French Pass - an absolutely amazing place

 After one night in Picton we drove the Queen Charlotte Drive to Havelock and from there we drove up to French Pass where you can't drive any further because the roads end at the ocean.
We went to a campground right at the beach and set up our tent. It's just a very basic campground so only cold water showers and no drinking water. But fortunately we did some grocery shopping and I bought a portable gas stove from another backpacker so we were almost perfectly equipped for camping.
In the afternoon we went for a walk to a lookout point to watch the sunset. Beautiful and the stars here are absolutely amazing at night.
I can be really lucky to be here, it's like paradise :-)
After a good sleep in the tent we had breakfast with ocean view and I went for a short dip in the ocean and then I had a cold shower...Freezing but refreshing and warming up in the sun again was really nice. We spent most of the day sunbaking at a beautiful deserted beach. Absolutely stunning! I had another cold shower in the evening and we cooked some dinner on my new gas stove. Then I met a Kiwi guy who caught a shark today when he went fishing and he invited us to come over for a beer and try the shark. So later we went over to the 4 Kiwi guys and we tried fresh shark from the barbeque and it was really nice. The guys also invited us for a fishing trip for the next day. 
So the next morning we went fishing with the guys on a really nice boat and we had an awesome time. The weather was perfect for fishing and I even didn't get seasick this time so I enjoyed the trip and I tried fishing again and caught some nice fish for dinner...


Here are some pictures of French Pass (it's so hard to decide which pictures to upload because there are heaps of nice pictures):

Driving to the French Pass

At French Pass

Nice spot for breakfast

Watching the sunset

Maren & me

absolutely stunning views...

our campsite

fishing trip with 4 kiwi guys

beautiful sunrise

fishing is great fun

Jimmy & me

catching fish

a barracuda

two blue cods on one fishing rod - nice dinner

the boat and the guys

in Nelson

South Island

Hello again, 
now I'm almost up to date with my pictures. Only almost...
A friend of mine who is actually travelling around Australia at the moment came over to New Zealand to travel the South Island with me for 3,5 weeks. Her name is Maren and she's a Physiotherapist as well and it's really awesome to spend some time travelling together because I was getting bored of travelling alone...
After New Plymouth I drove to Plimmerton which is just 30km's out of Wellington. It's really hard to find a hostel in the city with parking so I decided to stay just outside the city and the Lodge where I stayed at was directly at the beach so I had amazing views. On the 13th of February I drove to Wellington Airport late at night to pick up my friend Maren. Unfortunately I got totally lost on my way to the airport because they closed the main highway. So it was me, driving around Wellington for about 2 hours, crossing the same spots for three times and absolutely helpless because it was a Monday night and nobody was out on the street and midnight. But finally I found a lady who told me the way to the airport so after 2,5 hours on the road I made it to pick up Maren who was already waiting for a long time in the middle of the night.
We stayed one night in Plimmerton and went to Wellington the next day.  I went to the hairdresser and cut my hair really short again. It's much easier for travelling.
We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton (South Island) at 3am, slept a few hours on the ferry and then again a few hours in front of the hostel in Picton before we could check in at 8am. 
We were so tired so we got some more sleep in the hostel and in the afternoon we did some hiking around Picton.
Now I finally made it to the South Island!!!

New Plymouth and Surf Highway 45

After two days at Waitomo Caves I drove to New Plymouth where I stayed for two days and did some hiking in the Taranaki National Park.

seagulls in New Plymouth

View from a lookout point in New Plymouth

Along Surf Highway 45 on the Westcoast

Mount Taranaki

 

Waitomo Caves

Here are some pictures of my trip to the Waitomo Caves...a day full of adventure with 27 metres abseiling, rafting caving, glowworms and rockclimbing..

27 metres abseiling into the cave

caving

rafting

squeezing through the caves

...through really tiny holes

thousands of glowworms - amazing

rockclimbing