Wellington was our starting point into our third and last campervan (or campavan as they say here) week. Wellington is a great city surrounded by water with many markets, museums, galleries and nice-looking restaurants. We were close to make it our number one city in NZ but the constant wind in Wellington saved Auckland’s top result.
In the middle of the city we found a nice, shabby hostel, which offers campervan sites in their backyard. Not having to worry about bus schedules and parking fees we walked around Wellington. The first night we went to watch a rugby game. After the games we saw in the US and Canada, the intro here was very unspectacular. No national hymn, no crazy crowed, no big show. We even barley noticed the start of the game. The game itself was fast paces but not in favor for the home team. Nevertheless, it was one of the more exciting games we watched so far.
On our second night we went to see “The Hobbit” in its world-premiere cinema. The film features nice effects but the story is really boring. It seems that the writers could not decide if they want to make a movie for kids or for battle fans. More exciting were the Weta-Studios, which created some of the characters, the armor and other things for the movies.
From Wellington we took the ferry to the South Island. Fortunately the notorious Cook Strait was calm and we could cross without taking to many medications.
Since we had only five days on the South Island we headed straight to the Abel Tasman National Park. Abel Tasman was the first European mentioning NZ in its travel record. He managed to miss Australia but found Tasmania (notice the name coincidence) and NZ. Unfortunately he was scared by the Maoris welcoming him on their boats and went home without going on land. For its achievement a park, which is known for kayaking and hiking, got his name. Not being much of hikers we rented a kayak for two days. The sea there is very calm and you can save the money for a tour by paddling on you own. Also there are so many other kayaks and water taxis that whenever you have an issue, someone will help you in no time. The paddling was a lot of fun. We got to see seals really close and stopped along lonely beaches. Sadly the only penguin we saw was a dead one. We seemed to paddle faster than the average and arrived quite early at our designated camp. A nice afternoon stroll away was a suspension bridge, which we paid a visit to.
After the paddling we drove to Hanmer Springs for another hot pool pampering. A short ride later we arrived in Christchurch. The city is still recovering from the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 and accordingly there are limited things to visit. There was nothing more to do than drop-off our cool, cozy campavan and hop on our plan to Sydney.
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