Adieu, New Zealand!

In Christchurch we could stay again with Biffy who had already hosted us when we first arrived in New Zealand.
We organised some transport boxes for the bicycles and went to the Chinese Festival in Hagley Park which was in one case really Chinese: It was very crowded. 😀 But the fireworks were awesome and brilliantly coordinated!

BBQ at Biffy’s

Then we had to cycle to the airport bus where we fixed our bicycle on the front, the boxes and our bags we put into the bus. And as were weren’t stressed out enough, we used the one hour until boarding to walk over to the BurgerFuel in 1.2 km distance just to have one last burger. Well, we couldn’t really enjoy it but at least we were back in time for our flight. 😉
Thank you for the great time, New Zealand, it was very pleasant!

on the bus

well packed

After spending some months in quite stinky and dirty places in Asia, New Zealand was great news to us. It was obvious immediately that here the environment is something worth to protect. Therefore, we hardly ever found trash outside of a waste bin.
The nature – of which there is a lot – fascinated us as it has an extreme variety with its partly Middle-European forests, partly tropical plants.

In general there is a lot to see which is why Stefan – having been there already three years ago – would like to return to New Zealand again, that’s how much he loves it. The great thing is that there are no harmful animals at all but heaps of camp sites in all varieties. New Zealand surely is not a cheap country but those camp kitchens make it possible to keep the costs down.

The New Zealand people are very special. They are always extraordinary polite and friendly, “like a Sir” and they love to talk about the weather. As the weather is changing rapidly here it definitely is a good conversation topic. However, we were kind of lucky and did not have that much rain and most of the time the temperatures were quite warm. Except during the night and in the morning, then it was nearly freezing cold.

It is most excellent to travel here by car but the many many hills make cycling challenging. During ????? km we had to climb ???? m of elevation. Unfortunately, New Zealand is also full of animal cadavers which our noses didn’t really enjoy. It seems that there are just too many animals here, especially possums.
Still we had some brilliant views and heard some friendly words which could always motivate us to go on. And of course we kind of made new family members with our new Kiwi parents Kathy and Paul. Oh well, we just had such a lovely time there! 🙂

Die Neuseeländer scheinen auch ein eigener Menschenschlag zu sein. Ausgesprochen höflich sind sie, “like a Sir”, selbst wenn ihnen das ein oder andere Gas entfleucht. 😉 Und sie plaudern für ihr Leben gern über das Wetter, das in ihrem Land fürwahr für genügend Gesprächsstoff sorgt, kann es sich doch leicht innerhalb von einer halben Stunde komplett wandeln. Wir hatten aber wirklich Glück, konnten uns nicht über zuviel Regen beschweren und meist war es auch recht sommerlich warm. Außer in der Nacht und am Morgen, da war es meist fast eisig kalt.

Mit dem Auto lässt es sich hier ganz wunderbar reisen, mit dem Fahrrad sind die Hügel allerdings schon eine kleine Herausforderung. Bei insgesamt über 1.800 Kilometern haben wir etwa 15.000 Höhenmeter hinter uns gebracht. Leider strotzt auch Neuseeland vor Tierkadavern, was unseren Nasen nicht so recht gefallen hat. Es gibt scheinbar einfach zu viele Tiere hier, vor allem Oppossums.
Dennoch wurden wir oft mit herrlichen Aussichten und mit freundlichen Worten belohnt, was uns immer wieder aufheitern konnte. Und nicht zuletzt haben wir in Neuseeland sozusagen Familienzuwachs in unseren Kiwi-Eltern Kathy und Paul erhalten. Ach, wir hatten einfach eine herrliche Zeit hier! 🙂