It's the type of place where you can walk barefooted on the grass. Where it smells of barbecue, sunscreen and saltwater. Where it doesn't get dark till late. It's the type of summer we have in Scandinavia every ten years or so, the ones we hope and long for every year, but seldom get. Just that in this place it feels like it is going to last forever.
Vas and I spent 10 days driving from the north to the south of New Zealand at the end of January. New Zealand is a beautiful, scenic country, which has much to offer tourists. It is quite similar to Norway with its forests, mountains, fiords, lakes and glaciers. Below is a route similar to the one we took.
www.newzealand.com/.../lions-tour-test.cfm
The Waikoto River, the longest river in New Zealand. After the initial excitement of seeing the pretty, blue water we went downstream and found a place calm enough to swim.
Rotorua, a town in the middle of the North Island, is the place to go for thermal activity. It was truly an amazing sight and my favourite part of the trip. The following pictures are from the two thermal parks Hells Gate and Orakei Korako.
The negative thing about Rotorua was that it smelt pretty strongly of sulfur. It didn't seem that bad when we were there, but all the clothes we wore still smell pretty strongly, even after several washes.
There's a sign at the top of this cave saying "No swimming in cave water", which I couldn't quite understand why someone would be tempted to do in the first place. It just seemed a bit creepy. But then I got down there and the water, which is actually quite deep, is crystal blue and it is so warm. Hot bathtub warm. For people coming there in winter it must seem overly tempting.
More hot water. Most of the water was too hot to touch. There's warning signs everywhere.
Steam from boiling water.
Snow-peaked mountain. Vas was quite excited. Me not so. But I did take a picture.
A person bungy jumping off the Kawarau Bridge on the South Island. This is the world's first commercial bungy site. New Zealand has everything imaginable when it comes to extreme sports and whenever we went into a tourist information or asked people "what there was to do around there" the answers were: "heaps, we got bungy, rafting, zorbing, hang gliding...". Pity I'm not into that kind of thing. Vas took this photo by making the camera shoot continuously. I think it came out pretty cool.
Norwegian road standard? Vas loved this road. He even drove back up so he could drive down it one more time.
Somewhere on the South Island.
New Zealand has incredibly blue water. We never stopped being amazed by that. This is a place aptly called the "Blue Pools".
Endless forest on the South Island.
Franz Josef Glacier on the South Island. We didn't go on to the actual glacier. We just walked up to it, about a one hour hike.
The South Island came with a bit of weather change. I might be smiling, but I am secretly just wanting to go back to the summer on the North Island.
Imsdal - "kilden til et renere liv"
4 comments:
det så ut som et land for meg:) Flotte bilder.
det ser ut som dere har hatt en flott tur.For noen fine bilder.Den veien Vas kjørte opp og ned flere ganger såg smal ut.Koselige ferie.Ja nå reiser Trude og co.imorgen til Singapore.Klem fra mormor.
Åh, så misunnelig!!! Eg skaaa dit en gang.. :) Håpe alt står bra t med deg!! Her e det kaldt og snø. Bajs. Savne deg masse!! Eg har 9 uker ferie i sommer, btw!!:D Men ingen penger, så har tenkt t å jobba litt..:)
Kooos
Supert å høre fra deg igjen. Lekre bilder, minnet om en geografitime!
heldigen du som opplever så mye.
Her er tåke og slafs. Snømannen i hagen seg sammen her forleden. Hils Vas takk for julekort. Hilsen farmor
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