New Zealand

Life on the road is what automobiles were made for, share your road trip stories and pictures here.

Moderator: volvite

User avatar
NVSteve
Sponsored Member
Posts: 1987
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:27 am
Location: Salt Lake City

New Zealand

Postby NVSteve » Tue Jul 09, 2013 2:56 pm

Flew down and toured the south island of New Zealand in June-with 3 women in tow. Crazy, right? We rented a 26+ foot RV & I was the driver (lots of previous experience driving on the wrong side of the road). The RV was a converted VW diesel van or something similar. The conversions are done in Australia and shipped to NZ. Since it happened to be winter while we were there, we found out real quick the big heating/AC unit was primarily AC only. It won't operate below a certain temperature, and it always seemed to be below whatever temperature that is. We did have power hooked up each night & a plug-in heater, so it worked out okay. The RV was an auto, but you could also pop it out of auto and shift forward or back (no clutch pedal, obviously). Maybe some of you have experienced this with an automatic, but when I was shifting the gears on my own, it felt & sounded exactly like I was shifting via a manual. Strangest thing I've ever run across, but very cool.

We arrived to rain in Christchurch. A day & a half later, the rain was gone.

Starting from that evening forward:

Image

Image

Image

A tad hazy in the background on this one, but I had to include it. That peak on the right is Mt. Cook, the tallest peak in NZ, and one that is almost always obscured by cloud. I've met many locals who have never seen it.

Image

Image

Image

Because it was winter, the days were short. We typically woke up every day around 5am, so I have lots of sunrise/sunset shots.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Waterfalls everywhere.

Image

Image

These trees grow at a right angle because of the winds.

Image

Image

The next few are from a cruise on Doubtful Sound, which is actually a fjord, not a sound.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

This species was thought to be extinct until a few were rediscovered in 1950 or so.

Image

Image

Jetboats are popular. This is one of the oldest & one of the best. They only need 4 inches of water to operate.

Image

And a short video here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nvsteve/92 ... 4535012207

Image

This is one of the common burgers found pretty much everywhere: it has a fried egg on top of the meat & a thick beet slice. Pretty tasty, but since most of their food is essentially English in origin, I packed along a couple bottles of hot sauce. Otherwise, one could easily be blanded to death when it comes to the food.

Image

This is where commercial bungee jumping began:

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

A thick temperate rainforest is located in the southwest corner of the island.

Image

Image

Some of the glaciers extend down into the rainforest.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

The plan was to head over to a national park at the top of the island, but
after trying the only 3 roads into it, we didn't make it because of severe flooding and landslides. Then we wanted to head up into the mountains to a hot springs resort town, but heard on the news that a super powerful Antarctic storm was blowing in & it was expected to be the worst the country has had in over 20 years. They were right. We ended up racing back to Christchurch and hanging out in the rain/snow there for our last 4 days.

Christchurch used to be a pretty cool city to wander around in. After both of the earthquakes they've had, there is very little left of the heart & soul of the city. The buildings that are still standing can't be occupied because the ground they stand on is no longer stable. Whole city blocks and neighborhoods are closed off because of that. Construction is everywhere, but it will probably take decades to recover because nobody really has the money to foot any of the bills. And they no longer offer earthquake insurance in the country.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image


User avatar
volvite
Sponsored Member
Posts: 2180
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:06 pm
Location: Hill AFB, Utah West Point UT

Postby volvite » Tue Jul 09, 2013 7:51 pm

Steve,

Nice job on the pictures again.

User avatar
JAHBLESSINGS
Sponsored Member
Posts: 1400
Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:36 pm
Location: 90 DEGREES FLORIDA

Postby JAHBLESSINGS » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:55 am

nice pictures. that place is beautiful

User avatar
iheartmypathy
Posts: 157
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 5:17 pm
Location: Southern NH

Postby iheartmypathy » Sat Aug 31, 2013 2:31 pm

not sure how i missed these photos... they're STUNNING. i'd kill to go there.

what kind of camera do you shoot with?

User avatar
Oly 22
Posts: 446
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2012 9:38 pm
Location: Coquitlam, British Columbia Canada

Postby Oly 22 » Mon Sep 02, 2013 12:41 pm

Great pictures...again. New Zealand is on my bucket list, I always wanted to go there just haven't been able to manage it.

Thanks for the look.

User avatar
NVSteve
Sponsored Member
Posts: 1987
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:27 am
Location: Salt Lake City

Postby NVSteve » Tue Sep 03, 2013 8:23 am

iheartmypathy wrote: what kind of camera do you shoot with?
Nikon D600

User avatar
RacerZX
Site Admin
Posts: 869
Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:00 am
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Contact:

Postby RacerZX » Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:02 pm

Always great shots man, beautiful stuff 8)


Return to “Roaaad Trip!!!”