New Zealand

On the 14th february, we fly to Christchurch, main town of the southern island of New-Zealand. The 1500 miles between Australia and its neighbour are covered in less than 3 hours. What a contrast to our cruising speed of the past 2 years : 10 km/h !

We arrive late and have to spend our first night in a noisy and expensive backpacker. First impression : it´s damned cold here !

Christchurch is a small city, frequented by quite a lot of tourists as it is a kind of starting point for all those who want to visit the southern island. We buy some stuff for our trekking and leave towards the mountain. "Traumatised" by our experience on the GR20 in 2002 with way too heavy bags (Thomas had 20kg and I had 17kg), we pay particular attention to the weight of the bags. No cans, heavy fry pans or unuseful clothes this time but dehydrated food and a single light weigth saucepan. The choice of our tramps (the kiwi word for trek) is determined by the tourism industry : we want to avoid croud and paying tramps (luckily, those which you pay for are also the crouded ones, due to advertising).

We start nicely whilst forgetting our camera and the passports in the car who took us as hitch. Thanks to the kindness of Tony, a kiwi driving around in his van, we trace down the previous car after one hour of driving and a lot of thinking. The most incredible is that Tony knows one of the two girls from the previous car... The world is so small!

Hitch-hiking works great in New Zealand (except with big luxury 4x4) and we reach Mount Cook, in the center of the island, much faster than we thought. Hiking (we start with a hike of a 1000m) and camping make us rapidly forget Sydney. At the top we are rewarded by a beautiful view on the glacier and a little snow (we havn't seen any in 2 years).

200 km more south, we walk for 5 days, from one valley (the Rees) to another (the Dart) with a passage of 2 passes. One day the weather is nice, and the next it rains... And when it rains, it rains! We are really surprised by the dramatic and dry aspect of some landscapes. The mountain has many loose rocks and we get sometimes the impression of being in an open mine. For once, man is not responsible for this chaos: nature does that alone... We imagined New Zealand as a very green country, covered with forests and sheep fields... For the sheep we weren't wrong, they are everywhere! ... however for the landscapes, they are rather dry.

6 to 8 hours walking everyday is tireing, especialy after 2 years at sea! Everyday, in the beggining, we walk like very old people and at the end of a track we need two days to motivate our feet for new adventures! A good piece of lamb on the barbeque, a few apples (the New Zealand beauty is great) and off we go again... Under strong and cold rain, we curse, but everything is just right. The landscapes, the encounters, and the pleasure of sliding in our warm sleeping bags (at least warmer than outside) at the end of a long day walking compensates widly for the effort.

In the touristic places, we are astonished by the proposed activities, and even more with the fact that it works! One needs to pay a lot in order to land on a glacier with a helicopter, go up the river with a 700 horsepower speedboat... the more noise and pollution the better! Around Queenstown, nature has been transformed in a big Disneyland. Once again we run away, and leave again for a 4 days trek after spending some days on the West coast. Hitch-hiking still works really well, and we meet great people.

Hiking around Arthur´s pass, we meet a hispano-americain couple, Ben and Maria, who left their jobs and are travelling around for two years. A bit like us but they are just starting and are travelling by foot. We strongly recommend their website http://germin8.net. (Maria we swear, we didn't steel your stuff, even if Hélène does need new underclowear...!). We spend two days with them and it was as if we knew each other since much longer, a real pleasure. Our feet didn't see the distance go by. We even had a good hot water bath in a natural hot spring, what a luxury!

On the 5th of March our trip ends at Christchurch with a lot of rain and it is time to go back to Sydney...

 

 

A local recipie

Fish and Chips :

For the batter:
A cup of wheat flour, a cup of beer, 1 or 2 small eggs

fish filets, oil to fry

Mix flour and beer. Add egg yolgs. Beat egg whites in a bowl until they are fluffy. Add them carefully to the flour mix.
The batter is ready !

Dip fish filets generously and fry in hot oil (180°C) for 3 to 4 minutes. Salt and enjoy with tartare sauce and french fries with vinegar.

Bon appétit!