NZ Holiday Images

We just had a 3 week stay in New Zealand. Pictures from our visit are to be found here.

There are three new galleries: South Island, LOTR (Lord of the Rings) tour Wanaka and LOTR Tour Twizel. The other galleries are from last year's holiday.

We had a great time. We started in Wellington to visit the "Return of the King" in the cinema in which it had its premiere night. From there we went to the Queen Charlotte Sound for a three day hike. Then on to the west coast for some whale watching. We did see some seals and dolphins to. A long drive brought us to Fransz Jozef glacier (we had a stopover at the pancake rocks). Annemieke made a heliflight to the Glacier and did some ice walking. I took a longer heli flight over several other glaciers.

In Wanaka we did a day long "Lord of the Rings" tour. Half a day by chopper over the Southern Alps and half a day by four-wheel-drive. Even if you're not a fan, it is certainly worthwile. In Queenstown we did some frisbee golf and saw our first Kiwi. 

The area around Twizel is also worth a visit, especially if you are a Lord of the Rings fan. Not many tourists there, but nevertheless some worthwile landscapes.

We ended in ChristChurch. We found that city a bit of an anti-climax at the end of the holiday. Traffic lights, a lot of people and an European looking town. We would advise starting you visit of the South Island here. It gets only better from there on. It certainly is a city worthwile visiting, but the rest is so much better...