Wonder-Land of the Long White Cloud...

Crossing the Cook Strait and passing from one gorgeous fjord to another is the preamble of what you will see on the South Island - a big WOW!!!

After having said goodbye to the ferry and the amazing vineyards of the Marlborough Wine Region, we reached the Great Coast Road!

It is less known than the Great Ocean Road in Southern Australia but is the same 'once in a lifetime' experience! It meanders along the mighty, incredibly blue Tasman Sea on your right and the majestic snow-capped Southern Alps on your left.

The road starts at Westport where a colony of incredibly cute fur seals were sunbathing on the rocks or swimming in the waters of Cape Foulwind. 

Then it winds through the amazing Punakaiki Pancake Rocks which look like piles of thick pancakes. At high tide the sea enters their crevasses and from time to time suddenly and threateningly erupts through the blowholes on the surface.

The breathtaking sunset colours the rocks in warm red-golden tinges that will make your heart, bewildered by so much beauty, beat in a happy rhythm!

You will see the stunning beauty of nature everywhere along the road!

Tropical forests and colourful flowers, the sea in each nuance of blue and at every moment of the day, and these unexpected views appearing behind almost every turn which are not even in the guidebook - a turquoise river coming from a glacier, rock arches formed by the sea, a beautiful snowy peak in the background…

All of a sudden you feel the urgent call of all your senses, begging you to stop for lunch or just a snack to admire the beauty of these surprising places... Unfortunately, time flies too fast in New Zealand and there is so much to do and see! You will need to make difficult choices all the time...

You will be beyond contentment when - after an amazing hike through the forest - you reach an endless, completely wild beach with a long swinging bridge and a beautiful lake with the white glaciers of the Southern Alps in the background.

The Three Mile Lagoon deserves its name!

The best thing about hiking in New Zealand is that there are no snakes or other venomous animals!

Instead you will meet seals, sea lions, whales, dolphins, keas, kiwis, tuataras and, if you are lucky, penguins!

There are also LOTS of sheep (in any shape!!!) - almost 30 million sheep, while New Zealand's population is only 4 million Kiwis, which results in 7 sheep per Kiwi, as well as sheep jams on the road from time to time!

The day after the hike to Matheson Lake by dusk - which is the best moment to see the perfect reflections of the mountains in the smooth ‘like a mirror’ waters of the lake - you will be ready (after a BIG breakfast!) for the chopper ride to a New Zealand's glacier!

The heli-hike is the best way to see either of the two glaciers on the South Island - Franz Josef or Fox.

First, you will get an idea of its grandeur from the sky - it almost reaches the Tasman sea at its end, and then you can venture on the ice with a pair of funny shoes, through the waterfalls, caves and tunnels of this constantly moving, almost as if it was alive, ancient phenomenon.

Walking on the ice, dazzled by the sun warming your face, exploring the transparent tunnels and admiring the view of the sea not too far away is a must-do experience!

It will leave you speechless and you will want to fly, literally!

You almost forget how deadly the glacier could be under its tempting beauty!

In the blink of an eye a tunnel can collapse on you or a crevasse open underneath and swallow you! The guides are incredible and make sure this does not happen but you need to follow their instructions very carefully!

After saying goodbye to the Great Coast Road at the beautiful Haast Beach, the only visitor of which was a snow-white cute poney, we headed to the capital of extreme sports - Queenstown.

Before reaching it, we recharged our batteries with more beautiful memories - waterfalls, blue pools, swinging bridges, lakes and glacier rivers!

We also stopped at a vineyard to get plenty of wine, delicious cheese and honey, and bought kilos of seasonal fruits and veggies from the local producers on the road!

The cherries were so juicy and the strawberries had the same taste as those from my granny’s garden in Bulgaria when I was a child...

After a stop at Arrowtown - a pretty small town which retains many original gold-rush buildings, we set base at the shores of a stunning lake, surrounded by mountains, near Queenstown, in the great company of ducks and horses leisurely grazing around...

It was heaven!

Queenstown - the adrenaline-rush capital of New Zealand, which is famous mainly for its bungy jumping (too weird for me…) - will display in front of you all the crazy temptations from rafting and climbing to skydiving, hand gliding and paragliding, and of course skiing and snowboarding in winter (well, from August to October, which is winter in New Zealand...). You simply cannot get bored!

Rafting there is amazing as it is one of the few places with Class V rapids in the world - the highest level for non-experts (Class VI rapids are described as 'rarely attempted - the consequences of errors are severe and rescue may be impossible'!). Add to this a heli-trip to the starting point of the rafting descent with some beautiful loops as a courtesy from the pilot, which will make your adrenaline jump up in a second. You can also drive there on one of the most dangerous roads in the world - the Skippers Canyon Road built during the gold rush, but the experience will definitely not be covered by your rental car insurance!

After the craziness of Queenstown, an overnight cruise in New Zealand’s fjords will be well-deserved.

A fjord is actually the masterpiece of a glacier which has been U-carving the rocks for centuries. The result of these efforts is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides filled up with sea water. The first country which pops up in your mind for fjords is, of course, Norway, but there are fjords in many other countries and New Zealand’s ones are amongst the most beautiful in the world!

Our overnight cruise was one of the best experiences we had in the country!

Before and in order to reach Doubtful Sound - one of New Zealand’s largest fjords, you will enjoy as a bonus a cruise in Manapouri Lake which is as gorgeous as the cruise in the fjord itself!

The fjord will finally appear immersed in a mysterious blue mist and as if merging with the sea somewhere far, far away!

Sailing along the majestic cliffs and thundering waterfalls of this wilderness paradise is imposing!

There are so many different ways to experience the fjord!

The only other visitors you will come across are the seals sunbathing lazily on the rocks and the seagulls who are after your dinner and will form a long trail in the air behind the boat! It is so relaxing and senses-awakening...

We fished our own food and had an incredibly fresh and delicious 4-course fish and seafood only dinner prepared by the crew, complemented by some crayfish caught by one of the guys who dived especially for it!

At dusk, while the sun was setting down in beautiful golden colours, we went for some canoe adventuring next to the shores, paddling through some almost invisible river passages in the dense forest.

The icing on the cake of the experience was our cruise companions - two couples of Kiwis who had been doing the cruise for years and were incredibly funny and 'sweet as'!

After a short stop at Victorian Dunedin with its Scottish-influenced buildings and Edwardian Baroque gingerbread-alike railway station, as well as the very close encounter with a sea lion and her baby next to our motorhome, another wonder popped up on our way to Christchurch - the Moeraki Boulders Beach!

No, these are not just boulders and this is not just a beach! They look like extraterrestrial objects scattered by an alien spaceship stranded on Earth…

After this amazing discovery, we stopped overnight at Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula, which would have become French (together with the rest of New Zealand, oh my!!!), had the British not decided to send a warship there to claim British sovereignty only 2 days before the French settlers arrived!

The town is charming and has kept a French influence, down to the names of the streets and the local commerce.

When we realised that the only ingredients left in the motorhome were apples and sugar and decided to make some apple crumble out of them, we knew that our trip was nearing its end. However, this did not make us sad because our mind was overpowered with amazing memories!

Our trip in the Wonder-Land of the Long White Cloud ended in the most English of New Zealand’s cities, Christchurch, which moved us to tears. The city centre had been destroyed by the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes which had also left more than a hundred people dead... What remains from the beautiful Gothic Cathedral built in 1881 will make you want to weep. We hope that this beautiful and emblematic building will be restored one day!

However, Christchurch is the perfect proof that wherever there are disasters and hardship, there is also hope - this precious sparkle which makes you hold on and move forward!

You can slowly glide on flat-bottomed boats along the tranquil Avon River, as a skilled punter in traditional Edwardian attire gently propels you along the water, and will feel like you have been teleported in one of Jane Austin’s novels!

You can also walk around the exquisite Botanic Gardens and admire the splendour of the aromatic roses!

A real institution of Christchurch which had just started working again when we visited was the colonial-style tramway. Built in 1927 somewhere in Australia, it had somehow ended in New Zealand as a restaurant! We rode around the beautifully enlightened city and would have done it for the entire night if we had been allowed to!

It was like jumping into another age of refined dining! The menu cooked on board included the famous New Zealand’s beef and was delicious. We were listening to the waiter telling us the story of his city and about his sorrow after the earthquakes and his happiness that Christchurch was now starting to recover! The tramway strolling leisurely around the city again after so many years of inactivity was a huge achievement and made him feel so proud. We were honoured to be able to contribute, even though in a very humble way, to this recovery while enjoying an amazing evening in wonderland!

To make things even more fairy, the tramway dropped us in a park when we spent our last hours in New Zealand listening to live movie music and watching some fireworks with these 'sweet as' guys - the Kiwis!

'E noho ra' (or ‘goodbye’ in maori), 'sweet as' Aotearoa - a paradise with no cellphones, no emails and no problems! We will be back!