Wellington – Queenstown: The nature at its strongest

Chris en I took the ferry from Wellington to the South Island. Still tired from the previous night we had difficulties to get out of bed on time. Twenty minutes before the ferry left we arrived at the terminal and it turned out that we were the last arriving passengers. We were welcomed with 'Welcome, you must be Chris and Job' 'and should be ashamed, but we were proud that we became famous in Wellington after a few days.

Most people on the boat were looking for a seat close to the window for a good view of the looming mountains on the side of the fjord. We searched in the middle of the room for a comfortable chair to sleep in and were happy that there was no competition for that. The 3,5 hours on the boat flew by, when we opened our eyes we arrived in Picton.

Many people that take the ferry to Wellington stay overnight in Picton. There are many hostels and motels in town that are nearly empty because in the winter fewer people use the ferry. In our hostel, I met Andy. An English boy with Rastafarians who does not have any stress, even not if there is a tsunami on the way. He has the habit to have monologues with himself, in which he can talk to himself for hours about a jar of peanut butter. Andy is able to fill stadiums with his sarcasm and dry humor.

Mikaela and Laura, two American girls who just completed their high school, drove us out of Picton in a luxurious, shiny car. Based on the car the girls seemed to be two successful business women, but seeing their personal belongings all over the place made me think differently. Mikaela told me it is not a habit in America to take a gap year. Mikaela does want to take a gap year, to discover herself and figure out what she wants to study. Her parents would prefer that she is going to study and find a job afterwards, because traveling does not offer you any financial security. You have to be a strong 20 year old girl to decide to travel, despite the will of your parents.

At the spot where Mikaela and Laura dropped us off, Emil picked us up in yet another cart hat looks way too good for a backpacker. Emil likes long walks, to not walk with unnecessarily baggage he brought only things that help him to survive in the open air. A gas burner, cookware and water filter replaced the space for his clothes, so Emil travels with two shirts. I can imagine there are not many boxershorts in his backpack as well.

We drove with Emil to Kaikoura, along the way we stopped at the Ahau waterfall to see seals. On the coast you could see an adult seal colony, 500 meters inland on a more hidden place was the home of the baby-seals. The male seals are twice as large and heavy as the females, and this difference is clearly visible. An adult male seal lying on rocks looks like a sausage with a fat percentage of 75%. You can not imagine that he is fast enough to catch fish.

The baby seals, however, are very playful and curious. In a group of twenty seals they continuously dive under water and come up in a pool of 100m2. It seems like you look at a junction during the morning; lots of traffic, but no accidents. All visitors were queuing for their photo, I walked to the side of the waterfall where a seal actually came to me. It seemed that he wanted to greet me by pressing his nose against mine. It  was apity that the seal did not have time to chat or exchange her Facebook account with me.

From the charming Kaikoura we were offered a lift by Ollie and Nellie to Christchurch. This German couple has climbed the Himalayas, one of the most dangerous climbs in the world. Just before they reached the top Nellie ran into difficulties through the thin air. Her body was short on oxygen, which paralyzed part of her body and made her unable to talk properly. A terrifying event, especially if you're at a high altitude with no help nearby. After a day of waiting in a cabin Nellie's body adapted to the thin air, and they could still reach the top. Since the Tangariro Crossing I understand why people want to climb the Himalayas, it is also on my wish list, but this story makes me'll see how quickly things can go wrong.

Arriving in Christchurch was immediately visible how much damage the earthquake has done to the city center five years ago. Buildings that are completely covered in scaffolding, damaged apartments that are held up by wooden poles, abandoned houses that are ready for demolition and large areas of land that are vacant. The argue on who should pay for the damage took years and delayed the rebuilding of the city severely.

Typical of the impact of the earthquake is the memorial '' The white chairs'. Located next to a crossroads there is a small piece of grass with a white chair on it for each person that died during the earthquake. Some chairs give you a good idea of ​​what kind of person might have been in that chair. Each empty chair is a chair that is empty now during dinner, a boardgame or a birtday celebration. By placing these empty seats in an undeveloped area along a crossroad I got the feeling that the earthquake could have happened a month ago.

We left the depressing Christchurch behind and took the Transalpine train to Greymouth. The Transalpine Railway crosses the mountains and is popular among tourists because of the stunning views. The front rail car has no windows, which gives you the chance to make good pictures. During the first twenty minutes of the ride everyone was in the front rail car to take a few pictures. The new up-tempo '' click, click, click '’ song of Justin Bieber was pretty loud. The cold ensured that many people went back to the heated train psrts and the song turned into a slow ballad. Twenty minutes later, it seemed that Justin Bieber had fainted because it had become quiet in the train.

Because the front part of the train is open at the sides you can feel the cold wind, breathe in the fresh mountain air and hear the sound of the train hitting the track. You are part of the environment, as if riding a motorbike through the Alps. With my nose in the wind my eyes saw one after another candy passing. Snowy mountain tops, crystal clear lakes, wild rivers, rolling grasslands and a combination of that in all fall colors you can imagine. It was like I got all my presents for the next five years in a few hours.

Five hours later I was out of the fantasy train and had to confront the harsh reality to find someone that would take us to Franz Josef. Luckily the ambitious entrepreneur Ben wanted to bring us in the right direction. Ben tries to let tour operators in New Zealand make tours according to  to the needs of the rapidly growing amount of Chinese tourists. A responsibility that would probably take all my time, but Ben found time to set up another project. He wants to let Chinese schoolchildren who live in rural areas exchange with children that live in the city for a few months. For next year, 200 children are signed up. In five years Ben hopes that 1 million children will participate each year in the project. Ben believes 300% in what he does and with that conviction he is able to make big changes.

Thanks to Ben and an Indian couple we arrived in Franz Josef, a place known for its glaciers. In the only bar in the village the backpackers from the Kiwi bus and the Stray bus, the buses which most backpackers travel with, went loose during a limbo dancing competition. At the end the one who took off the most clothes and not the best limbo dancerr. Without any price, but with our clothes we woke up the next morning, ready to see the glaciers. I looked out of the room and had a view of 10 meters, because of the heavy fog. During the walk you can get up to 500 meters from the glacier, a simple calculation shows that you will not see any glacier in these circumstances.

So we moved on to the next place; Wanaka. With ten cars passing per hour we had to be patient to find a lift, luckily Matthias stopped. Matthias is from Alaska and does what he wants. Over het centuries hunting on polar bears with spears and fishing for days in water under a thick layer of ice has been replaced by rafting, kayaking and hiking. Adrenaline pumping activities that give Matthias the feeling he loves. We decided to share the petrol costs, not knowing Matthias his car consumes 1 liter per 5 kilometers, it made sense that you’d like to kayak then. Matthias does not care what others think of him. He goes tot he club by himself, makes walks of five days alone and goes rafting if he feels like it. A travel style that really appeals to me.

With Matthias we arrived in Wanaka, a ski area where people come when they want to avoid the festivities in Queenstown. There was not a lot snow on the mountains yet, so most people went to the pub early. Starting with a small beer at 15:00, followed with a sobering dinner at 18:00, whereafter you drink as many beer as you can, so you're ready to throw up over my sweater at midnight. Thanks for this unique gift, I feel honored that I got to experience this.

With mountainbikes from the hostel Chris and I explored the surroundings of Wanaka. Through a nice gravel path along Lake Wanaka we came out on a winding road through farm land. We wanted to return to the lake, crossed the land of farmers and came out on a muddy, narrow mountainbike track. Once before I drove on such a track, and that resulted in dozens of crashes. But the adrenaline won from my mind. I drove behind Chris, who is a professional driving over the obstacles, and did not even know which was my front- or rear brake. After twenty minutes I had to make a small jump down and Chris did so with full control, it seemed so easy. My adrenaline wanted to make this jump, but my mind screamed 'no, no, no.' Due to a lack of confidence, I squeezed very hard in my front brake in the run up to the jump. This put my rear wheel off the ground and threatened me to fall over the bike. I had to jump off my bike, but suddenly saw to the left of the track a ravine. I jumped to the right side of the road, my bike thereby slid toward the valley on my left. I could only watch and hope that the bike would stop in time. The front wheel hung above the valley. In my mind I saw myself picking up hundreds of pieces of mountain bike in the valley. But I got rescued by an angel that suddenly stopped the bike from sliding and kept the bike on the road. I ran to my bike far, gave
her a big hug and promised that I would listen to my mind the rest of the ride.

The next day we left our mountain bikes and took the legs to Roy's Peak, according to Google a mountaintop where you have the view of two rivers coming together. Along the way we met three girls which we had seen hitchhiking before. After a brief chat we decided to continue walking together. My legs were not happy about this, because with a top tennis player and two trained athletes in the group they suddenly had to switch to the sixth gear. We walked along a muddy path, Chris frameless shoes made him do some crazy moves to stay on his feet, through a thick cloud cover. The water drops fell from my eyebrows as if it just rained heavily. At the pace of the army, luckily without the yelling and flying bullets, we walked quickly above the clouds. The water drops were replaced by sweat, thanks to the bright sunshine. This made the women quickly turn around, probably because they had forgotten the sunscreen. Chris and I continued the hike and reached Roy’s Peak after 3,5 hours. We were surrounded by a snowy sea and not the images that Google showed us.

 

We left Wanaka and were brought to Queenstown by a Belarusian couple. Sergey and Ivana moved fifteen years ago to Melbourne because they could earn more money there. Nevertheless, the Russian roots are still visible. Sergey and Ivana find the school teachers not strict enough, the workers too weak, the weather too hot and the city too busy. They mainly speak Russian and their English is far from fluent. They want to return to their homeland, but are afraid to get into financial problems in the economically weaker Belarus. The story of Sergey and Ivana shows that it can be difficult to properly integrate people with a different culture. Since Sergey and Ivana have different values ​​than the Australians they do not have a strong relationship with the local people, which gives them not much motivation to integrate.