Somewhere in... continuing our drive through South Island

So here we are again. Driving in New Zealand and following advices from our American friend Daniel living in Thailand and our English friend Will, who is now in Tanzania - this is pretty amazing - so many nationalities!

We are in a lovely town in the north of South Island - Kaikoura. You can do whale watching here, swimming with dolpins, but we got a fantastic deal with a backpacker house in the centre of the town with our own video player in the room! So... as it is raining (not snowing! - I will got to this one:) we have seen already Whale rider, a true Kiwi film and a great experience to see something more about a Maori culture....

From Queenstown (please the anonymous comment - can you explain the nudie Pedro there:)? ) we started driving - I don't know north I guess (yes, reading maps is still not my strongest point), but as we started our travel we realised it is really cold and something is falling down the sky! Yes, so now we don't see just the beautiful scenery of the mountains, but we can feel the cold snow on our skin... It was a bit magical, but we were happy it stopped and the sun showed up after sometime and warmed us up.... Otherwise the colours of the trees are amazing and as you look up and see the snowy tops of the mountains... wow... very romantic! And easier for driving.

Next stop was a small town Wanaka (by a huge lake - but it looks like that all Kiwis towns are by a lake surrounded by mountains). We have done an obligatory walk (as New Zealand is all about walking and trips) and settled down to a fantastic small cinema in the centre. It is very special place, as the seats are mostly done from old couches and comfy chairs, you can sit in the car, take a blanket or an extra pillow... you can drink and eat whatever you wish before, during and after the movie (as the menu said). We had a traditional pop corn and fantastic white chocolate - baileys home made ice cream and watched our first kiwi movie - Black sheep! We do recommend to everybody who gets hand on this movie to watch it.. It was a bit crazy, but scary as well if you imagine that there are just 4 million people in New Zealand but 40 million sheep! So we don't see these beautiful cuddly things the same way anymore:)

Travelling through the Alps gives you fantastic views, waterfalls, high mountains (Mt Cook and Mt Tasman are definitely worth mentioning - but they are very difficult to get on the photo as they are most of the time hidden in the clouds, but we did manage at least a little bit) , deep lakes, creeks and of course glaciers ( Franz Joseph and Fox are the most famous one). They are huge, white and it is very cold there:) As we visited some glacier visitors centre, we have seen some fantastic photos of them done by.... of course by a Czech photographer P. Hubacek. Amazing Czechs everywhere - and that is true - we have met soo many Czech people travelling in New Zealand or in Australia - it was a big surprise for me.

After a cosy night in Franz Joseph and exploring the glacier and being cold, we have decided to see some pancakes... Yes, further north there is the famouse rock formation called pancakes rocks (gosh, I would eat an pancake! It i crazy, the taste is just in my mouth... with fruit, chocolate and whipped cream.....) They were really funny, they did look like pancakes and were very photogenic:) This was as well a place, where we have lost our camera.... Walking down the track already at night, coming from the beach and seeing a weird bird - as we thought we might be lucky and we might be seeing kiwi, we took our camera out the back and started photographing ..... Hmmm there was nothing much on the photos, so we put it back and start quickly walking back to the carpark and to our hostel. After great dinner, beer and two hours of relaxing, we wanted to charge the camera and look at the photos and saw that the bag is empty.... Upps! So we took our torches and went back, hoping for luck..... And yes, I think we are the luckiest people ever, as the camera was sitting in the middle of the track, in the middle of the bush, just waiting for us to pick it up..... !!! (Did you see how I described the story in plural? We lost our camera, we did this and that:)))

Anyway we were lucky and could go to sleep peacefully! We are tired of tracks and walking... so we decided to go for a nice spa. Hanmer Springs (the main Kiwi spa town) welcomed us with lovely warm swimming pools (41 degrees). So we soaked our old bones, until our hands wrinkled... Ohhh that was good....

We have 3 more days in the south island and we will take a ferry and transport us to the North of New Zealand.

Keep in touch, we will do as well:)