• Blown away

      5. helmikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

      We drove from the middle of nowhere to another place in the middle of nowhere to do either 22 or 34 km of a rail trail on mountain bikes. The route was a former train track so it was not challenging at all, even though we had a strong wind. I chose to opt for the 22 km option as I didn't find biking that enjoyable, the views were good though.
      Back at our accommodation we watched The Return of the King, kind of cool watching that movie in New Zealand.
      After the movie Maggie, Andi, and I went for a walk, as we walked away from the accommodation we didn't feel the wind as it came from behind.
      After about 40 minutes of walking we came upon 6 sheep who had ventured out of there paddock, so we tried to herd them towards a hole in the fence. However we never found the hole. We did manage to get them to jump the fence.
      We walked to the top of a small hill, and now we felt the wind full on. When we opened our wind breakers, we could almost lean against the wind, and when we jumped the wind carried us a little bit.
      On the way home we had the wind straight in our faces, kind of tiring.
      Again we came upon sheep on the wrong side of the fence, and again we managed to get them back home.
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    • Te Anau to Wedderburn

      4. helmikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

      We took a water taxi across the lake to do a 2 hour walk, on the walk we walked through a forest primary consisting of the New Zealand beech tree.
      Back in Te Anau we had lunch, the service was very slow, so we were actually late for our drive towards Wedderburn.
      But we managed as we were in no hurry. It was a very long drive though, but 6 hours later we arrived at our accommodation in the middle of nowhere and we are staying here for 2 nights before we head back to civilization.
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    • Milford Sound

      3. helmikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

      While driving through New Zealand we have seen a lot of beautiful scenery. But today the scenery was the best we have seen so far. Not only because it felt a lot more the Lord of the Rings, but because it genuinely was absolutely stunning, with mountains, where you could actually see the peak, waterfalls, rivers, and forests as far as the eye could see.
      On the way to Milford Sound we went through a long and very steep tunnel, with no lights and no concrete elements, so you could see the rock that the tunnel went through. It felt like the tunnel to hell. On the other side we still had quite a long downhill drive.
      Milford sound is one of the shorter fiords in New Zealand, but it is very beautiful with sheer cliffs, amazing waterfalls, bottle-nose dolphins, New Zealand fur seals, and a single Fiordland Crested Penguin. We saw all of this on our 2 hour cruise.
      After the cruise we drove to Te Anau where we had Bao for dinner.
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    • Queenstown

      2. helmikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

      So Queenstown being the world capital for extreme sports, today I joined the hype with a Via Ferrata. Here it was more going up, where most European Via Ferratas are primarily traversing.
      We were very lucky, our guide, called pirate, only had to drag Maggie and I along. He quickly noticed that we were quite capable and let us do our own thing. So amazing.
      After the Via Ferrata, Maggie and I were joined by Niclas and we went Zip lining. There were 6 lines and one of them was the steepest tree-to-tree zip line with a 100 meter drop over 300 meters. We were challenged to go upside down, or do a trust fall or sing on the 3 of the first 4 lines.
      Following the zip lining we went to the Shotover canyon where Maggie was joined by, Michael, Andi, Semia, Nina, and Jane and they all did the canyon swing, a 60 meter free-fall before swinging across the canyon.
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    • Ben Lomond

      1. helmikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

      First day of two in Queenstown, we had a former typhoon on top of us. I didn't have any activities planned for the day, so I hiked through the rain to the summit of Ben Lomond, peaking at 1748 meters above sea level, Queenstown being 355 meters above sea level it was a hike of 1393 meters of elevation done in just under 4 hours.
      The hike down took just 1 hour 45 minutes so total time was 5 hours 45 minutes, the hike is rated to take 8 hours total.
      After the hike I took a long shower and asked Maggie and Niclas to keep me awake. We had dinner at a steak house. Where Andi and Michael joined us and we went to a bar before I went back for some much needed sleep.
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    • Reflections

      31. tammikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

      Long drive ahead of us this morning. We were to drive from Franz Josef to Queenstown a 7-8 hour drive excluding stops.
      First we stopped in the township of Fox Glacier where we did a short walk to get the view in a reflecting lake, however, it was quite overcast so it was not optimal picture conditions.
      We had another stop later at a small beach, hear there were a lot of sand flies. My experience with that critter so far is that they really love my feet, and that continued today.
      We continued towards our lunch stop and our CEO had made a quiz, Andi and I won so that was nice. We had more photo stops on the way of lake Wanaka and lake Hawea.
      We had lunch in beautiful Wanaka, and saw the Wanaka tree, a tree that stands in lake Wanaka.
      After lunch we made it to Queenstown where we have 3 nights, this is the world capital for adrenaline junkies, some in our group are going all out, I plan to take it a bit slower and focus on hiking and medium level adrenaline rushes.
      I had hoped to see the Super-Blue-Moon-Lunar-Eclipse. However it is very overcast as a former typhoon is rushing towards New Zealand.
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    • Heli-hike

      30. tammikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

      Phew, the first 5 trips to the glacier was cancelled today, luckily I was booked on the 6th and so was, Maggie, Andi, Michael, and Niclas. 5 more from our group was booked on the 7th trip, so the 10 of us got to go the full 3 hours up there. We saw blue Ice, cravats, huge boulders (of ice), quartz, and went through a beautiful ice tunnel of blue ice.
      On the first helicopter ride I got to sit in front, sometimes it's good to be one of the lightest in the group. Our tour guide Scott did an amazing job.
      Franz Josef glacier currently suffers the same fate as all the worlds glaciers, melting. They expect Franz Josef glacier to be gone in 2100 Franz Josef glacier is the 4th largest glacier of 3500+ glaciers in New Zealand.
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    • Are you supposed to sprint downhill.?

      29. tammikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

      Today we left at 8 and had our first stop at a scenic roadside stop. After a few pictures including a group picture we drove on and stopped to do a 2 hour hike. However we did it slightly faster as we sprinted down the long hill after an even longer climb up the hill. The sprinting was super fun and probably not that safe. We walked back to Punakaiki where we did the 20 minute loop walk to see the pancake rocks. This is limestone formations that are very layered so it looks like stacks of pancakes.
      I spotted 5 dolphins playing in the waves, these were Hector's dolphins so I added a new whale/dolphin to my list.
      We drove to Franz Josef, here we hope to go heli-hiking on the glacier tomorrow morning. I also bought a jade-fishhook.
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    • Picture perfect day

      28. tammikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

      Finally we had a streak of days with good weather. We left Abel Tasman and went towards Westport. On the way we stopped to take pictures at a river. After lunch we made it to a seal colony close to point of Foul Winds, the amount of seals was not earth shattering, but I believe we saw males, females, and cubs. At the seal colony we could also see amazing cloud formations on the mountains behind us.
      In Westport some of the group members made a nice nacho dinner.
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    • Canyoning

      27. tammikuuta 2018, Uusi Seelanti ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

      What a fun day. After waking up on a wonderful houseboat we were dropped off at the beach. We had 4 teams today. Skydivers, sailors, hikers and canyoneers. The canyoneers were joined by 7 others and 3 guides. After a hike of about an our and a half we entered the canyon.
      In the canyon we abseiled, zip-lined, rock-hopped, took natural water slides, and jumped of water falls, the tallest being 8 meters. Canyoning was really fun, and when the guides noticed I knew what I was doing they put me to work.
      We got a lift to the accommodation and sang the old MacDonald song as that was the name of our accommodation.
      For dinner we went to The Fat Tui, a burger shack and finally New Zealand was able to produce a great burger.
      After a long day almost everyone went early to bed.
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