Roadtrip New Zealand · 2024
Christchurch · Queenstown · Fiordland National Park · Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park · Auckland · Rotorua · Tongrariro National Park · Glowworm Caves
July 14, 2024
Natural Wonders in NZ: Glowing Caves and saving the Kiwi.
It's like a canopy of stars, but underground. And the stars are not flickering white, but constant blue. We sit in a dark cave, on a huge rock as water rushes by next to us, and hundreds of glowworms shine above us. We are in the Glowworm Caves in New Zealand, one of only three areas in the world where these little bioluminescent creatures live and glow.
Due to its remote location, New Zealand is a paradise for animals and plants that are found nowhere else on earth. This includes a bird that can't fly and whose feathers resembles fur: the fluffy kiwi.
But their fluffiness hasn't saved them from the shortsightedness of mankind.
Come with us as we travel to two fabulous and fragile natural wonders of New Zealand. To glowworms and kiwi chicks, to caves and hope.
June 16, 2024
North Island: Champagne Pools and Devil's Baths.
We approach our Airbnb in Rotorua, New Zealand, when suddenly I notice a strange odor. Like something is burning. Uneasily, I look out the car window. Are the brakes smoking on our wonky rental car, which we picked up from a dubious shed at the Auckland airport?
"Wow, can you smell that?" I finally shout, nervously.
My boyfriend nods. "It's the hot springs!" he says.
I close my eyes. That's right! They always smell foul in Yellowstone too. Hydrogen sulfide.
After a cool week and a half on New Zealand's South Island, we have arrived on the North Island. Should we get out our winter jackets? Nonsense—New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere and everything in the north is closer to the equator and therefore more tropical. Nonetheless, we find, in addition to brightly colored thermal springs, also high mountains, and snow. And an alpine crossing that takes nine hours to traverse.
Find out how we wind up on a crater rim overlooking turquoise lakes instead of hiking the crossing, what a mud volcano is, and where the world's largest hot spring is located, in this second part of our New Zealand adventure.
May 4, 2024
South Island: Blue Fjords, red Lakes and white Nights.
Twelve hours from Frankfurt to Singapore, a two-hour layover, and then another ten hours from Singapore to Christchurch. We boarded the plane sometime late on March 31, beamed through a wormhole of eleven time zones and came back to daylight on the other side of the world on April 2. In the morning, of course, so that you don't get the idea that you can finally sleep.
Looking out the airplane window, I see colorful autumn leaves. Weren’t the trees just starting their springtime budding when we took off? Jeez, have we been in the air that long?
Joking, of course. New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, where the seasons are diametrically opposed to those in the northern hemisphere. At least I still seem to know what “diametrically” means.
Come with us to the forests of hanging moss in Fiordland National Park, to red lakes, to disappearing glaciers and to a place where the Milky Way shines like a sea of glitter. And then there's that thing with the windshield wiper...