Sunday, February 10, 2008

The End?

well... after another short day in hong-kong (on new year's eve - the Chinese one - "Year of the Rat") the trip is over.

going over all my pictures now and sorting them. telling the same stories for the eleventh time, every time to a different person (or atleast so i hope, i might be telling the same story to the same person all the time, and that will be boring for him at some point)

i'll probably add one last post to summarize it all - but it might take me a while...

so that's it, for know...

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Christchurch, Final Destination

nothing much to say about christchurch. i havn't stayed here for that long and most of the time it was just packing up and doing final preperations for my flight back... nothing much to tell about christchurch, kinda boring here. it's a city - what do you expect?

i stayed in jail here, kinda cool - they took one old historic jail and transformed it to a backpacker's. a bit odd sleeping in a cell and seeing bars on the doors, but amusing non the less (well, we watched "Shawshank Redemption", which was good for the occasion).

lets do a quick summary of NZ in numbers:
  • 40 days (not including Hong kong)
  • drove 4444 km (needed to drive half an hour around town for that)
  • approx. 200-300 km by foot on tracks
  • 26.5 kg in my luggage (almost needed to overweight, but convinced them it is hiking equip)
  • 50$ worth of food thrown (or given) away on the last day
  • 1315 pictures
  • 4GB of images
  • 13 posts

now i'm back in hong kong, starting to cellebrate the new year of the rat and then back to israel... on the plane here we were only 17 passengers, so it was kinda intimiate. i've never been on a plane where we all played cards, taki, chess, checkers and such - what a friendly enviroment...

i think that's it for now... pictures will follow...

Monday, February 4, 2008

The Cook-Kaikora Days

well, after dunedin suddenly i realized i'm running out of time. and like every good israeli tourist. i wanted to make as much as possible. so i've decided i'll go to mt. cook and then to kaikora in 1 day (including side trips). well, i forgot to check and see that it's actually about 600 km, with all the side trips i wanted to do. so it was a long day, but kinda nice.


on the way to mt. cook they have those rocks shaped like animals, nice - but not as magnificent as the mountain itself...

on kaikora i had only some luck with all my plans. i went swimming with seals, which was really amazing (but sadly, no pictures) and then i went on a whale watch. now - imagine this: rough sea, bad weather (but i already got used to that on my "Once in a lifetime" attractions...) and they issued a specific warning that "YOU ARE VERY LIKELY TO SUFFER FROM SEA-SICKNESS ON THIS CRUISE". and one dumb tourist (NOT ME!) decided he wants to go. half an hour later, he starts to become sea-sick. and then he panics about it, and then he faints. we all returned to the shore without watching a whale. the funny thing is that his girlfriend told us he ALWAYS gets sea-sick in boats... damn tourists!

just before i haded back to christchurch, i went to a sheep-shearing show. i wanted to shear one myself, but they didn't allowed it here on this place :(
and now, for the last place i'll be in NZ - christchurch...

-- Pictures --

Friday, February 1, 2008

Dunedin, not Danidin!

well, after many isralis calling this city on the name of the invisible child, i decided i'll start a campaign against it. but then i thought about it for a while and decided that it will be a waste of time. dunedin is a small city, and by saying that i mean it is quite big in new-zealand terms, it has quite a few streets in, but the main street is still the highway - and nothing much to do around...

on the way to the city, i've drove through the "Presidential Highway" (a road connecting two small towns named Gore and Clinton - and i don't know which was named first, them or the highway) - after that it suddenly hit me, the KIWIs (that's how the NZ people call themselves) are really looking for something to hold on to, something to be proud of. here are a few examples:

  • i've been swimming in "The second most deepest lake in the northern part of the southern lands in the south island".
  • i drank (and pointed to this place by the depatment of conservation) in a pub signed "A Historic Pub" - since the 1950's!
  • they are really fanatic about rugby (and just try to say a word about the "All Black" rugby team...) - and c'mon, it's just rugby! they are almost the only country playing!
--- pictures... ---

an old cathedral they are proud of, 100 years old...


a sea lion which had enough of israelis taking he's picture (we were about 8...)

just the view in Dunedin

a tour to a beer brewery - "Speight's - The Pride of the south" (!?)


they drink the beer without head at all!


can't remember why i took this picture, but it was a bit to the end of the tour...

the gardens of Dunedin

luckily i saw the sign, i alomst drove over a pinguin. killing an endanegerd animal was not in my To-Do list...