11-2007, 09:05 AM

Wonderful pics !! Looks like you had a great time..

poodlesmom · 11-11-2007, 09:27 AM

Absolutely fantastic photos! Looks like you had a completely awesome trip!

Ritz459 · 11-11-2007, 10:27 AM

Those are AWESOME photos!

I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. I have an Aunt that is from there and her and my Uncle take a trip there every year.

The baby seals were so cute!

11-10-2007, 11:50 PM	#1 (permalink)
*Swiftwind* Super Moderator Super Moderator Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 5,773 Blog Entries: 3 Rep Power: 206	My New Zealand Trip (IMG HEAVY) Hi everyone! Ok, so it's taken me like two weeks to write this and finally post it, but better late than never, huh? I visited New Zealand for two weeks, and it was absolutely spectacular!! We started off our holiday in the north island, in a city called Wellington (such a cute place, it reminded me of Europe). Wellington is nicknamed the 'WindyCity', and that is such an accurate name for this town! We did a Lord of the Rings tour that went for one whole day. It involved going to different filming locations and a little bit of reenacting movie scenes (). Cheesy but lots of fun! Unfortunately I have no photos from the tour. I DID bring my camera with me, but forgot to put the battery pack in it. My step dad got some photos though, so I'll upload them here when I can. There was one point on the tour when we were on a mountain side, in a mini van, and the wind got SOO strong that it was rocking the van from side to side, and it even blew the side-mirrors in! I thought we were seriously going to get blown off the side of the mountain... let me tell you, that strong wind was NOT fun! We estimated it was going about 90km an hour (about 56 miles for you guys in the US). We visited the filming locations for Rivendell, the AuduinRiver, the Gardens of Isengard, Hobbiton Woods, BucklandForest, and Lothlorien. Lothlorien was probably one of my most favourite locations. It was set on a property called Fernside Lodge, which housed a grand estate built in the 1930's. This is where the beautiful white bridge of Lothlorien was located. The next day we headed to Picton in the south island. We travelled by ferry (to be precise, the 'Interislander'). This was about a 3 hour journey. The ferry was much bigger than I had expected, and very comfy too. View from the ferry We drove from Picton to Kaikoura (about a 2 hour drive), and came across some lovely scenery. Kaikoura was a lovely beach town with SPECTACULAR views of mountain ranges. We encountered wild New Zealand Fur Seals, which were absolutely adorable (and I took LOADS of photos of them). There was a group of seal cubs playing with each other in a rock pool, which was just so fun to watch. View of the beach in Kaikoura A mother seal After one day in Kaikoura we headed to Christchurch, another ‘big’ city in NZ. We stayed in Christchurch for one day, and spent our time at the lovely Botanic Gardens. Spring turned out to be such an amazing time in NZ. There were baby ducks all around the park, and the flowers were in full bloom. Such vibrant colours! We also visited a really cute cupcake shop! Mmm I love cupcakes! The next morning we caught a train to Greymouth. We had a bit of drama as daylight savings had kicked in in NZ and it turned out our clock in our room hadn't been changed, so we woke up 40 minutes late that morning, and we had only 10 minutes to get to the train station! We didn't have any time for breakfast but luckily we made the train on time! Phew! The lovely owners of the B&B we were staying at had packed a breakfast for us to have on the train. We caught the Tranz Alpine train to Greymouth, which went through glorious scenery (mountains everywhere, and GREEN grass... not the brown grass we’re used to in Australia! ). It was about a 2 hour train trip to Greymouth. Once we got to Greymouth we drove to a town called Franz Josef. In Franz Josef we went glacier climbing. Let me tell you, this is scary if you hate heights like I do!! It was such an amazing experience though, and I’m so glad I did it. We had to climb up really steep sides of the glacier with our special spikes on our boots, and we had to walk through an ice tunnel at one point, which was really cool! My step dad and I in the ice tunnel
	__________________ Get more out of Global Paw: Art Classes / Blogs / Book Club / Photo Gallery / Woof Review As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner. Last edited by Swiftwind : 11-11-2007 at 12:24 AM.

11-11-2007, 12:05 AM	#2 (permalink)
*Swiftwind* Super Moderator Super Moderator Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 5,773 Blog Entries: 3 Rep Power: 206	Next we drove to a very, VERY small town called Haast. On our way there though, we stopped off at the Fox Glacier to have a look at what that was like compared to the Franz Josef Glacier. It’s so weird that there are snow-capped mountains all around, yet the rainforest is so close by! Fox Glacier - this gives you a slight idea of what the Franz Josef Glacier looked like Moss - evidence that the rainforest was right next to the glacier! Haast was, umm… an experience! There was only one restaurant in town, and we didn’t expect much from it, but the food turned out to be AMAZING! I noticed that the people in NZ are sooooooo much nicer than the people in Sydney. There were all these tough-looking biker guys staying at our hotel, but really they were so friendly! After Haast we headed to Queenstown, a cute city (tiny yet again). While we were there we visited the ‘Deer Park’ (I thought it was a hunting ground, but thankfully I was wrong! Haha). Deer Park was like a conservation park for various animals. The following is some of what we encountered there: What would Deer Park be without any deers! View from the top! On the left is the town of Queenstown The 'Remarkables' Next we stayed in a town called Te Anau. At night we went to visit a glowworm cave, which was so magical! Unfortunately we weren’t permitted to take photos inside the cave, but I would have loved to show you the pretty blue lights of the glowworms. If I remember correctly, the cave was discovered more than 100 years ago, but it is considered a relatively new cave. The next day we took a boat trip around Milford Sound. A beautiful fiord – tall mountains surrounded us, and waterfalls were absolutely everywhere! There was one spot where there were three big waterfalls right next to each other, and the guide said they were called ‘the three veils’. We saw a couple more seals lazing around on the rocks. Our cool looking boat Size comparison - look at that tiny boat amongst those huge mountains! That boat was the same size as the one we were on (without the mast) On the way to and back from Milford Sound we had to drive on this really skinny windy road up a mountain (I thought the car was going to slip off the side because it was sooo steep!). We had to drive through a really long tunnel carved into the mountain, and the first time we went through it we were like “Oh my god, it’s so dark! How are we supposed to know where to drive?” And then I realized we all had our sunglasses on! Still, even after we took our sunnies off it was still pretty dark. We had our highbeams on and it was STILL hard to see (there were no lights in the tunnel). Next, we spent two nights in Lake Tekapo, a cute little town with a GORGEOUS lake. The view of Lake Tekapo from my hotel room While we were there we visited Mount Cook National Park. We went on three walking trails, the longest being three hours. It was tiring the the views were well worth the effort! We had to cross swing bridges, rivers, and scramble over many rocks. Absolutely gorgeous lake, so dream like! Can you tell I was in heaven, taking all these photos of the gorgeous scenery? It's me! One of the 'Blue Lakes'... though it's obviously green... It was back to Christchurch for us the next day. We spent the Saturday at an antiques fair. It was kinda disappointing because everything was so overpriced, though I would have loved to buy these really pretty antique cake stands I saw. Sunday morning, back to HUMID Sydney…. I miss New Zealand! I ended up taking more than 900 photos! I got to test out my ‘new’ lens (75mm to 300mm) and it is fantastic! I could zoom right up to far away mountains and seem like I was at the top of them!
	__________________ Get more out of Global Paw: Art Classes / Blogs / Book Club / Photo Gallery / Woof Review As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner.

11-11-2007, 01:04 AM	#3 (permalink)
*Rivsky* Super Moderator Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: South Australia Posts: 3,791 Blog Entries: 6 Rep Power: 141	WOW there are so many absolutely amazing photos in there Swift - you are awesome with that camera!!! New Zealand looks like such a beautiful country - did you get any photos of the baby fur seals - I'd love to see some if you did!
	__________________ As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner.

11-11-2007, 03:34 AM	#4 (permalink)
*Swiftwind* Super Moderator Super Moderator Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 5,773 Blog Entries: 3 Rep Power: 206	Aww thanks so much Rivsky! It's a great little camera, isn't it? Yup, I got heaps of photos of the baby seals...
	__________________ Get more out of Global Paw: Art Classes / Blogs / Book Club / Photo Gallery / Woof Review As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner.

11-11-2007, 03:37 AM	#5 (permalink)
*Rivsky* Super Moderator Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: South Australia Posts: 3,791 Blog Entries: 6 Rep Power: 141	Thanks for the baby seal photos - they are soooo cute!!
	__________________ As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner.

11-11-2007, 04:08 AM	#6 (permalink)
*Cassiepeia* Chihuahua Mum Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 8,281 Blog Entries: 9 Rep Power: 284	Wow! Outstanding photos, Erin!!! If you don't become a professional photographer, you're wasting your talent. New Zealand looks glorious. I'm so jealous you got to go. I'll have to try to get over there one day. Love the seal pups too. And the duckling shot should be on a post card or a greeting card. Cass.
	__________________ Say NO! to animals in pet shops. Rescue a friend instead: Petfinder Get more out of Global Paw. Check out these great features. Book Club ~ Blogs ~ Art Classes ~ Woof Review As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner.

11-11-2007, 04:12 AM	#7 (permalink)
*Swiftwind* Super Moderator Super Moderator Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 5,773 Blog Entries: 3 Rep Power: 206	No problem! They were such cuties, so fun to watch them play with each other. Thanks so much Cass! I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to go to NZ sometime. You should definitely go if you can, it's just fantastic! Cass, I've got a little surprise for you, but I'll post it tomorrow (if I have time). I'm sure you'll love it!
	__________________ Get more out of Global Paw: Art Classes / Blogs / Book Club / Photo Gallery / Woof Review As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner.

11-11-2007, 04:36 AM	#8 (permalink)
*Cassiepeia* Chihuahua Mum Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 8,281 Blog Entries: 9 Rep Power: 284	I LOVE surprises! WooHoo! Cass. P.S. Is it tomorrow yet? fidgets impatiently
	__________________ Say NO! to animals in pet shops. Rescue a friend instead: Petfinder Get more out of Global Paw. Check out these great features. Book Club ~ Blogs ~ Art Classes ~ Woof Review As a member of Global paw staff my opinions are not necessarily those of the website or the owner.

11-11-2007, 06:28 AM	#9 (permalink)
britishbandit Rottweiler Mum Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Windsor, ON Posts: 4,118 Rep Power: 176	Incredible pics! OMG!! I have a bunch of pics by professional photographers of scenery as backgrounds on my computer, and yours are so much better than those! LOL I totally agree with Cass, you should definately be a photographer, heck, even as a side job you'd make a killing! Looks like you had an awesome trip, and New Zealand looks like such a beautiful country! I'm sooo jealous! Both you and Cass have had such wonderful vacations recently, I wanna go somewhere now! haha My cousin is teasing me as well, she just spent time in Australia and South Africa, and showed me pics of her going skydiving (something i've ALWAYS wanted to do), and a good friend of mine has been travelling Europe, and in Spain right now, and got to go scuba diving. NO FAIR!!
	__________________ "No matter how little money and how few possesions you own, having a dog makes you rich." - Louis Sabin

11-11-2007, 09:05 AM	#10 (permalink)
PawNclaws Labrador Crazy Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: North West Posts: 1,929 Blog Entries: 2 Rep Power: 112	Wonderful pics !! Looks like you had a great time..
	__________________

11-11-2007, 09:27 AM	#11 (permalink)
poodlesmom Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: upstate NY Posts: 1,389 Rep Power: 112	Absolutely fantastic photos! Looks like you had a completely awesome trip!
	__________________ Denise a/k/a Poodlesmom

11-11-2007, 10:27 AM	#12 (permalink)
Ritz459 "Nothing is ever easy" Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Indiana Posts: 5,724 Blog Entries: 3 Rep Power: 235	Those are AWESOME photos! I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. I have an Aunt that is from there and her and my Uncle take a trip there every year. The baby seals were so cute!
	__________________ ~Blackie, Rose, Chloe (dogs), Pheobe (cat), Casey, Dameon (ferrets), Joey ('Tiel), Dot, Louie (cavies), Pickachu (hamster), Rush (R.I.P. 15yrs), Lucy (R.I.P. 4yrs)~

11-11-2007, 05:20 PM	#13 (permalink)
TinyAlbinoDancer