Category Archives: New Zealand

The Majesty of Milford

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When people talk of Milford Sound, they often describe the rain, the waterfalls, and the utterly spectacular scenery. When Hung, Markus and I visited the area, we didn’t have the rain, nor many of the waterfalls. Instead we had stunningly clear and sunny weather (a rarity for a place that receives over 7 meters of rain /year) and such amazingly scenic, glorious views of the peaks and surroundings that it really is hard to convey with simple pictures. This is a place that, even though pictures look fantastic, being there is the only way to actually experience the simple majesty of the area. That being said, I’ll do my best with what I took, which was far too many pictures. 🙂

Getting into Milford Sound is part of the fun. To get there you follow a winding 120km road that cuts through the grand mountain passes. After the first 40km of driving, you start getting the sense you are heading somewhere special.

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The Kingston Flyer

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Some people collect stamps. Others collect comics, take up photography or astronomy. Markus’ (Hung’s Boyfriend) hobby is to chase steam trains.

New Zealand isn’t known as a big place for steam train enthusiasts (as far as I’m aware), but there are a few notable pockets where you can still see a steam train in action. After leaving Queenstown, I found myself in the back seat of my own car as Markus chased the Kingston Flyer.

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Hiking Ben Lomond

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Towering over Queenstown are numerous mountains, one of which rises up directly behind the town. That mountain is Ben Lomond. At 1750m, it is a 1400m ascent to the peak from Queenstown – easily done in a day, but still a tiring climb. And the reward of the fantastic views…well worth the effort. Not much to talk about beyond that (and I’m still far behind on getting these days of travel up), I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

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Complete?

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I’ve now covered pretty much all of the North Island that I wanted to. About the only major area that I missed is the west coast, where Mt. Taranaki makes it’s home (another big volcano/mountain). Other than that, I’ve been pretty thorough. It might look like there is a big gap between Wanganui/Wellington/Napier at the South-West end, but there isn’t too much to see there. A highway does run all the way from Napier to Wellington, but it’s primarily farming and vineyards along the way. When I get back to the North Island I’ll probably journey to the West Coast to complete the circuit of the North Island. But that won’t be for several months now. January 2nd I’ll be sitting on the ferry heading to the South Island, and all new adventures will start there. This site might be on hiatus for the first two weeks of January – I’ll be travelling with friends until January 14th, so I expect my time to put things up here will be much less. I’ll resume and recap everything when I can.

Windy Welly

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Wellington is the southern-most city of the North Island, and one of the major cities in New Zealand. It’s the political capital of the country, and it also claims to be the cultural capital. While I’m staying 50km north of the city in a sleepy little beachside town called Paraparaumu, I can’t miss out on the chance to go explore the capital a little bit.

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