The Constellation Orion
A constellation is created by 'joining the dots' of stars that appear close together. When the dots are joined, these stars form a picture. Humans have created constellations for thousands of years, making use of the regular and predictable patterns in the night sky for many different reasons includ...
Following the Murray River
After visiting sunny Adelaide, we started heading back to the eastern coast of Australia. We crossed the amazing Adelaide Hills, which are famous for the wine regions. We drove through hills and trees in beautiful autumn colours and were rewarded with the closest contact to Australian wildlife since...
The Legend of the Three Sisters
The Aboriginal tribe living in the area of the Blue Mountains is called Gundungurra. According to their legend, three beautiful sisters named Meehni, Wimlah and Gunnedoo once lived with them in the Jamison Valley. The maidens were in love with three brothers from the neighbouring nation of the Dharr...
Great Ocean Road
Our first real trip with the van in Australia was driving along the Great Ocean Road (GOR), one of Australia's most famous road-touring routes. It is a road connecting the towns at the southern coast of the Victoria state. The road itself is a landmark, as it was built by returned soldiers as a memo...
Melbourne
Hello Australia once again! This time at the eastern side and more specifically in Melbourne, a vibrant city of almost 4.5 millions inhabitants! It is obvious everywhere that the city is rich. Although relatively young compared to our European cities, it is full of beautiful buildings, both new-clas...
Goodbye New Zealand
I am really writing this post in the airplane to Australia. We have spent our last two days in sunny Auckland, staying in an apartement on the 10th floor of a building almost in front of the harbour of Auckland and in the heart of CBD Auckland. We watched the sunset from a pier of the harbour and ha...
Maori legends about the volcanic activity in the area of Taupo
The Maori have several legends about the geothermal activity of the area from Taupo, via Rotorua to Whakaari (White Island) outside the eastern shores of the North Island. And I do like Maori legends, so I try to discover them whenever I can. Here are two legends we found about the volcanic activity...
Paihia and Waitangi
The last two days we have been staying around Paihia. Our main activity has been sailing, or at least an effort to do so, as the wind (or maybe Tawhirimatea the Maori god of winds) was not with us today. Nevertheless, it was an amazing day with beautiful weather and sunshine and we did enjoy a bit o...
Taupo and Rotorua
So we are already in the middle of the North Island and in the general area that includes two main cities: Taupo and Rotorua, both included on our New Zealand wish-map. We stayed in total four days in this region and oh my God what a plethora of experiences did we have! The first of our experiences...
North Island
We are now in the North Island after having spent an amazing time in the South Island! In Maori this island is called Te Ika a Maui, which translates to the fish of Maui. According to the legend, the Polynesian god Maui, using as prow the Malborough Sounds and from his waka (canoe), which is the Sou...
Queenstown
Surrounded by the Remarkables (a towering mountain range) and the Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown is a beautiful sight. But the small town is busy enough to be in competition with a full fledged metropole. It's calling itself the Global Adventure Capital, is overcrowded with young folk looking for an adre...
Abel Tasman National Park
The Abel Tasman National Park is probably one of the most beautiful places of the South Island, if not the whole of New Zealand. It is located at the north west of the South Island and full of natural hilly bushland, has plenty of bays, coves and small islands with wonderful golden sandy beaches and...
Milford Sound
Milford Sound was the reason we reached as far as Te Anau. The glowworms were a beautifful addition to our journey of course, but today's trip was even more spectacular. It started with the way from Te Anau to Milford Sound. It is about 120 km long which takes 2,5 hours driving without stops for p...
Takaka hill and the black marble formations
The place we slept on the top of Takaka hill, as well as a whole area around it is full of big strange black formations, that we found out are marble. They looked really interesting like miniature mountain peaks with valleys and grooves. There is an interesting Maori legend behind them: There was on...
The naming of Kaikoura
The name of Kaikoura consists of two words: Kai (food) and Koura (crayfish). It has its origin in the story of Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua, the legendary traveller of the Maori. He stopped off at this peninsula to cook a feed of crayfish on his way south to search for three of his wives who had fled. Bent...
Te Anau
After crowded and adventurous Queenstown, time to hit the road again and head southwest to Fiordland. The ultimate goal is to go to Milford Sound and go for a cruise in the fjord there, but first we had to pass from the main gateway into the Fiordland, the town of Te Anau. (Te Ana-au means 'cave wit...
Dunedin
The second city we saw in New Zealand was Dunedin. We are still not totally sure how it is pronounced. Our good friend Gillian would give us the correct answer. Anyway, the weather has been awful and we did sleep a bit late so city sightseeing was the best thing to do and leave the seals, the albatr...
Christchurch
After several hours of flying from Perth and Melbourne, we arrived to New Zealand! We are in the South Island or Te Waipounamu as it is called in Maori language and in the town of Christchurch. Christchurch is mostly famous for the strong earthquakes that hit the area in 2010 (7.1 magnitude) and 201...
Our mobile home
Today we went to get our van for New Zealand, HURRAAYY! It's a 7m long, 3.2m heigh Mercedes Sprinter. It's a bit bigger than what we are used to from our VW T5 back home, but hey it is more spacious and has a toilet and a shower on board! Pretty cool. So since we had another night booked at the host...