NEW ZEALAND

I arrived in Auckland (North island - New Zealand) on Dec.12th flying from Sydney and spent in the country a little more then a month. It was great not to fly directly from Europe, as I did last year, as it is really a long flight and 12 hours time difference. My sister and her family live in this nice and peaceful city, that spreads for more the 60 Km on a land with more then 50 vulcanoes (my sister lives just under one of them, mt. Eden,a  beautiful place to have a nice view of the city and enjoy the sun and breeze) and this is the reason for my frequent visits to New Zealand.

downtown Auckland from the sea

We had a beautiful Christmas holiday and I want to use the occasion to thank all the friends that have invited us for dinner during the holiday season and made us all feel at home :-).
Soon after Christmas we (my sister Manuela, her husband Vanja, her son Orlando and I) flew to Christchurch in the South island, where we started a fantastic tour in a campervan.
The city shows the signs of the recent earthquake that caused major devastations but the overall situation is better then we expected....

Christchurch is the third biggest city in New Zealand with approximately 360.000 inhabitants. It is the biggest in the South island, known for its British feel and for the gardens (I recommend the botanical garden). The colonist that founded it around the 1850 wanted to bring on the other side of the planet a part of the victorian culture and make it live through the architecture.

In Christchurch we rented the van that took us around the island: a Wicked van named Jesus!!! :-)

Vanja, Manu and Orlando at Wicked vans parking

the Jesus van - this was the polite side ;-)

From Christchurch we headed first south to Akaroa (you can use this link to follow our itinerary: interactive map of New Zealand ) to this interesting French-British settlement and the amazing scenery. Akaroa has a very interesting history. In 1838 Captain Jean François L'Anglois bought this land from the Maori but when  the French settlers arrived some years later, from their vessel they saw a British flag (rised only one week before, after the signing of the controversial treaty of Waitangi). Can you imagine the surprise and disappointment of these people seeing that the British were claiming their "promised land" that they reached after such a long and surely not easy journey? They decided to stay and fight for their rights and at the end the land remained British and the town was divided in two fractions. It has still quite an intense French feel.


the view just before driving down to Akaroa

the view from a walk in the Banks peninsula 

Then we decided to go North and we went to Kaikoura, famous for its seal colony (very cute but dangerous). I found it funny that they go hunting and then they sleep for weeks to rest :-)

From there we continued our journey North with a new member joining the family :-) and went to Bleinheim in the Malborough region for wine tasting (btw, I love Sauvignon blanc from that region, it is my favourite white wine!)

We went to Nelson for New Year's eve and had great time there. We had a wonderful dinner, a great party and the best banana pancakes in the world for breakfast :-). We headed further North and reached the Firewell spit, with its nice walk by the ocean and through the dunes to the bay of fossils.

Then we went back and headed South reaching the West coast. Inspired by the amazing breakfast pancakes that we had for more than one day, we went to see the pancake rocks (heavily erored limestones and blowholes) by Punakaiki.

I loved the incredible energy of the Tasman sea. No swimming but such beautiful landscapes and beaches full of beautiful stones and shells.

Another thing that I loved was the Franz Joseph glacier.

Soon after, we reached our favourite place on this trip: Wanaka (I think everyone on the team will agree on that - you can comment if you don't). This small town with its nice and warm lake was just perfect for some relaxation and rest.

We continued to Queenstown and headed to the East coast to the amazing area south of Dunedin, with its beautiful scenery....

and fauna...

We continued North, direction Christchurch where I took my flight to Samoa and our tour ended.
A lot of things happened and I've been to a lot of other places but this is a short summary of our amazing family tour in the land of the changing scenery and incredible natural beauties.