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Last album from New Zealand - Tongariro Crossing (a.k.a. Mt. Doom)

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Pictures from the Abel Tasman National park:

Milford Trek

When you imagine the best part of New Zealand, the beautiful and majestic snow covered mountains that are reflected in clear lakes and surrounded by thick forests, you probably imagine Fiordland in the southwest of the South Island. This is the place where the most famous treks are. The kiwis call them great walks, but they also call trekking "tramping", which is a word that is known only in New Zealand.

Gore

Since we decided we don't want to waste anymore time in big cities, we tried to leave Dunedin, which wasn't that easy, mainly because it was hard to find a good spot to catch a ride from. But after a while a very nice (as if there are any other) lady stopped her campervan. During the ride we found out that she was an ex-Kiwi (once a Kiwi, always a Kiwi) that married an Englishman and migrated to the Kingdom, and now visiting homeland. She and her husband had a big farm near Manchester and their neighbors were most of Manchester United players. We were very happy to hear a little gossip about their luxurious lives.

Afterward, we caught another interesting ride. This time from a real Southlander girl with the right accent and everything. Talking to her gave us, once again, a good prospective on people's life in those remote areas. She stopped for us in a town along the way, where we tried to grab some lunch. The restaurant was almost empty, but still it took us more than 40 minutes to get our orders. After all, what do they have to hurry for. We caught our last ride for the day that brought us to the doors of our next HIT family in Gore.
This time our hosts were Allison and Peter, a very lovely couple. They live in a lovely house, full of character, with a huge garden full of beautiful plants and flowers. We were their first HIT guests, and both sides were really excited. Allison is a semi-retired teacher, of the kind that exhausts the kids before they even try to exhaust her. Full of energies. Allison is also a diver that searches for Paua in her free time. After a short introduction and a cold glass of homemade ice tea, we went to explore the town and especially the nice gardens which were close to Peter's and Allison's home. We even met a deer.

We were back right on time for dinner. We found out that Peter was a great chef. That was truly one of the best meals we had for a while, and the best NZ lamb we tasted so far. Alongside with the great meat and the delicious potatoes there were fresh salads straight from their garden. It was so good that Oren even ate the tomatoes that he usually doesn't touch. After the main course there were lots of fruits and a fine smelly cheese, and they even opened a bottle of old whiskey. They really gave us the feeling that we were their most important guests. The conversation that went with the dinner was great too. It was quite strange for us to hear so much sympathy towards our country from so far away. When we asked them what was their reason for hosting Israelis (Is it religion?), Peter said that they just like to have nice people around, nothing to do with their or ours religion.
On the next morning we tried to repay a little for their hospitality by making them pancakes. Afterwards Peter had to go to his quire practice (he was the conductor) so we said goodbye. But when he returned we were still there (it was hard to leave). Later on, after having another meal we really had to say goodbye, not before Peter gave us the recipe for his amazing ANZAC cookies.

We went to the main road and tried to hitchhike to Te Anau. It was a little late, but we didn't wait more than 10 minutes before a couple that was going right where we needed to, stopped. They both worked in a caravan park there, so we even had our accommodation arranged. Too easy…

Picture album link

Tip 1: Did we mention how great HIT is?
Tip 2: Feel free to stop in less popular towns on your way. You will be surprised how many welcoming people you will find there.
Tip 3: If you are in Te Anau and you are looking for a nice day hike, you can do the first day of the Kepler trek, it is lovely. It goes through a very green, fairytale forest by the shores of the Te Anau lake. Just make sure not to start at the DOC office, but at the beginning of the trek, otherwise you will waste time walking through not very interesting scinery.    

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Pictures from Kaikoura and (another) whale watching sail:

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Pictures from NZ's west coast:

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Two new albums from the great mountains of NZ
Pictures from Mt. Aspiring NP:



Pictures from Mt. Cook (including a flight on a helicopter)

Christchurch and Dunedin

As soon as we got to Judith's house, our HIT home in Christchurch, we felt lucky. The house was covered with warm wood inside, and Judith was so welcoming that we could just feel at home.
Judith is a lovely lady! She is a semi-retired Physics and Science teacher and was very surprised by our excited reaction. "I usually get a different reaction when people hear Physics…" she said. We can definitely relate to that. We ate dinner together and talked a little about science and a little about religion.

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Two new albums published:
Queenstown:



Lilya's bungy jump in Queenstown:

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Pictures from the Catlines in south New Zealand:

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Picture from the cruise in the Milford Sound, After Oren's parents joined us

Picton and Blenheim

After few hours on the ferry from Wellington that included two movies and a nice view but a gloomy weather we arrived to Picton, the gate to the North Island. The ferry service also included a transfer to any point in Picton. This is how we arrived to the house of Margaret and Graham, another lovely HIT couple. Margaret works at a partial job and Graham is a musician. He is also blind. But that doesn't seem to stop him. Their beautiful garden won a local competition and even got to the news. Other than that they had a really cozy and warm country style kitchen with lots of fresh vegetables from their garden. Just like the one Lilya wants to have one day.

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Another great album. Pictures from the Routeburn Trek:

Wellington

Hitching from Taranaki to Wellington was a real treat! It took us 5 different hitches to get there, but we managed to get to Wellington in the early afternoon. One of the hitches we took was with a big truck. The driver was a little bored doing the road back and forth on his own so he invited us into his huge cabin. It was just a day after Oren declared that he wants to go on a ride with a truck, so we figured that NZ has completely turned on our side, and our next days are guaranteed to be good. The last hitch we took was defiantly in the top most 5! We got down in Whanganui and loaded our backpacks back to their place (on our shoulders). We took the sign "Wellington" and just played with it while walking to the junction, when a guy stopped and asked: "Do you need to Wellington?". Now we were sure. Ranginui (Father sky) and Papatuanuku (Mother earth) are united, and they are on our side. We promised to try and get the best pictures of NZ we can, for them.

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Arguably one of the best albums we had, here is the the picture album from the Milford trek:

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Pictures from Gore and Te Anau:

Teranaki and Ebenezer Farm

We always thought that the best way to travel in a foreign country is by meeting local people and seeing the country through their eyes, and not through the eyes of the "Lonely Planet". In most countries you don't get to do that mostly because of the language barrier and lots of cultural and economic differences. New Zealand, with its friendly people, gave us this unique opportunity.
Since most of our money was spent on gallons of fuel while travelling across Australia, we decided that in New Zealand we will hitchhike and stay in as much HIT (will be explained later) houses as possible. At first, the decision was completely economical. In retrospect, that was one of the best decisions of our trip.

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Pictures from Dunedin

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Pictures from the farmers show in Blenheim:



and from Christchurch:

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As you dedicated readers probably noticed, we have some delays in our posting. This is due to the fact that there are some other stuff we have to do while traveling around the world except writing. These chores include unimportant and boring things like hiking, sailing on boats, sightseeing, meeting new people and old people and taking heaps of photos. Therefore we decided to publish the photos that we sorted as soon as they are out of the oven, without waiting for the posts. Since we know, and see from the heaps of responses, that all of you read our posts with admirable devotion, we are humbly offer our deepest apologies.
Here are some pictures from Wellington, which does absolutely no justice to this wonderful city. Next albums will be published in the following days.