Taupo to Wanaka

So we finally arrived in Taupo... and as you can see on the last 2 fotos of this post, it was very beautiful!! Lake Taupo used to be a volcano which exploded about 2000 years ago and left the whole earth in darkness for 3 days because of all the ash in the atmosphere... substances from the volcano where found even in China!! incredible.. hei??!! well... after exploding it just left a big whole in the ground which filled up with water and this is Lake Taupo now... there are some awsome Maori cavings in the rocks around the lake and it's pretty cool to see all the different volcanic stones around the lake. ana and I went on a cruise around the lake before we headed down to Wellington to catch the ferry... guys.. that was a long day!! we sat on the car for 6 hours straight.. no breaks... because I was afraid we would miss the ferry to the South Island... but .. we got it!! on the way down to Wellington we had to cross the Tongariro National Park (next 2 fotos from bottom) which is famous for its Lord of the Rings setting in the world of Mordor... the dark world... it was spooky!! the clouds were not really with us and decided to hide the peak of the volcano from us but still the landscape in teh national park is fascination.. and you can even go skiing there in winter... unfortunately we could not look at the captial of New Zealand, Wellington.. such a pitty!! it's supposed to be really nice and it looked quite Mediterranian to us.. when we were rushing through it to catch the "Interislander"!! the ferry took 3 hours!! and we finally arrived at 21.30 on the South Island in Picton were we went straight to a camping ground, switched on the heating, had a sandwich each and went straight to bed... what a big day!! after having a big sleep in Picton we started making our way down south and our second stop on the South Island was Kaikoura.. famous for whale watching and swimming with the dolphins!!... sounds great.. hei?! but.. the weather was not on our side and the sea was too ruff for the boats to leave the harbour both days we were there.. so... we could not go and swim with the dolphins.. it's such a shame but... can't change the weather, hei?! anyway.. since we could not sail that day we made a nice hike around the pensinsula of Kaikoura.. it was beautiful... we were walking with sheep and cows and got some impressing views of the cliffs and see of the east coast!! it was quite a hike (took us 3 1/2 hours) and after that we decided we had earned ouselves some nice typical meal for the reason.. there's only one thing you hear people raving about in Kaikoura and that's Crayfish.. yummy!!! lucky me, ana even knows how to eat this animal and she showed me... it was delicious!! and since it was friday we went to a pub in Kaikoura and wanted to party a little bit... unfortunately there was nobody out and so we had to drink a couple of regional beers mainly by ourselves.. with exception to a blond guy who insisted he was 25 and Maori and looked like 17... seriously... I did not think he was funny.. anyways.. we got pretty drunk but still went to bed at 23.00.. we cannot believe how different the world is from spain here... everybody goes to bed that early.. but even us.. that's the way!! we are adapting!!! though, the next day we went through Christchurch and actually thought we could make it down to Wanaka in one day!! it turned out it was a bit further away than we thought so we stayed in Lake Tekapo for the night which was a very good decision!! in christchurch we just went for some lunch and coffee, knowing that we are coming back here in a couple of days to catch our flights back to Australia!! so.. the first 2 fotos are taken on lake Tekapo and yesterday morning we had a beautiful drive through the New Zealand Alps down to Kim's hometown Wanaka!!! I can't wait to show you all the fotos from that drive (just one on top).. it's so beautiful!!