Following Frodo's footprints and G'Day Australia!

The bites of the sand flies are not itchy any more and we changed our location in the meantime. We have left New Zealand 2 days ago and we are now in Australia, in Perth where we enjoy 30 degrees and sunshine.

We left Te Anau and the Fjordland and drove up north with direction Mt. Cook. We did a short stop in the small town called Wanaka for it's main attraction: Puzzeling World (which is a museum with a lot of illusions) which is definitely worth a stop (you can look like a giant or a dwarf there!). Once we arrived in Mt. Cook village (with is basically a pure tourist town) the weather had changed from sunny to slight rain and the mountains were covered in clouds. Firstly, we checked the accommodation situation (not good, only some expensive bed's available) and then we checked the weather forecast, which was even worse than the accommodation situation: rain for the next days. So given these facts, we decided not to stay in this town (because hiking up a mountain and not seeing anything is not what we want) and we continued our journey. We wanted to spend the night in Lake Tekapo (they have some thermal baths) but we also had some issues to find an accommodation. Finally, we were able to get a nice and friendly Bed 'n Breakfast (most likely the last available one due to high season in town) which was not cheap but sometimes, you have no other choice. After a good and rich breakfast, we went to the thermal baths for a dip in the hot pools there (which is always a good option with insect bites!) before we drove to Arthur's Pass.

Puzzling World in Wanaka

Puzzling World

Arthur's Pass is a small village as well, not having much infrastructure but some nice hostels and you have some really good hiking tracks. Since we had now a day more, we were able to do 2 treks and one was amazing (hiking up to Avalanche Peak: 3 km of hiking and climbing 1'000 m for a great view). Furthermore, on the top of this mountain 2 Keas were waiting and posing for being pictured. They are not shy at all, they are pretty smart and curious and they know exactly that in the backpacks is food. So as soon as you step away from the backpacks, they jump on it and the will open it some way; either using the zipper or slicing the backpack open with their beak.
Next morning, our legs were still a bit sore from the hike but we had to drive to Picton, the town where the ferry from Wellington is landing, connecting the South and North island. On this drive, we had the opportunity to stop a the pancake rocks which are amazing when the waves are coming in and crash against the rocks. Once we left the car park, we tried to establish the "driving on the right side" in New Zealand for a short time, but since the others did not participate, we switched back to the left lane quickly (nobody was hurt!) :-)

View from Avalanche Peak

Kea posing

Pancake-Rocks

In Picton, we stayed in a great hostel, the "Jugglers Rest" where the owner are passionate jugglers and have a fire show in the night for the clients. Furthermore, we hiked up the highest mountain in the Marlborough Sounds for a great view over the Sounds and we took a tour to the close wineries for some wine tasting (as we usually do when we are close to wineries) :-)
Picton was our last stop in the South island, so we boarded the ferry to cross the Cook Strait to the North island were we drove up to Turangi. This is the town close to Mt. Tongariro and "Mt. Doom" of Lord of the Rings. So this was the goal for the next day, hiking the 22 km and climbing the volcano that was used in Lord of the Rings as Mount Doom. It is a very steep climb over loose rocks and a lot of poorly equipped people do it as well, so you have to be very careful when descending since they kicked off a lot of rocks. But the view from the top and the view during the hike are incredibly!

Marlborough Sounds

View from Mt. Doom to Mt. Tongariro

Lakes in the Crater

Still active Volcano

Before we went to Auckland, we also visited the Waitomo Glow-worm caves and the Hukka Falls close to Taupo. So finally, we handed over our car with this summary:

- about 5000 km travelled in 3 weeks in New Zealand
- fuel consumption of about 9 litres per 100 km
- once driving the car on the wrong side, but no accidents :-)

In Auckland, we relaxed and visited the city's highlights (e.g. Sky Tower) and I took the opportunity to visit my old school where I went to 10 years ago (language Internationals). The school still exists and my old teacher (Martin Schwartz, now re-named to HD Francis Waterman) is still there (he stated that we will be teaching there until he drops dead). Very funny to see him again and he actually remembered me :-)
So, after 2 days in Auckland, we cached our plane to Sydney and continued to Perth. Since custom and pest control were very quick, we were able to catch an earlier flight to Perth where we arrived in the late afternoon. Now we are planing our west coast trip with our 4x4 car we'll pick up on the 28th of Feb.

Hiking at Arthur's Pass

Flying Kea

Jumping Kea

Kea on Avalance Peak

Avalanche Peak Summit

Pancake Rocks

Hukka Falls

Sky Tower in Auckland

Sky Tower ... have a close look at it!

Skyline Auckland from Harbour

Language International

My former English teacher

Adios South America and hello New Zealand (Good on ya mate!)

We spent 3 nice days in the "Torres del Paine" national park where we finished the "W" track we started 2 years ago. This time, we were able to visit the missing part of the track that was closed 2 years ago due to the fire in the park. The vegetation has not recovered fully from the fire, so you see a lot of burned trees along the track up to the glacier. Since we didn't want to camp, we booked 2 beds in the hut there and they do dinner as well, so we just needed to carry lunch with us (which still was heavy enough).

Flowers growing again in the park

Soaring Condor

Los Cuernos and burned trees

From the cold and windy south, we made our way up to Santiago de Chile by plane and we arrived in the night at our hostel. We had a double room and the size of the room was big enough to play tennis inside (we actually set the alarm clock to watch the live ticker of Stan!). Or last days in South America we spent with eating, sleeping, using the swimming pool and reading... except for the day where we went to a guided city tour (which was very good!). Since we had some Argentinian Pesos left, we wanted to exchange them in Chile where we noticed that the exchange rate dropped dramatically. So we did not get much Chilenian Peso out of it, but it was sufficient to have dinner and reach the airport of Santiago with it. There, we boarded our Boeing 747 from Quantas for our flight to Sydney (a 14 hour fight).
So, we arrived around 18.00 local time the airport of Sydney, followed by the immigration procedure. We finally checked in at our hotel around 21.00, went for a quick dinner and then straight to bed. Due to the time shift, we were awake early, so we spent our day sight seeing in Sydney (see the pictures below) and we did some essential shopping (out-door stuff). In the evening, we took our Virgin flight to Christchurch for our Kiwi-Adventure. Believe it or not: the immigration takes even longer than in Australia and South America due to the "pest" Control where they wanted to see our hiking boots... Never ending story in short: we arrived in our hostel at 2 in the morning :-)

Harbour bridge

Sydney Opera House

Christchurch was hit by several earthquakes in 2010 / 2011 and almost everything in the city centre is destroyed or needs to be taken down. So in comparison to the city I visited 10 years ago, it is a ghost city in the centre. The cathedral is partially destroyed and there is hardly any shops open in the centre, but there is a lot of space for street art! Besides visiting the city, we were also up to find a cheap rental car and we found it! 37 Kiwi-Dollars (33 USD / 30 CHF) per day and a funny car: Toyota OPA! Not a small car at all but very thirsty (9-10 l per 100 km). So after the acclimatization time, we left Christchurch and headed south to Omaru to visit the penguin colonies there (Yellow - Eyed penguins and blue penguins) before we continued to Dunedin (the city where they brew "Speights - The pride of the South", where you can see Albatross and yellow eyed penguins as well) through the south of the island (the Catlins) to get to Te Anau for our 3 Day Keppler Track. The track is one of the "Great Walks" which are e.g. Milford Sound Track (booked out for this year) and Routeburn Track (also heavily booked already) and the Keppler Track is heavily booked as well, so we had to do a very long first day (25 km) followed by two shorter days. Usually, you splitt our first day into 2 days, but the hut was fully booked already, so we had no other option. The weather was perfect and the track was good as well, so we spent 3 relaxed days there. But before leaving for it, we had a another sunny day in the Milford sound and it's surroundings! We can't complain about the weather so far, just about the sand flies....


Now, our next plans are to drive direction north to Mt. Cook and Arthur's Pass for some more outdoor activities.

Christchurch Cathedral

Christchurch

Centre in Christchurch

Peninsula next to Dunedin

Sea Lion posing for the picture

Penguin posing

Nugget Point - Catlins

Family swimming in the Catlins

Key summit on the way to Milford Sound

Milford Sound

View from Keppler track

Iris Burn waterfall in the morning

Clouds, rain, snow covered summits, costal rain forest, wind - welcome to Patagonia (2)

During the night, the weather cleared up, so we could start our trip through the "valey of glaciers" again to see the "glaciar exploradores". It's a 50 km ride through rough nature on a rough road, passing lakes, hanging glaciers and waterfalls. At the end, you find a path that leads to the lookout for the glacier and, if the sky is clear, you could also see the highest mountain in patagonia, around 4000 m tall. But the low hanging clouds did not let us see it from the lookout.

View into the valley

Hanging glacier

So we continued our trip around the scenic lake to the little town Chile Chico. On the way, we stopped for taking pictures and we also visited the Marble Coves; stone formations in the lake close to Puerto Tranquilo.

Marble Coves

Inside the coves

In Chile Chico, we stayed two nights in this town so we had the chance to visit the national park in the south, where some paths can be hiked and where you have a splendid view to the surrounding mountains. Luckily, the weather was becoming better, so we had a perfect view to them. Leaving Chile Chico the next day early in the morning to be ready for the trip further south, to Cochrane to drop of our German friend and to buy our reserved bus tickets to Villa O'Higgins (There is just 2 buses a week).

Lagune panorama view

Lagune in the park

Steep section ahead

Once we arrived, we noticed they do the "siesta" also in Cochrane, so the office was closed till 15.30. No problem so we had time for lunch and we came back at 15.30. There was someone in the office, but she was just doing the taxi service they offered as well and she told us, that the girl selling the bus tickets is not here. She might comes in an hour :-) so we tried to get the other bus tickets we needed, but no luck there as well, since the office the guy needed to call was closed on Saturday afternoon :-) . So back to the office for the more important tickets to Villa O'Higgins and luckily, now the girl was there... she checked our reservation (which was there) but she said, that she could not sell us the tickets.... ?? Why?... Well, they ran out of the paper tickets they are selling so she offered us to come back on Monday, then she will have new tickets :-D . Obviously, we had to bring back the car then, so this was not an option; we had to wait until we got back by bus to Cochrane to pick up our tickets.
After this successful sunny afternoon in Cochrane, we drove north to Puerto Bertrand, a very laid back town a the shore of a beautiful lack where we enjoyed the sun (and finally got another slight sun burn!), reading the books we had to finish (since we don't want to carry them any longer). From this town, it took us about 6 hours of driving back north to be close to Coyhaique, where we had to hand over the car again. But instead of going to the city, we stayed in another cosy cabaña at the shore of Lago Elizalde in the middle of the forest.

Puerto Bertrand

View around the big lake

Panorama view from the lake

The next day, we had time to visit the city of Puerto Aisen before we handed back our car. So, instead of driving ourselves, we were back to carrying our backpacks ourselves and taking buses to move from A to B. In this case, we had to drive about 10 hours from Coyhaique to Cochrane (to finally by our tickets) to continue with a small bus to Villa O'Higgins. This is a small town at the very end of the Carretera Austral, close to the Argentinian border.
The ride itself is a very picture-some trip through remote places of southern patagonia, including a ferry to cross a fjord. We stayed in a bigger hostel and met a swiss family, travelling with bikes from Ecuador to Ushuaia in 7 months. They travel with their 2 kids (4 years and 2 years old), amazing!

Picture stop before Villa O'Higgins

Using the sunny weather again for a hike in the surroundings we spent the day in Villa O'Higgins. From this place, you can cross to Argentina, to El Chalten. But the trip is not as easy as we expected. There is a little ferry / boat that runs 4 times a week to the other side of the large lake between the two countries. On the other side, there is an estancia where you can stay for the night and where you get basic (but nevertheless tasty!) food. Furthermore, you can visit a glacier similar to the Perito Moreno glacier with the boat; a very nice trip.

View to the glacier

The O'Higgins glacier

The standard Whiskey with ice from the glacier

We had the information, that you need to hike 22 km to pass the border to Argentina (to get to the north shore of lago del desierto) but apparently, you should be able to hire horses to carry your back packs. Well, this was the information we had, but the guy with the horses did not show up and the señora did not know where he was... so we had 2 options: Waiting the next day to see if he shows up (or not) or to hike the 22 km (quite scenic) with our full gear (quite heavy) .... We decided to do the second option and it took us more than 7 hours to reach the lake on the Argentinian side, hurting legs and shoulder included. On the other side, there should have been a bus that brings you to El Chalten (37 km) but this bus was already "fully booked" so we (and some more crazy hikers doing the same) had to opt for other options. Luckily, a friendly couple gave us a lift to El Chalten, so we arrived not too late there, tired but happy that we made it, celebrating it with an very tasty dinner in El Chalten.

Scenic hike to El Chlaten

Argentinian border, 6 km to go still

Since we have visited this town already, we took the bus next morning to go straight south to Puerto Natales, the gate for the "Torres del Paine national Park" where we plan to hike some more days until we fly to Santiago de Chile and then further to Sydney and New Zealand by the end of this month.