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04/03/2003: We arrive in Dunedin, the second largest town of the South Island. It's a typical students town: young, relaxed and cultural. But at the same time this city is quite historic, visible in all the many old buildings we see all over the town. Some kilometres to the east we explore the Otago-Peninsula a refuge for animals. We see Albatrosses, Sealions, Penguins and countless shorebirds ... every beach has it's own surprises!

04/02/2003: With mixed emotions we experience Slope Point, the southern most Point of our trip! From now on we are driving back ...

03/28/2003: Close to Te Anau we visit a cave where thousands of glow-worms live. Unlike the European ones, these are no flying insects but larvae which sit their hole life on the ceiling of a cave. In a small boat we float along a little river through the dark cave just under all the glowing worms - and enjoy the "starry sky" above us.

03/22/2003: One of the most impressive experiences we enjoy at the West Coast: on board a small helicopter we fly over the two most famous glaciers and the highest Mountain of Oceania. The Franz Josef Glacier and the Fox Glacier are both very close to the sea (about 20 km off the coast) and are both very fast glaciers: the ice flows here at an speed of about 1 metre per day into the valley. Most of it melts on the way down, but in the past 15 years the faces of both glaciers moved downwards for approximately 1.7 kilometres. The views we have from above over these rivers of ice and the mountains - the highest is Mt. Cook with 3.755 metres - are just beyond the words we could find for them!

03/16/2003: Today we spend to explore the Abel Tasman National Park in the North of the South Island. It is the smallest Park of the country but maybe the most popular one. A net of walkways makes it easy to "tramp" (that's what they call hiking here) through mountain forests and sandy beaches and everything in between. We take a Water Taxi to "Bark Bay" and hike back the eight hours. We pass numerous small bays with sandy beaches and in between small rivers flow into the crystal clear sea. We can't resist to take a bath at one of the beaches - but not for long, the water here is quite cold!

03/12/2003: The Capital of New Zealand welcomes us: we arrive in Wellington! Although it is much smaller than Auckland (about 200,000 habitants), it is home to the parliament and all the national administration. It also claims to bee the Cultural Capital - what reflects in the number of cafés: countless! We enjoy some of their multicultural food and after that the national museum "Te Papa". At the moment there is an exhibition showing the making of "The Lord of The Rings". This cinematoghraphic masterpiece was entirely made in NZ and we think they can be proud of it. We were astonished, seeing with how much effort and enthusiasm this movie-trilogy was made!

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