Well, last time i left you when maayan left me...

That was on Jan. the 23rd.We agreed on meeting on Feb. 10th, in the wine festival Katie invited us to, or maybe earlier...

By the way, that was the last day of my first 2 months in NZ! Such amazing 2-months!

before i start though, there are photos to along (an old album you might have seen)...
http://www.tomeraroundtheworld.shutterfly.com/action/pictures?a=67b0de21b3257d94c4a5

I wanted to hike with Caroline, but her only free day my whole time there was the coming Sunday.
And now was Monday.
So i decided to try and get to Mt. Cook and be back by Saturday.

So the next day, Tuesday, i hit the road at around noon. The hitching went very slow, and after about 6 hours i only made 2 hours progress.
But than a nice thing happened.
I was picked up by Brandon. Asking me if I'm in a rush, he invited me into his home.
I was in no rush, and so i accepted...
I had very nice time with him, his wife and their 9 months old baby... You know how much i like playing with little kids :)
they have a little farm, with a cow, some sheep, etc. And we dug some potatoes for an excellent dinner...
nice substitute for rice with peanuts in my tent ;)

Next morning they gave me a ride to the next town, where i was picked up by a Christian that 13 years ago came from Indonesia to NZ, and her family originated in china... It was quite interesting talking to her.
After 4 more rides, i got to Mt. Cook village, and started climbing up to Muller's hut.
After a few hours during which i had nice views on Mt. Cook (though the very top was clouded), i got there.
It was really nice climb, and very close to the hut there was a lot of snow - someone even built an igloo there...
Well, i didn't see one in Alaska...

The following day i woke up early to watch the sunrise.At 6 i was already freezing out there... It was cloudy :(
But than it cleared and i saw an amazing sunrise :)
For 30 seconds...And it got cloudy again :(
But after 20 minutes, it cleared again!
So beautiful!!
again - 30 within 30 seconds it got clouded again...And it kept going on and off until 7 am, when the sunrise was over, and i walked back to the hut, and tried to defrost myself with some tea...
Quite stupidly, even though it's an alpine hut (and you pay 3.5 times more than for the regular huts), it was one of the only huts I've been to that has no heating :$ And the kitchen, the warmest room there, was 10 degrees Celsius!!
i waited a couple of hours for the weather to clear and than started down again, with a German guy named john.
Crossing a patch of snow, i fell down and "skied" down on my but...
Than john found a piece of wood someone left there, and did some snow-boarding...
I kept snow-butting...
not by choice though...
Anyway, we got down, enjoying great views of the top of Mt. Cook.
Back in the village, we parted, and soon after i got a ride to the main road, some 60 km from the village. where within a few minutes i got a nice ride directly to Amberely! I thought it will take about a day and a half...
The way was nice, and took us about 6 hours, and i surprised Caroline coming back a day earlier...
We watched the "Lord of the Rings" and went to sleep.

Next day was a quiet day of mainly resting, with some 40 minutes easy bike ride (Caroline's), and in the evening we had dinner with some friends of hers. It was really nice and very funny...

Next day we hike on Mt. Herbert.
It was a really nice hike, and we could see Christchurch and the rugged bay right next to it.
It was really nice hiking with her again...
Both on this evening and on the 23rd, after maayan left, we went to see the Basques festival.
All kind of street performance. Some of them were really nice and some were really stupid.
On the whole, we had a very good time there :)

So what did we have this time?
Brilliant views of Mt cook, parting with maayan, nice hitch that took me in for the night and fed me, snow-butting, watching Christchurch and its bay, amazing yet cloudy sunrise and a Basques festival.

the traverse-Sabine circuit

Jan. 15th.

Monday.

A fine day to start the traverse-Sabine circuit. the 4th consecutive Monday we're going on a tramp.

we started the Tongariro, the Taranaki and "the queen" on the last 3 Mondays.

Well, to be honest, "The Queen" wasn't really a tramp. More like a walk. A long one, but not really a tramp...

Anyway, we started along a nice lake, easy nice walking. We had lunch near the lake head (in a hut originally called "head lake") and carried on along the river, in a beautiful valley. We stopped for the night in a nice hut, after a perfect day.

The following day was even better - we walked for a couple of hours in a nice forest, along the river, and then, walking out of the forest the views were just amazing!

Steep mountains on both sides of the valley.

Brilliant.

Near the next hut, where we had lunch, we saw a regular sign pointing towards traverse saddle. But, in smaller letters... "are you prepared to traverse saddle?"...

well, after lunch we felt ready, so we started off...

We followed the trail to end of the valley, where it took a right turn, and started climbing the steep mountain-side to the saddle.

Just before getting to the saddle, there was a big rock split in half. We took a few funny photos, and carried on to the saddle...

So pretty!! Such great views!!

Snow capped mountains. rugged peaks. Beautiful!!

But than we started descending; a long, steep, scrumbly, ugly descent.

Yuck.

We got to the hut with sore knees.

In the hut we met Katie - a local wine-maker who invited us to come to a wine festival in Blenheim on Feb 10th.

Next day was a short, quiet day, easy walking.

The only problem was that the hut we got to was swarming with sand-flies... The door had been worked on the previous day so it was open for hours...

Morning.

We started off.

After 5 m, maayan stopped, looked up, and asked me "there?".

I looked, and said that I don't think so.

But it was there.

Without any warning or time to get warmed up, the trail took a turn, and we started climbing an almost-cliff.

We climbed that steepest of climbs for 2.5 hours, in the forest, with sand-flies closing in on you whenever you stop.

Maayan, coming out of the forest, said "I thought I'd never see the sun again!!"

Well, after a refreshing break we carried on along the narrow ridge-line. That was the only part of the trip with foul weather. It was very foggy and we could just make out the next marking pole each time. But it was still impressive and misty.Mainly misty ;)

After a couple of hours we could see a beautiful, blue lake. The clouds cleared a bit, and we could see the most inviting angelus hut.

we toured the surroundings, enjoyed yet again clear blue sky, great weather and even greater scenery.

later, in the hut, we met again Elad & Liat - the nice Israeli couple from picton...

So we had good time in the hut, even though we were 25 people in the hut, 13 of them Israelis...

The next day we had some more great views from the peak of angelus Mt. It was really amazing - snow capped mountains everywhere you looked... And we could see almost all our tramp...

Fabulous!! Than sore knees from the climbing down, and a nice evening in the company of Elad & Liat...

About the kiwis and the human-introduced mammals.

When in the 1 of the huts on the traverse Sabine circuit, we met this nice old granny. She seemed like 65 years old and super-fit. She did our 5-days-hike in 3 days.

As she put it "everyone and his favored pace..."

Anyway, she was really a cute old lady, charming, gentle, doing some sudoko.

Until Maayan said that we saw a stoat the other day.

Immediately she raised her head, her features hardened, her eyes turned cold and in a somewhat harsh voice she asked: "did you kill it?".

It was puzzling, almost even scary...

the next day was very bad for hitchhiking. Or rather, for hitchhikers... Two specific poor hitchhikers.

Yes, i mean maayan & me...

We made it from St arnoud to kaikura in just 3 rides, but the total waiting time was 6 hours... It took us about 9 hours only 3 of them we spent in a car...

The next day we went on a whale watching cruise, and we saw a sperm whale!!

Only one whale, but such a magnificent creature!!!

Afterwards we waited for 2.5 hours until we got a ride to amberley, where we met with Caroline (i hiked with her in Alaska).

We used her place as a base, going each day to Christchurch, to extend our visas, shopping etc.

The following day, the 23rd, Maayan's father landed so we parted. But only for less than 2 weeks.

But that's for a new post...

South Island

Hi again.

the south island.

the feeling of new adventures.

But before that - we took a day off and relaxed.

And on the 8th we started "The Queen" - a famous trek called "The Queen Charlotte".

We did only half of it, but in 3 relaxing days. We didn't enjoy it too much, most of the time we walked in a boring forest with no views... And even the views we had weren't thrilling, but between "nice" and "very nice". Nothing that made us want to stop and admire the scenery like we did on the last 2 hikes...

Points of interest along the tramp:

- We had a nice ride with the rural mail to the beginning of the tramp. Funny experience.

- instead of huts they have real lodges along the way. The 1st night we spent in such a lodge. We were the only hikers there, and they were quite amazed by the fact that we carried our pack ourselves - most of the people have their stuff transferred from lodge to lodge... It was a nice lodge, but we felt kind of out of place

- in the morning i took a little kayak and rowed for half an hour. best half hour of the tramp itself!

- on the water taxi back, we had the most amazing part of the whole "Queen" thing - the views were really good, and we saw a pod of Dusky dolphins. ~10 of them, with calves. Such beautiful animals!! That was so exciting! They were really so beautiful! They have a yellow line on the side, and they're just adorable.

Back to picton, to the jugglers' rest, the homey backpacker.

We even met there a very nice Israeli couple - elad & liat.

The following day, the 11th, we hitchhiked to kaiteriteri. It took us 4 rides, and the best part of a day, but we got there, and booked 2 days of kayaking in the abel-tasman starting the very next morning.

We spent the night in a huge campground, where most of the people stay for several weeks (they build massive tents, with fridge and all).

The next day, after some basic explanations and guiding lines we set out to the sea, with guides for almost an hour and than only us and another Israeli couple maayan knew.

We had so much fun, kayaking these 2 days!! It's my first time really kayaking (the Fiji kayaking exp. And the half an hour on "The Queen" don't count), and i really really liked it!

:)

And on the second day we saw a penguin, and lots of seals. We even got really close to the seals, and one of them even swam under our kayak, bubbling air bubbles and playing.

They were so amazing!

When we'd finished, it was raining quite hard, and though we managed to keep our stuff almost dry during the whole two days of kayaking, it all got soaked wet on the open water taxi back...

we took the shuttle to nelson, where we spent the night in a nice little hostel, and dried our stuff as much as we could. Which wasn't really enough...

The next day, Sunday the 14th of Jan. we hitchhiked all the way to St. Arnoud, the gateway to the nelson lakes N.P.

What a week... 2 water taxies, Seals, kayaking, and the duskies!!

from the tongariro to the taranaki and more

Hi.Wow! So much happened since last time i wrote...
[and so much will happen until next time ;) ]
Well, i left you in Turangi. In the backpacker. With a whole groupfrom the hike, most of them going to rotorua the following day.maayan & i decided to go on hiking together. We really got along very well, and it seemed we both want similar things from NZ.But we decided to go to rotorua first.though I've already been there, i wanted to see craig and annettagain, and the whole group going up there was very nice. so there we went.
I talked to the swiss couple in the hostel, and they were going torotorua by car, but they only had room for 2 people, and we were 3(emily, maayan & me).So i told the dutch couple got an easy ride...
Next morning i found out that Mark (also from the hike) is going tolake taupo by car and we all went with him.Mark also took us to see the "huka falls" and the "craters of the moon" - both were nice, even if not much more...than we got a ride with a few maori people. It was a van with noback seats, and we set on a blanket in the back part of the van with a teenager and a little kid.We played with them, talked and laughed and it was really nice. So both emily & maayan enjoyed their first ride very much.
Rotorua.We went to the "secret spot" again, with craig, annett, maayan, emily,hether & the dutch couple, and again it was so great!
next day i did something that is very not "me".
i went zorbing.
they put you into a big ball inside another ball, and roll you along a slope.
you are the center of gravity, so you are always at the bottom, and when ever you try to get up - the ball jusr turn and you on the bottom (both yours and the ball's... ) again.
it was really hilarious!
i spent the rest of the day with craig and annett, and the following day - dec.31st - maayan and i headed to new plymuth, to hike around the taranaki.It took us 4 rides and a few hours to get there. The last couple to take us - brenda and keith - were really very nice and even apologised fornot taking us in for the night because they are going out on a newyear's eve party... But they helped us quite a lot in finding a hostel. And by the way, they have really amazing views of mt. Taranaki fromtheir home. And though it's usually a "shy" mt. We could see the snowcovered peak above the neighbour's house.Amazing!
We were in a nice hostel, and we all gathered in the living room witha guitar and had good fun. But being very tired we both were fastasleep on the turn of the year...
On jan 1st we headed to the taranaki. It wasn't easy, but we got thereand started another hike.It was raining at first, & we were quite miserable but later it clearedup, and we had amazing views of the mt. The top had snow on it & somehow reminded us of a giant orio. It was so beautiful!
The next day we took the "lower track". It was muddy, and we keptsliding, hopping, clinging onto trees etc. we didn't see much as wewere walking in the forest, but it was such a hilarious day! :) And on one of my slips i broke my walking pole :(
We spent most of the next day on the "upper track" and though it wasquite foggy, it was still amazing, and we even got to some snow patchand played a little.But it was a tough, long day and we ended it with sore knees and extremely tired.
and i managed to break my other walking pole as well, slipping.I went the last 45 minutes reluctantly, just walking to get to theend, without so much as looking left or right...When we got to the hut, maayan said "that looks like emili's shoes" and my answer was "well, not just 'like' - it is".Apparently emili went to wellington, where things didn't work out well for her,so she rented a car and hunted us down, using the guest book of the hostel and asking people about us on the track...
the next day was such a glorious day that we could see mt. Doom & ruapehu from the taranaki. So we kept stopping, admiring the views, and it took us 7 hours to do the 3 hours walk out of the track.
We got to emili's rented car, had an indian dinner, and headed to wellington, stopping in wanganui for the night.On the 5th we arrived on wellington.

We spent most of the 6th in town, and took a late ferry to picton, in the south island.
Bye bye north island.
I had so much fun!!
Hello south island - i'm thrilled with excitement thinking of all the tramps i'm gonna do!

NZ
Such a great place
:)

and though i already published it, you can see some related photos here:
http://tomeraroundtheworld.shutterfly.com/action/pictures?a=67b0de21b327b50684cb
http://tomeraroundtheworld.shutterfly.com/action/pictures?a=67b0de21b327b50b05f6

another album

hi.

another small album.
small but proud!

http://tomeraroundtheworld.shutterfly.com/action/?a=0AbNGzFq3Ys2LEcA

hope you're having fun!