You keep what you kill

While on Stewart Island it would’ve been criminal not to do the Rakiura track, and since we’re nice people we did of course not want to cause offense. ☺ We did not want to spend a night on the track for logistical reasons though so we decided to do it as a long day walk.…

So, next stop Stewart Island! Excited, I’ve been to NZ so many times, but never to the third largest island. It has the reputation of being always rainy, muddy, full of sandflies etc etc etc. And the ferry crossing is supposedly nasty. So we drove our fat arses to Bluff on Wednesday afternoon and found…

As I’d said, I had to find last minute accommodation on Sunday night for the Queenstown area. Of course it wasn’t our plan to go back to Queenstown, we only did it because we had to pick up the bloody bag. But hey, we thought we might at least make the best of it. And…

Our Kea friend ambushed us again on the way down to Brod Bay, very insistent fellow! 🙂    Also, some great views to be had, Lake Te Anau, Lake Manapouro, and the mountains of course. Luxmore hut looked really good, too. Need to come back and do the full Kepler one day. 

On Sunday evening I managed to find accommodation for two nights near Queenstown, in Shotover Country. I also had to call the folks at Trips and Tramps to let them know we need to cancel our pre-booked track transport for the Hollyford Track, which we had wanted to do Mon-Wed … . So I phone…

Why didn’t anybody tell me I’m repeating myself? Sorry for the last post, but hey, life goes on as my friend 2Pac would’ve said.So we spent a whole day hanging around in Te Anau doing more or less nothing. Not quite nothing, I was on the phone and on twitter all day trying to sort…

Telephone booth on Stewart Island. Probably uses the tree roots for signal processing and transmission. Hope James Cameron doesn’t get to see this, he might sue for Avatar copyright breach. 😁

The road to Milford Sound: Wonderful sunset at Lake Te Anau: Key Summit in the Clouds:  Lake Howden: And a rock that looks like a Hamster (not a rat!): 🙂 Marian Falls: Tranquil morning at Lake Te Anau, before we’re headed to the other side, to Brod Bay:

I’m a bit behind, as usual. Vacation dementia. The long distance flights were quite relaxing, I managed to binge watch the whole 7th season of Game of Thrones, had tons of food and even caught a short nap or two. Service on both SIA and NZ flights was outstanding, the food was really good, too.…

It’s fascinating that NZ is still stuck in the 80s, musicwise. I’ve been coming here for 14 years now and the music that is played in cafes, restaurants, supermarkets is still exactly the same. It’s like the whole country has just one tape. 🙂 Charming! So, where we at? Our routing was TXL-ARN-SIN-AKL, all business…