New Zealand - Auckland

It was time to part with our small car which did not manage to leave us on the road even though the strange noises coming out of it. We had rented it from Jucy as the other rental company had no availability (Apex Car rentals - we were really pleased with the car they gave us on the other island and wanted to rent from them again but... last minute option was not possible unfortunately) 
Jucy's office was a walking distance from downtown so we left the car and went looking for the hotel. Luckily it turned out that we have reserved a hotel right on the busiest street in Auckland - Queens Blvd. May be it is not that crazy usually but it was 'boxing day' or the day after Christmas when all stores have sales and all Chinese tourists and locals have decided to buy whatever they see. Even in front of the most expensive brands like Prada or Boss there were queues with people wanting to go in the store. I made a mistake to check a boot in UGG and one chinese girl literally took it from my hands and this put the official end of our shopping. After all on the next day it looked quite calm on the street so we decided to check what was all that fuzz about. The only thing left in the stores were the labels with the prices everything else was totally gone. So we just wandered around the streets enjoying the small cafes and checking out the city sights.
 In general Auckland reminded us for the States as everything looked so alike and we were not that impressed to be honest. They have great outdoor parks but surprisingly they were totally empty. The explanation we got was that the people there like to sunbathe on the beach instead of walk in the park. We went to Auckland's oldest park where they have awesome free botanical garden with amazing flowers and the biggest water lilies i have ever seen

 some street art

It was so nice in the park but a little bit lonely

After we checked the parks it was time for the city itself. Frankly the harbor with the amazing yachts was the most impressive part and it made me dream of having a boat for me to sail all over the world. But it was time for me to wake up as it was BBQ time with very interesting company -  the invite came from Rudy's co-worker who is Korean and the reason for organizing the dinner is to say Bye to us as we were leaving on the next day and welcome some German guys that had just arrived. The whole event is hosted in the flat in a girl from New Zealand with the best view ever. In order to get there we took a ferry from the harbor in downtown and 10 min later we were on the other side. The neighborhood is really nice with view towards Auckland's skyline and as they said with the best beaches in the city - well the last we take for granted as there was no time to check for ourselves :) We had a lot of fun on the BBQ, had some food, some drinks and unfortunately had to catch the last ferry back as our flight home was early next monring. After all, it was time to say Goodbye to Kiwi land :)

I was puzzled what that was..

so there is a picture of it :)

 This is what i want for birthday gift

 Nice view toward the volcanoes

And some more volcanoes...good that they are not active as i think they have about 40 in Auckland only

This is what i call a nice view.

And the ferry station

 Most photographed TV tower in the world

Well if you do not carry your tripod when you need it this is what happens

New Zealand - Rotorua and Hobitton

We spent Christmas in Rotorua, a town famous for its geysers and mineral water, full of hotels, SPA but with absolutely no people. There was no one on the street and all shops were closed even the gas stations. There was a slight movement in Chinese restaurants as they are not celebrating Christmas but even they were almost empty. We were lucky that on Christmas eve there was a holiday food market for about an hour so that we could kill some time wandering around. And as i mentioned food, we decided that even though it was just the two of us we should have a holiday dinner that was quite unusual for our country but really tasty. We got a lot of sea food and a bottle of New Zealand wine. The strange thing for me was that the sea food in the market was about half the price of the sausages. Kiwis live on an island and they barely eat sea food - strange paradox...The other strange thing was that they do not celebrate on Christmas Eve, but actually spend the whole Christmas day with their families and have the holiday dinner on 25th which explained the empty streets all day long
 All tourists that were in Rotorua - they were 98% Chinese and 2% maori -  spent the day in the park by the lake sunbathing or trying to pedal with the water wheel wearing a life-jacket even though the depth of the water was no more than a meter. I suppose they were instructed to pedal only along the shore as they looked so disoriented that if they were left to go wherever they wanted the possibility to get lost or drawn was huge. As there was nothing to be done we decided to go hiking and then spend the afternoon in the geyser park. The most famous hike was to the top of the 'Rainbow mountain' and it sounded really seductive with that awesome name so we did not think twice and climbed it. To be honest we saw neither rainbow nor the promised yellow-orange colors of the rocks but the view from the top was worth it. The paths were also really nice organized - if you are with a bike, then you climb up along with the hikers, but for the way down there is a one way strictly downhill route so that the possibility to run over someone is minimal :)

 Awesome view over the hills

We found something that looked like a really huge red dandelion :)

Absolute empty streets - very strange for us as usually in Bulgaria on Christmas everything is working and the streets are full with people

Next stop was the hot pools park in Rotorua. There are a few parks where you can see the geysers but as i said they were closed due to the holidays and even if they were not i doubt that we would have paid the money they charged for entrance as they seemed really a lot so we went to walk around in Kuirau (i have no idea how this name is pronounced, it was quite a struggle with the Maori names)  According to the legend in early 1800s the lake in the center of the park was cooler and was known as Taokahu. One day a beautiful young woman was bathing in the water when a dragon dragged her in his lair below the lake. The gods were very angry and made the lake boil so that the dragon would be destroyed forever. Since then, the bubbling lake and the streaming land around is known as Kuirau. If you want to feel like the dragon when the water started boiling there are some free foot baths in the park where you can put your feet in the hot water, and if you do not want to get wet you can have a picnic on the picnic tables or just walk around the paths and admire the bubbling mud

Picnic by the greenest lake i have ever seen

Mud bath anyone?

In the 'normal' cold lake there were about 10 black beautiful swans.

We woke up really early on the next morning as we had to travel to Matamata from where the Hobbiton tour was supposed to begin. Or at least this is what we thought but after we showed our tickets to the lady she said that our tour is reserved from the farm entrance and we have about 10 min to travel 20km if we do not want to miss it. Well with the awful speed limits in New Zealand we could not get there on time, actually we were only 5 min late but the bus was already gone so we could either cancel the tour or take one from 10.30. We rescheduled for 10.30 even though the agreement with the rental company was to return the car at noon in Auckland which was definitely impossible to happen. But it was better to pay an additional day for the car rather than miss Hobbiton. After we waiting for about half an hour i decided to ask the guide for the next tour if she could take us if there are some free slots. Fortunately for us, some people did not show up so we managed to hop on the 10 o'clock tour. Why didn't i think of this earlier....But anyway, all of a sudden the fairy-tale began and we found ourselves in Tolkien's Middle Earth. It was thousand times better that watching it on a movie, it felt so real that i was expecting to see a hobbit opening some door and walking out of his hobbit hole. It was awesome and was worth it every cent

 All flowers are real

 Please, come in for a tea

 Knock, knock, anyone home?

Green Dragon Inn where we got free beer

In my case - root beer

New Zealand - Wellington and Tongariro national park

In order to get to the other island we bought tickets to Bluebridge ferry. We were told that the views are magnificent and we have to take the ferry during the day so that we could stay outside and watch and as we are good kids, we boarded the ship at lunchtime. Going out of Picton into the sea was really beautiful but it was nothing compared to the beauty of Milford Sound. May be if we had done the trip the other way around we would have been more impressed. The trip was only about 3 hours and i got lucky as there was almost neither wind nor waves so the ship was steady. Later we understood that we had really a lucky day as normally during December the sea is quite rough and the journey is not pleasant at all (and the words exactly - 3 hours with 200 puking passengers is not a nice experience)
At Wellington harbor we were picked up by a friend from Bulgaria that has been leaving in New Zealand for the last 10 years and he not only accommodated us but took us everywhere during the next couple of days. Straight from the ferry we went to a hill with a panoramic view over the whole city and i realized that Wellington looked a lot like Veliko Tarnovo - it was scattered over the hills and you constantly go up and down.

 on the way out of Picton habror

It was almost Christmas eve so we had to feel Christmas spirit and as typical kiwis we went to see 'the best decorated house'. Every December in Wellington they have a tradition to make a top 10 list of best decorated houses. These houses are actually decorated for fun from the people that live there and we went to check out number one. It was quite odd for me to watch dwarfs and snow whites when i was dressed in shorts but blooming flowers covered in Christmas lights left me speechless. I was definitely missing the snow and the pine trees

blooming flowers with lights..

even though there are so many toys on the staircase the people were actually living there






Next few days passed in 'city tourism' and a walk in the footsteps of ' Lord of the Rings'  as the studio where Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Planet of the Apes and a lot more very popular movies were filmed is located in Wellington. We did not go inside the 'Weta' studio itself as the tour was related to a cartoon we did not watch but we took pictures with Golum, the trolls and George drove us to the airport to see Smog and Gandalf. I was happy as a child as i am a huge fantasy fan :)

The eye of the dragon is opening and moving

 A few years ago Gandalf and the eagle fell on one of the passengers waiting in the lobby below, but luckily he got away only with a broken leg

Weta is the name of the studios as well as of a really ugly and huge bug

Face to face with Golum




The rest of the city was also really nice, as even though it is a capital, the population is only 400 00 and there is no such traffic and madness as in Sofia. The only negative side of Wellington is the weather - it is windy almost all the time especially in the neighborhoods by the water, where the best views are. Even though we managed to find a spot with less wind and we had picnic lunch by the beach which was awesome. But with nice company the time goes by so quickly that before we knew it, we were already on our way to Tongariro National Park

The scenes in Mordor in the Lord of the Rings were filmed in Tongariro National Park. Also the Tongariro Alpine Crossing is considered to be the 'best one day hike' in New Zealand with 19.4km length and it is very important to keep an eye on the volcanic activity if planning to do it as you are actually hiking an active volcano. There are a few so called 'hazardous zones' that are marking the path of the lava flow and signs that advised if you hear some noise from above, not to enter the zones. There is an option to go to the starting point with a car, but as the end point of the hike is at the other side of the volcano and there is still need of some transport to get back to your car we decided to buy tickets to the bus that would drop us off at the beginning in the morning and at 4pm would wait for us the the end. As the guys in the holiday park told us the usual time to complete the hike is about 7-8 hours we chose the 7.30 AM bus from National Park village.
We maintained quite fast pace during the first 4-5 kilometers of the hike as we were startled from all posts on internet that it is really a difficult walk and the people barely manage to be on time for the bus back to the village. It was quite a pleasant walk mainly on wooden pathways made to protect the moss from the tourists and when we reached the first 'check point' called Soda Springs we discovered that we were actually 30 min ahead of the given time. So far so good but now we had to climb the first crater which was unfortunately covered with clouds and remained hidden all the way up. To be honest the next half an hour was the most difficult part of the whole route as it was quite a steep climb and some 'genius' had made the pathway in stairs which i personally find much more difficult to climb rather than a normal path - this long staircase was just stealing my breath away. Even though every step was definitely worth the effort - the smoke from the volcano was ahead of us, all around us and beneath our feet was lava and when the sun finally came out of the clouds the yellow moss so beautifully contrasted to the black lava that if this wasn't a hazardous zone i could have stayed there for quite a while just admiring the nature

The sun is strong even at 8 AM

First part of the hike - nice and easy walk

A quick view towards Mt Doom before it disappears in the clouds

Lava fields

At this point of the route there was an option either to go on or to climb the crater of Mt Doom but as the clouds were so dense that we could barely see a few meters head we decide not to climb as there was no view to justify the additional 3 hours needed. So we continued to the next crated - call Red as the soil is really red. At the rim we decided to sit down and wait for a while for the clouds to scatter (fingers crossed) and there was a huge surprise - the ground was warm. Some time later when the clouds did actually disappear we saw what was the reason behind the warm ground - there was steam coming out of the ground all around us. And the other awesome surprise which we would have missed if we had not decided to relax on the rim for a while - the Emerald lakes. We were so lucky that we did not miss that view and behind the lakes finally we could see the path ahead, leading right through a huge smoking crater. A natural steam bath with nice sulfur smell :)

 Second check point

Time to warm up our 'bottoms' :)
The other hikers saw us sitting there and laughing and they decided to check what is so funny about sitting on the rim in the clouds

 Amazing green of the Emerald Lakes

This lake hidden in the steam is
really deep blue -and with a lot of imagination they call it.... Blue lake :)

Lets go in the steam bath :)

The red crater view from the central crater

After we got out at the other side of the volcanoes we thought that a long and boring descend will follow but luckily we were wrong. After a 'turn' all of a sudden a great panorama view over the whole national park came out and because of it i stumbled a few times and almost fell, but this is what happens if you cannot keep your eyes on the path :) After a while the nature around us started to change. The black volcanic rocks disappeared and were replaced by a huge field of yellow-orange grass and the path was winding down nicely towards the hut. I did not understand why they call it a hut when you are not allowed to sleep over but only to hide for a few hours if some bad weathers surprises you, but this the kiwi way. The lower we descended, the more the nature around us changed. Very happy we completed the hike in less than 7 hours as the real time we have actually walked is no more than 5.30 hours. As we waited for the bus to come and pick us up it was quite interesting to watch the people coming from the hike. They were so happy and smiling and exhausted. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is really a very beautiful and very diverse hike totally a 'must do' for everyone that has plans to visit New Zealand and it is not as hard as they make you think it is :) Very happy with the whole experience in the evening we opened a bottle of New Zealand wine and we drank it with enormous pleasure :)