[In Finnish] [In English]

Would it be possible to make your dreams true? At least one of my dreams started to get real, when on a Saturday morning in the end of November I drove towards the Helsinki Airport. In one of our backpacking trips to the States, together with Val and Charles we started to dream about New Zealand, which would be far away from everybody. We had heard about their beautiful landscape for backpacking and the newest and the last point was the Lord of the Rings movies which had been mostly filmed in NZ.

After getting to the airport I was just hanging around. The place itself was not any strange, when I just arrived on Wednesday from the States from a work trip and I was hardly landed in Finland. After a while another Finn in our group came to the airport. Tiina had different flights to new Zealand although we left Finland in 20 minutes. Tiina would fly through Vienna, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney to Christchurch, when I would fly through Copenhagen and Singapore. We wished nice, long flights to each other and walked to our gates. My first surprise was that I would fly to Copenhagen also through Gothenburg. I had been wondering the long flying time to Denmark.... Well, I finally arrived in Copenhagen and then I tried to find a place to get my boarding pass to Singapore Airlines flights. After a couple of places I was told that the only place to get a boarding pass was the departure gate. The gate personel wasn't any the fastest one and one reason was also that I was not the only one with a strange connection flight from Singapore.

The into the Singapore Airlines plane. It would be a 12 hours flight, so I turned my brains off and tried to fall down into an airplane dormancy. There was really many reasons why the flight company has been told one of the best ones in the world. The service was excellent. Nice stewardesses served all flight long snacks and drinks and even food was reasonable. Service activity was "just" a little bit better than in our national air company. One reason might be that maximum age of stewardess in SI is 28 years. Many times I also said thanks to the guy who had developed the individual screens of airplanes. During the 12 hour flight it's nice to watch movie you really like, listen to the cds you like and play some videogames.

We arrived in Singapore at 6 am local time. My connection flight was late in the evening, so my travel agency suggested me a day-pack in Singapore. Passport control and customs in the airport you could hardly notice. Basically, there was not any customs, just a door for red line, all the others just walked into the arrival hall. I found the Stop Over desk. There a minibus transportation took me to the Albert Court Hotel. I had a reservation for a day room there. Outside the airport you could immediately notice the greenness of Singapore. Of course, when coming from the gray Finland everything looks like green, but also the first image when talking about Singapore is normally the high skyscrapers. I also remarked the temperature of 80 F at 7 am, wonderful! In the reception the girl told me that you have to check out latest exactly at 6 pm and I promised. The room was quite nice and I tried to get some sleep, but that was only a trial. The shower made a big difference and I decided to see the town. In the hotel there was a guy from Singapore Airlines to organize some day program. I tried to buy a tourist ticket for the bus, but the officer told that there is no sense to do that when they had only one bus on Sundays. He also told that it was not possible to walk to the shopping street because it was so far away. I'm a crazy Finn, but also can read the map, so I walked to the Orchard Street. The walking took less than half an hour. The town was just waking up to the Sunday morning. So, there was mostly Japanese tourists and I. Here you didn't had to try to hide that you are a tourist when 6'3" is much higher than local and Japanese. I'm not any shopping type person, so I just walked around and looking at shops. As a Finn I was surprised about Christmas lights and Santa Clauses when temperature was 90 F and as green as in Finland in the summer. From Orchard Road I walked to the probably most famous sightseeing, the Raffles Hotel. It was a nice building although the famouness is mostly due to the bartender who invented the drink Singapore Sling in the hotel bar. In the next door of the Raffles is located the Suntec City Mall. I made even some minor shopping there. Singapore is not any cheap place, only electronics is very cheap. After a four-hour tour I walked back to the hotel. I want through a local bazar street and that was a busy place. I also noticed that oversterility was somehow overestimated. The town is in the high western level, but not any oversterile as I was told. I just rested in the hotel and walked around a little bit. The another refreshing shower and the a drive back to the airport. The Chang airport was then the most clean airport I've ever seen; a lot of space, plants, service and everything really worked. At 9 pm departed another ten hour flight to the final destination in New Zealand.

The plane landed so early, that the flying time was only (!) just over nine hours. During the last half an hour we had a gorgeous view over the Southern Alps. And then we were in New Zealand after really long flights. The first positive thing was that all my luggage found their way. And then to the customs. I had filled the custom form in the plane and I was slightly scared. You are not allowed to bring any food to NZ and with backpacking gear you'll have to take always the red line. I had been very honest with the form and in fact I guess that helped the situation. I had some food with me like crackers, sports drink powder and chewing gum. The officer was not interested in these at all. The backpacking gear was checked randomly. My boots were checked. The friendly officer found some grass, and went to the backroom to clean the boots. After the cleaning my gear was checked and after the x-ray check I was free to go. A Chinese guy was not so lucky, he had announced to have some chocolate with him, but he couldn't find it and the all his luggage was checked very carefully.

After the customs I'd tried to find my friends without any luck. Thanks to the cell phones I heard that they were still picking up our rental car, but on the way back to the airport. Soon the whole group was in the Christchurch Airport. I was the last one in NZ. Juha arrived already a couple of days earlier, when he got cheap flights for those days- Tiina arrived last night and our American part of the group had arrived earlier in the morning. Finding a rental car was not such an easy issue, when we had lost our reservation information. After this the problem was to find a big enough car for six people and their huge luggage. Finally we found an excellent solution, when we got a Hiace minibus and took the back seat away. With this one we had enough space. The next problem was to find Juha who was some other place where he was thinking himself to be. Still we were not ready to leave the airport. Tiina had lost her luggage between Sydney and Christchurch. They gave her fifty-fifty chance to get her luggage with the next flight arriving in two hours. We decided to wait. We sat down in a bar and tasted Cantebury Draught beer so much that it ran out. Tiina went to ask the luggage, but nothing new occurred. Then they called at least something like Tiina's name. And there they were. The officer recognized our group when she had passed us in the bar...

Now everyone was here with their luggage. And then we started to drive towards our first place to stay in Arhur's Pass. We found the right way easily. And had the first break after 10 minutes. The sheep got scared of Charles, but nothing more about that. We also tried to find a plece to have a dinner. But in NZ on Mondays don't eat, just bet on the horse races on tv. So, we couldn't do anything else but watch sheeps, deers and lhamas on the sides of the road. The views close to Christchurch was quite flat, but soon we were getting higher and higher. And soon we were inside the Lord of the Rings. The view was unbelievable and impossible to describe. We were inside a fairy tail. The road followed a river valley and soon we were in the Bealey Hotel located a couple of kilometers before Artur's Pass Village. The owner was a nice guy and we liked the place immediately, although the dialect was strange. Finally we also got something to eat. We stayed in the backpacker's lodge. There we had a lot of space and Val had reserved an own room for everybody because of possible jetlag. We had a short night walk and the we were ready to go to the bed.

In the morning everybody was up very early, partly due to going bed early partly due to the jetlag. We knew that we wouldn't get any breakfast at the hotel before 9 am, which would take still a couple of hours. So, we decided that we would drive to the village and try to find another place there. We checked out and asked the owner if he would know some other place to have a break fast. He called friendly to the village and asked and told us that there would be some places. We got somehow scared when we heard that we could get some snake for breakfast. Last day we had already learnt that seven is pronounced here as [si:ven] and soon we understood that we could get some snacks for breakfast. In the garden of the hotel we also saw a wooden 3 meter high moa bird, that disappeared in the late 19th century. Then we drove to Arhur's Pass village. There we visited quickly at the National Park Visitors Center and went to the Chalet Hotel to have breakfast.

In the morning we decided to make the first day-hike. Just the next door of the Chalet, there was a trail to Devils Punchbowl Falls. And we started climbing up. And soon we were inside the fairy tail forest. Everywhere was so much hanging moss that I haven't seen altogether before. The trail was quite steep and we got used to uphill right away. The trail is quite popular, because they had built stairs to the steepest sections. The view backwards to the snow-covered mountains has also something special. The falls also got closer and closer and the falls became bigger. From the viewing point there was still a small trail to the very close to the falls. The sound was loud there and we got really wet. We returned to our car and drove further on.

The next stop was at the Artur's Pass. First we saw a kea, alpine parrot, that came there to get some food from stupid tourists. We just took some photos, because we had seen posters which told not to feed keas. Keas are not afraid to human and all the things they found are toys for them. We also noticed that keas' favorite food are car tyres as we had been told. From the Pass the road down was very steep and trucks going uphill were in trouble. We were happy to drive downhill.

We drove towards Hokitika and the Tasmanian See. The view was getting more like ocean coach. Fields like moor and also some palm trees growing. In Hokitika we had a two hour break. We had lunch and walked around the village. The village was some kind of tourist place with a lot of souvenir shops. We also saw greenstone grinding to get jade jewelleries. We also walked to the beach to see the waves of the Ocean and cold water. We finished our Hokitika tour in the grocery store to get some breakfast stuff for tomorrow and even for a couple of next days in practise. From Hokitika we drove towards our next place to stay in Franz Josef. We skipped the canoe trip, it was already so late in the afternoon and we had still long way to go. In the late afternoon we arrive in Franz Josef. We had two three person hotel rooms. There was a special note, that you were allowed to drink beer only in your own "unit", whatever that meant. We were getting hungry and drove to the village to have some dinner. It was not such an easy thing and Charles had problems with his main course and he even never got his dessert. Otherwise the food was tasteful again. We got sleepy again early although Vili liked to have some company in his "unit" for drinking some beer.

We woke up again early. Vacation is not for sleeping isn't? Especially not in the place like this. An d especially when we had reserved a guided glacier walk for this morning already before our trip. The sun was rising to the cloudless sky. The view from our motel up to the snow covered mountains was great. A little bit excited we were when heading to the Franz Josef Glacier Guides office, where we supposed to be at half past seven. I didn't know exactly what would happen that morning. The first surprise was the price, which was about half of the price that we were told earlier. We didn't found out why the price was so low, but we neither asked too much. We met our guide Kris, who gave us hiking boots, iceTalonz (special trampoons), gore-coats and everything else needed. We were wearing warm cloths as we were told.

The bus ride took us from the village closer to the glacier. But rest of the trip we walked. During the walking we noticed that three-layer clothing this morning was too much and we took off some layers. So, we noticed that we'll need suncream. Kris told us about the glacier but also about other nature. He also made us to taste leaves of a pepper tree, and those were tasting quite spicy. We walked further towards the glacier over a rocky section, which was covered by tens of meters of glacier just a hundred year ago. You could see the warming of the climate easily close to the Franz Josef. This glacier was also a special glacier because it came lower than the three level. Only in Patagonia, in Argentina you can find similar ones. We got closer to the Glacier and the size of the glacier was enormous. We were passed by a group of guides who were on their way to check the route for tourists. So, we were the first group up there this morning. The glacier itself started with a ice stairs and after those we put our Talenz on and with those walking was rather easy on the ice, although the boot were not ours so not the best possible. The beginning of the walk was really rocky, rocks were moving with the ice in a very slow flow. We had some stops when Kris was making the route safetier. We were getting more and more inside the glacier. Kris was telling us about forming of glacier and shaping of it. We saw different shapes of glacier, high ice pillars, different ice caves, ravines made by melting water. Part of the time we were walking in so small cracks that more bodied guys would have been in trouble. We also slide through two ice caves and there was either not too much space. Sun was shining all the time and this was a great experience. It's just so difficult to explain with words. After a long tour we walked down and saw many other groups on their way up to the glacier. We walked back to the parking low and the bus took us back to the village. The walk was really amazing and much more than we could imagine.

After the great morning we had a long drive to Queenstown. The beginning of the drive was a curvy mountain road, of which we had some experience on yesterday. We were getting hungry again and we found a nice place to eat at South Westland Salmon farm, where we got nice salmon to eat and tried to avoid the flow of tourist buses to the restaurant. The road came down to the ocean again and we had a long break at Ship Creek beach. There was miles of sandy beach with palm trees and you could easily imagine yourself to be at a sunny beach in Thailand. The only difference was that water was ice cold. We also walked round a swamp trail. There we were inside the rain forest with extremely high 50 meter tall trees.

We drove further towards the town of Haast and there we turned back to the mountains. Just before the Haast Pass we stopped to take some photos of the great views to the mountains. This break was a big mistake. We got the first touch to the sandfly army. Sandflies are known as black flies in the States and they are biting very badly. We drove further towards Queenstown. It had been a long day and we've sat so long in the car, so we were loosing our biggest interest for the great views. When getting closer to Queenstown to the Kawarau River Vally the views were changing once again during the same day: river far down in the gorge and up on the plain many vineyards.

Then we arrived in Queenstown. We had rented a whole house for three days. The house was just perfect: three bedrooms, two showers, laundry, nice kitchen and living room with every equipment needed and much more. This was much more than we could have been hoped. The house was owned by an American who used the house just a couple of weeks during the year and other time he had given it to the local family to be rented for tourists. After having dinner in a Chinese restaurant and getting back to the house it was so great just to follow the sunset from the living room. The day had been gorgeous. Unbelievable views mountains, beach, rain forest. I couldn't understand everything. One of the best days in my life anyway!

Last day we had decided that we'll decide this morning what we are going to do today. We had two whole days in Queenstown and at this point we were still thinking that those would be enough. We took a slowly start for this morning and somebody were sleeping longer than somebody else. After the breakfast we drove to the town center to see something about the activity services. We had some idea about those after seeing a foot-tall brochure pile in our house. In the center we visited one activity company. That was rather easy when every third door was activity company, others were restaurants and souvenir shops. Then the problem began. There was so much interesting to do, and it meant real much. In the beginning we noticed that during this day it was difficult to do anything special, because most of the activities started eraly in the morning. After long thinking and discussions we decided to book jetboating and rafting for Friday morning. The activity supply was incredible and included so much interesting things, if you just have time and enough cash in your wallet. After the booking we decided to walk around the town by ourselves for a while. Soon we noticed that by ourselves was a wrong word, when we all were in same grocery store to look for breakfast and backpacking stuff for the track starting after a couple of days. The store was very small and there was not too much to buy, but still we spend a lot of time there.

It was a lunch time again and in the morning we had got a idea to visit a vineyard. So we drove to the Gibbston Valley winery. The last visiting round had just started, so we went to the restaurant to have a lunch and waiting for the next round. The food was excellent, so it had been al the time in NZ. Although Vili's and Juha's salami was too hot for the Americans. Our lunch was quite long one and we missed even the next round, but the next after that we could catch. We visited a wine cave that had optimal circumstances for wine making. We could also taste the wines of the winery. We heard about making the wine and special problems in this area, when the climate here was close to be too cold for vine. Especially we were interested to hear that they were using helicopters to circulate air when froze was going to threat vine. We saw also vine that had been damaged by froze during this spring (means our autumn). We visited also the shop and bought at least one bottle of wine.

For the late afternoon we decided to take a gondola over the Queenstown downtown. The view was absolutely great up there. There was also a luge up there and we took a few rounds. We were still having fun when Val and Charles disappeared somewhere. We found out the reason, when they came back: Val would jump a bungy jump over Queenstown. When waiting for the Val's jump we were watching the view and drinking some beer. Then Val had her "appointment time" and we went to see the jump. Val made it and we were horrified at the viewing desk. After the jump Val and Charles went back to get the bungy jump T-shirt and we told to meet them up. When they came back, they didn't check the souvenir shop and took a gondola down. We were still up there and wondering where those two are. Finally we decided to take a gondola down and we met them down there.

The next stop was the biggest grocery store in the town to get the rest of the backpacking food we couldn't find in the morning. And again it was a long tour, but at this time we could find also some food. And them back to the downtown. This time we could divide us somehow. Juha and I went now to the Alpine Market to find some freeze-dried food for backpacking, because we hadn't find them in the two first groceries. I was walking around alone for a while, until I met Val and Charles. We got a great pizza tastings in the front of the Winnies restaurant. Later we met each other and we all came back to the Winnies'. The place was really cool! Nice atmosphere, good beer and excellent pizza. we had a chicken pizza with sour cream. Sounds exotic, but worked perfectly. Pizzas were really big ones and noticed the challenge to be too difficult and we had to ask a box. During the dinner we also were surprised that the rood of the restaurant opened every now and then. Strange... A perfect bar! We drove back to our house and again had a nice sunset to admire.

Friday morning and wake up call again early in the morning. There was some adrenaline in the air right in the beginning of the day, when we were going to have a jetboat ride and rafting in the river. We had a meeting in the Station. The place is famous and somehow the birth place of extreme sports, when A.J. Hackett who commercialized bungy jumping had its office right here. We were anyway going to Shotover River to have water activities. First we had a fast jetboat tour in the canyon. Had it really was speedy. The boat was running in the deep canyon. The driver was driving the boat very close to the rock walls so that we felt that we'll hit the wall. The speed was even 35 mph. And the top point was 360 degree rounds always when they were possible. I got a nice catch, when during the first round someone dropped his sunglasses in front of me. The jetboating took half an hour and we really had fun. Then we walked up to the building on the beach to watch and buy photos taken by the organizer.

The next activity that morning was rafting and the rafter's lodge was just next door to the jetboating and most of people had a combo and they took rafting after the jetboat. Our photo buying took a while and rafting organizers were already waiting for us when we got to the lodge. The organizers looked very wild with their rasta hair etc, just like everybody thinks extream people to look. We got wet suits, life vests and helmets. Under the wet suit we had just swimming suits and we left everything else in the lodge. The we jumped to the bus and the trip to the starting point started. The trip itself was already an experience. We drove up to the mountains, but the road was still quite wide. Then we started to drive down back towards the river following by the deep canyon. The road was narrow and there was 300 feet fall down just outside the road. In case I wouldn't drive that road even with a small car. And we had a bus with a trailer with four rafts. We were still alive when we arrived the starting point. At the starting point the equipment was checked and we got a safety lesson. The lesson was very fun and we got safety instructions on the dry land and saw funny examples what will happen if we don't do as they said. After the safety instructions we got to the groups. We six were an own group and we got a Japanese guide and also an interpreter, even we would have needed any. There altogether about ten rafts, so a lot of people on the river. The beginning was slow easy and we had enough time to learn paddling and the guides' commands. Enough time we had also for small water wars, which were blowing up and we were not too bad either. The stream was getting faster but we had a great guide. It was looking like we would hit the wall but every time the stream took us away just before the wall. Then we came to the first rapids. Vili and I were sitting in the front of the raft and of course got most of water on us. But the rapids were fun. After the rapids there was a slower section again. The guides made some extra activity by pulling people in water from other rafts. They were also trying to get us, but without any luck when we were steadily in our raft. We got also instructions for the next rapids and the last tunnel. The next rapids was really wild and our raft was full of water and Vili and I got all water on us, so we were really wet after the rapids. The rafting ended in the tunnel and the rapids right after that. It's hard to say anything about the tunnel, because it was totally dark in there. The tunnel was built by two gold miners who tried to change flow of the river and make mining easier. The river didn't obey the men, but the tunnel was a great end for the rafting in the late days. Vili was an assist driver in the tunnel and made us through it. Then the great rapid after the tunnel and we were back in the original river. And then unfortunately all fun was over. We had still the most difficult part of the trip when we had to but our raft to the top of three other ones. Well, we managed on the second time. In the lodge we had a warm sauna, which was somehow like a Finnish, but maybe not enough. Then cloths on and having some snack included to the price.

Everyone hadn't get enough in the morning, and they wanted some more adrenaline kicks in the afternoon. Over the rafting canyon there was a Canyon Swing and Val, Charles, Juha and Vili decided to try that one in the afternoon. Tiina would go to watch, but I decided to stay in Queenstown. We went back to our house and after a while in the warm sunshine, the others went to swing. That was some kind on like a bungy jump with a swing. I stayed in the house for a while organizing my luggage and then walked to the downtown. For now one we had driven to the center, but that was maybe not necessary when it took 10 minutes to walk there, although it was downhill. In the downtown I checked the stores once again and visited one of many internet cafes there. I checked news from Finland and also read the weather forecast for the next days when we would be hiking on the mountains. Using internet in the cafes is very popular and cheap in New Zealand. Normally one hour costs 5 NZD so less than $3. When waiting for the others I had time to check everything in the downtown, but I didn't get boored at all. Soon I met Val and Charles in the Hard Rock Cafe and soon Tiina and Juha were also there. When we found also Vili we were groupped again. We had a dinner in a steak place and I heard everything about the Swing. Everybody else, but Charles had been so excited that they jumped two times.

After the dinner the Americans wanted to stay in the town to see some nightlife and we Finns drove to our house. We found the Lord of the Rings Part Two DVD there and started to watch the movie; our house was very well equipped. Or Vili and I started to watch, when after five minutes Juha was snoring in his armchair. The view in the movie was exactly like the view we had spent the last days!

Sat 11/29/2003 Queenstown - Te Anau

In the Saturday morning it was time to say goodbye to our nice house and to Queenstown. After the breakfast we packed our car and drove once again to the downtown. Swing jumpers needed to get their jumping photos and we also paid our backpacking fees already here, so we didn't need to take care of those in Te Anau any more. These operations took a while again and it was almost noon when we left queenstown. After an hour drive the view changed once again remarkably. We arrive in a river plain surrounded by nice hills. We drove in the valley to Te Anau, which located by a lake called with the same name. On the other side of the lake rised again mountains of the Southern Alps. We started to look out Te Anau by having a lunch. Between Queenstown and Te Anau we couldn't have seen any place to have lunch. Vili had some problems with the soup and later even with the main, but finally everybody got their food and hunger was away again for a short time.

Next we drove to our Backpacker's lodge. We didn't have very high expectations for the place, but we were rather lucky to have an own six bed apartment with even a small kitchen-living room. From the balcony there was a nice view over the lake and the mountains on the other side. We didn't stay too long at the lodge but walked back to the Te Anau. In the beginning we made a reservation for a glow worm cruise later in the evening. We also visited all the souvenir shops and tried to find some posters for Vili without any luck again. We also visited the local liquor store and found the heaven of beer drinkers. The store didn't have just some cans in the fridge, but a whole cooled room full of different beers.

On the other side of the street there was a restaurant called the Ranch. Our guide book gave high rate for the restaurant, and it was right again, rally right. We also gave a really high rate. The food was excellent, fast and very friendly service, everyone got food at the same time and the atmosphere was just great. One reason for high rate from Tiina was probably the 8% cider, which had 2.2. standard services; a normal beer bottle have 1.0 standards. We'll came back to this restaurant after four days after our backpacking track.

We took our shopping back to the lodge and headed to the glow worm cruise. The cruise started with a boat trip over Te Anau Lake. During the cruise we had a spectacular view over the lake, when it was slightly getting dark. Two thirds of our group were Japanese tourists. We had seen them quite many, especially in Queenstown. But now our limit was pretty close. In Japan it probably means something else, when the boat captain tells that "those who sit in the front part of the boat please wait on your seats". Two times taller Finn was in a trouble when 30 Japanese are running to the gate on the back part of the boat right after we got first touch to the land. In the glow worm center first we saw a multivision show about the caves and glow worms. After that there was a cave tour. Of course we had to wait for our turn, because all the time when a new group was called there were ten Japanese before we even reacted. Well, we were not in a hurry. Finally, we got into the caves. Part of the tour was in the boat and partly we walked. We saw nicely lighted water falls and flowing of river under the ground. And glow worms of course. We were not allowed to take photos in the cave, because it would disturb worms. We were sure that it was because there were not any worms, but just blue led lights which were turned on every time when a group got closer. Led lights or glow worms, in any case the long boat tour inside the cave in the total silence was a great experience under the blue shining spots. During our tour it had became dark and we were heading back to Te Anau under total darkness over the lake. At the lodge we made some packing for the Milford Track that would be waiting for us next morning.

Map of the Milford Track in the Department of Conservation map page.

Then we would get to the mountains to hike. The original idea of coming to New Zealand was based on backpacking and came out in some of our backpacking trips in the US, I guess in the first one to Mount Reinier. Our track would be Milford Track, one of the Great Walks of Department of Conservation. Milford Track is told to be the most beautiful hike in the world according to the article published 100 years ago. The local people these days says normally just one of the most beautiful hikes.

In this everybody woke up early and in fact probably only time during our trip were ready too early. We were told to in the DOC office at 9 am and from the Backpacking Lodge there was a 10 minutes walk to the office. We drove our car to the safety grass parking of the Lodge and already before half past eight we walked to the DOC. It took only less than 10 minutes with the paper work, so we had one hour time to hang around in the office and see the exhibitions of the history of the area and see the souvenir shop. Finally our bus came and we stepped in. The bus took us to Te Anau Downs and there we changed to the boat. The boat took us to the north end of Lake Te Anau. The view from the lake was gorgeous and sun was shining again. On the upper deck it was though pretty windy and you had to keep your cap by hand. Excellent mountain photos you could take there any way.

The boat trip ended in Glade Wharf. We took our backpacks from the boat and started to prepare for hiking. The first day was only three easy miles in the river valley. Our Americans started they trip in the way we'll get used to: deet poisoning against sandflys. Sandflys are not problem any way when you are walking, they are too slow, but when you are standing they will bite immediately. We were walking in wonderful beech forest and were wondering amount of hanging moss. Air pollution is not a problem here, when moss tells something about that. We had just started walking when we got to the Glade House which is the first place to stay for guided walkers. You can walk Milford Track either in a guided group or as independent hiker. Both are staying in huts, but level of service is quite different. We were also independent walkers. Milford Track is very popular, yearly 14 000 hikers are making it. That's why amount of backpackers is limited and every day just 40 independent walkers are allowed to start the track.

After the Glade House we passed Clinton River over a long swing bridge. The name Clinton sounded fun for us when the hometown of our Americans and Vili is also Clinton. Wide and nice trail was following the river. Water in the river was clear and the colors of the river were amazing changing from light blue to deep green. Water was really clear and we could easily is the bottom even ten feet deep river. Just before our hut there was a 30 feet uphill, but it was still quite hard for our legs. The first day ended any way after about one hour walking, when we reached Clinton Hut. We hadn't very good information about the huts, just heard something about mattresses and gas. Clinton Hut had two bunkrooms with 20 bed each and nice mattresses. There was also a kitchen building with many cooking points. There was still a different washing building, with even water closets. So, pretty luxury compared to Finnish huts, not even talking about tents. Sun was shining warmly and it was nice to have snack on the terrance between the buildings. From the helicopter deck there was a nice view to the mountains, which we were wondering of course.

In the afternoon we checked the swamp nature trail and took also our swing suits with us, if we'll jump to the river. In the nature trail we saw huge threes and from the open area there was again a great view to the mountains. The river valley is so called U-valley which means that the bottom is quite flat and the mountains go steeply up from the valley. After the trail we came back to the river and after the hot day we decided to go to swim. The water was ice cold because it came from mountains and glaciers there. The short flash was enough but was refreshing really. The bad point was that after getting up sandflys attacked immediately and bite badly. The bigger problem than sandflys was when my digicamera wanted also to swim and "jumped" into river. Juha saved the camera, but it got so much water that even after drying it didn't work any more. So after the swimming trip the photos from Milford Track are from other cameras. When we were drying us, we saw also a three person group coming from the fishing trip on the other side of river. One guy fell down into the river with his backpack when the were passing it, so fast the river was flowing.

Quite bitten we walked back to the hut. We decided to take part again in a guided swamp trail, this time hold by Sue the hut warden. Probably Sue knew the sandflys when she started the trail from our swimming spot and we were again attacked by sandflys. On the trail Sue told about plants and other nature things, especially birds. Most of our attention took any way Sue's nice dialect of English.

We were getting hungry and when there was not too much to do in the hut, so we started to cook dinner. I had bought in Queenstown some local freeze dried food, which were cooked just by adding boiling water. The first dinner was beef and pasta. Food was excellent and quite spicy compared to the similar foods in Europe and States, almost close to the Harri's food dried by himself. During the dinner we also talked with other hikers and our gruop was very international. Quite many Germans, Americans, Englishmen, Israelians, Japanese, Taiwanese, Aussies, Malesians, grom Scandinavia there was also a couple from Denmark. The Kiwis (from NZ) were a minority, actually I remember just one guy who was with his German friends. In the evening there was still a hut meeting and Sue told us about the track and how to use the huts and also about the trail tomorrow. We were surprised to hear that just week ago the river was flooding and the trail was under water, and part of the trail tomorrow was flied with the helicopter. After the meeting we made a short walk and saw the beautiful sunset on the helicopter deck. Then it was a time to go to the bed.

The night was quite peaceful and I hadn't heard any timberwork (means snoring), that was done in our hut I heard in the morning. Someone else was also up when we started to get out from our sleeping bags. The morning was quite cool and I needed my fleece coat. We were in a valley outside the morning sunshine. We made some breakfast and I found local oatmeal quite nice with huge parts of apple. Then just packs on and to the trail. The trail followed again Clinton River. We saw the place where the old hut had stand but the new one was built when the old one was taken by river a couple of times. When we were walking it was difficult to imagine that just week ago the river was flooding and the trail was covered by water, so nice the trail was now and river far away. On the other side of the river we saw Hirare Falls, but they were pretty dry and needed more water to look like those we've seen in some photos.

We walked on and met a bird researcher, who was looking for kiwi-birds. He heard those last evening and now he was going to find those. Kiwis in Clinton valley are not native and they have radiosignal, so the guy was looking for them with an funny-looking antenna. We made also a side-track to Hidden Lake, that supposed to be nice place to swim, but water level was so low right now, and the lake was looking so muddy, that we skipped swimming. From the open area we could also first time see the Mackinnon Pass, which we were going to pass next day. We were planning to have a lunch break at the Bus Stop, but it didn't seem very nice. The name Bus Stop cleared just some hundred feet further when we were passing a river, that during flooding would be difficult. Now the river was basically dry. We also visited Pompolona Hut. We couldn't find a lunch spot there either, but had a nice talk with the hut warden. Pompolona Hut is one of the guided track huts. He heard that the average age of the guided trampers is close to 50 years and last night there was also one 78 years old. Their dinner room was looking like a five star restaurant and their two-person rooms had own showers and toilets. Just reading the menu made us hungry, a complete three course dinner with wine etc. We decided to come back for a guided walk after 30 years.

The trail went on and we found a nice lunch place from the open area were they were making spare bridges. After the lunch we walked through the area, that had bad avalanches during this winter. The trail had some new lines and there were also area where it was told not to stop. The worst avalanche season was over this spring, but safety first of all of course. There was also a small river crossing and I got even too much benefit when I had completely water-proof boots and walking poles, when other tried to stay try by jumping from stone to stone. Another side track took us to Lake Mirror. Close to the lake there was a large snow cave and we could even walk into the cake. The cave had its last days, so easily you could see the melting. Still there was a nice uphill to the Mintaro Hut, actually it was easier than we were told. It took just over five hours for todays trip, when six hours was the estimated time. The day was quite hot and our drinking water ran out when we got to the hut. Many trampers walked right on the Mackinnon Pass. We were told last day to do that if weather was fine, because weather was changing quickly and the view from the pass would be gorgeous. We decided still to think about that.

in the Mintaro Hut everybody was staying in the same building. Both upstairs and downstairs. We went to the upstairs, because the faster ones had taken the rooms downstairs. After finding our beds we walked to find nice place to swim again. In the Mintaro Lake we found a nice spot when we just walked further from the first small lake. Going to water was quite challenging when the wind was cold and there were also some clouds. Finally, everybody included Tiina visited quickly in water. Actually it was not a lake, but a larger part of Clinton River. Our example made also a German girl to swim, although she had been thinking for a while. When we were swimming we saw many avalanches up in glaciers up in the mountains. Far they say rather small, but we could hear the thunder sound in the valley and the sould told us that they were large and powerful.

It was already so late afternoon that we decided to climb to the pass tomorrow, when we had to go there any way. We trusted our good luck with weather. We rested a little bit upstairs and almost fell also asleep for short time. Then it was time for dinner. I had a vegetarian meal, which was very tasteful again. We also cooked some hot tee and enjoyed that with whiskey. We got some company from a nice German couple. The girl was studying in Australia and they also visited New Zealand when the man was visiting Australia at Christmas time. We were talking about everything and we told a lot about Finland. The man was coming to Jyväskylä next summer any way. The hut meeting was quite short, but we got some nice tips for the next day. I got tired very early and I went upstairs to sleep. I was sleeping happily, when there was a plastic bag show later in the evening when one at a time was looking for something in their bags.

It was raining during the night, how hard the rain was is difficult to say, because tin plate roof sounded really hard. It was really dark in the night although we slept next to the windows. It was also hot in upstairs and snoring was heavy. After all I was sleeping quite okay. In the morning our group was clearly first ones up and the others were hating us making noise so early in the morning. We were already finishing our breakfast, when the others were just getting up from their sleeping bags. We knew that this would be a tough day and wanted to start as early as possible. In fact, we started just a quarter of hour earlier than yesterday, so the others were sleeping longer.

Walking up to the Mackinnon Pass was quite tough. In a short distance we went up from 1800 feet in Mintaro Hut to over 3300 feet in the pass. Espcially there was a short very interesting track, where an avalanch had taken part of switchbacks and a temporarily trail went just over one switchback straight uphill. There were also some ropes to help trampers but a real man uses just his poles, no ropes. When getting closer to the bush line (tree line), there were beautiful alpine flowers, just with blooming nicely. In the morning sunshine we walked over the bush line and saw nice view behind us to Clinton Valley there we had walked for two last days.

Finally the uphill ended and we got to the Mackinnon memorial. Behind the stone we saw Arthur River Valley on the other side of the pass. We also understood, why the hut warden told us last night, that we have to turn right from the memorial, if it's foggy and you can see only a couple of meters. There was a 1000 feet vertical drop from the pass down to Arthur Valley. Under one cliff there was basically nothing and of course we had to take photos standing on that cliff. The view down to Arthur valley was gorgeous and again we saw some avalanches up on the mountains. From the memorial we walked further towards the pass hut. After we left the memorial, a kea flied there and sat on the memorial. We saw some other trampers coming down still in uphill. For now on we had been the first ones. Just before the hut we passed the highest point of the track 1154 meters. That is not very high as number, but we had started at 150 meters, so there had been enough uphill. When we got to the hut, we got also company of five keas waiting for some food. In the hut we ate some snack and rested for a short while after a tough uphill.

Then we started going downhill. And if coming up was steep and quite tough, the downhill was much worse. The beginning was not so bad and we stopped for a while to see a flightless weka bird. Because danger of avalanches we had to take to steep short cut down. The short cut was quite narrow, rocky and sometimes quite hard to find. We walked on slowly and had many stops. Val and Charles continued faster and we Finns came slower. We passed Roaring Burn river over a swing bridge and walked down and saw wonderful Dudleigh Falls. The trail got slightly better, but we got more tried and walked even slower and had feeling that we can't ever reach Quintin Hut. Last mile took about one hour. But Quitin Hut was still there and finally we reached it.

Quintin Hut was mostly a guided hut, but there was also a room for independent trampers. We had a lunch in a room which was small and sweaty. we couldn't stay outside, because there was a sandfly army waiting for us. Even put our shoes on outside was painful, not even talking about staying there volunteerly. The worst place since so far absolutely. From the Quintin Hut we made a walk to Sutherland Falls. Sutherland Falls are as high as 580 meters. Years ago it was told to be the second highest waterfall in the world, but later it has been found to be number five or six. From Quintin Hut it was about half an hour walk to the waterfalls. And the falls really were high, especially when the lowest of three steps was falling down as a free fall over 100 meters. Yesterday evening we got instructions how to get behind the falls if you knew the route and had enough adventure spirit. And we had that, well, Juha, Vili and I had. I had shorts and sandals, but Juha and Vili hadn't anything special. Changing the shorts close to the waterfalls got some special attention, especially from the Danes. We walked on the left side of the falls behind the falls. It was we and the falls were loud expect right behind those. But that was a great experience, even though we couldn't see too much, when wind was throwing water against our faces. Absolutely awesome! We were again an example and the Danish guy followed us behind the falls. After coming back, we were totally soaked, especially Juha's and Vili's hiking boots were really wet. My sandals were just a great idea. Of the Danish couple it came to my mind, that they had clear jobs during hiking. The boy carried a huge packback and the girl her water bottle!

Pretty wet we walked back to Quintin Hut. The independent hikers room was more sweaty and we wanted soon walk on. I had a lot energy still for the late afternoon and I made a sprint to Dumpling Hut. It was still two miles to the hut and estimated time one hour. I speeded up and walked fast towards the hut. You can see the view even with higher speed when you are used to that, so that was not any problem. After less than half an hour I cought Val and Charles and walked the last ten minutes with them to Dumpling Hut. It took 35 minutes from Quitin Hut to Dumpling, I could have walked a couple of minutes faster I had walked also the last hundreds of meters alone.

We took beds in the bunkrooms and noticed that sandflies were bad also here and you couldn't keep your room door open a moment. Quite soon also Tiina, Juha and Vili arrived. They made the last hour also fine. Tiina was pretty exhausted and went to bed right after she took her boots off. Bigger problems the tiredness other backpackers had. A German girl twisted her ankle but with Valerie's poles she could get to the Dumpling Hut. In the evening the hut warden managed to organize a helicopter ride to Milford Sound for her, because she probably couldn't have been able to walk the last day. In the hut meeting we had also another worry, when an American girl was still on the trail. She got to the hut just before the dark. We also heard the reason for late coming. She had slept long after everyone else had left Mintaro Hut and hadn't notice the time. For some reason I was thought to wake up early again next morning and we decided, that I'll wake also Holly up, so that she wouldn't miss the boat next morning. That didn't make any problem for me.

We were surprised to notice, that there were no sandflies in the kitchen building even the doors were open. After a long day we made a dinner. I had saved the last food to the final end: lamb with alfredo sauce. This was absolute excellent, even better than Harri's food. Everyone in our group had something special for last night and dinners ran around to everybody to be tasted. Val and Charles made some pizzas and they got some spicy cooking when they had forgotten their oil and used my salami to get some fat to their pan. Too hot, no way! In the evening we talked again with the couple from Hamburg like last night. Also a kiwi guy who was walking with a girl twisted her ankle joined us. Everyone in our 40 person group were very nice even we came around the world. We talked already last night with the youngest one 12-year old girl and her father, and now they stayed in the same bunkroom with us. Quite tough girl in her age when she was too tired after today's up- and downhill. Soon the night was getting darker and it was time to go to bed after a long day.

We woke up as early as 5:30 am. We walked so slowly yesterday, so we decided to be sure and start early, especially when we had the earlier ferry from Sandfly Point at two pm. I woke up also the American girl, who also woke quite easily. Well, her room mates didn't like me too much, although I tried to be silent. Again we were the first ones up. The next one was a kiwi guy, who we were talking with yesterday. This was the last morning, and we could stay in our routines. Well, any way we were ready to go, when most of the trampers were still sleeping.

The trail of the last day was long, 12 miles. Otherwise it was quite easy, no height differences, elevation gain up was 300 feet and down 450 feet. The beginning of the trail went through a fresh avalanch area using a temporarily trail. We walked with a good speed and soon we were already at Boatshed. Then we walked a short time through wet land of Mackay Creek. Mackay Falls was beautiful, but like we heard yesterday "a f*cking water fall again". The more surprising was the Bell Rock close to the falls. A huge stone was made hollow by water and rocks and then the Rock was fallen upside down in a rock fall, so that you can go inside the bell. Now we know what really means to be inside the rock. You can easily stay inside and with my hand up in nine feet I couldn't touch the roof.

After wondering the rock, we walked further towards Lake Ada. There was a short challenging part, when the hill dropped steeply to the lake. At this point the trail was not any natural one, but in the late 19th century the prisoners had hit the trail on the rock in the steep hill. At the Giant Gate Falls we had a lunch break and tried to avoid sandflies again. We had enough time because we had walked pretty fast in the morning and there was not too much to go any more. Juha counted the bridges during the day and the number was 148. We go over 150 when we still had a short trail with a couple of bridges from Sandfly Point to the dock. The rest of the track was inside a subtropical rainforest. The trail after Giant Gate Falls was wide and very easy to walk. Any way we could feel 33 miles in our feet. But then suddenly Sandfly Point with its huts opened inside the forest. It was just after the noon and we had still two hours to the boat. We used just over five hours, when the estimated time was five to six hours. Pretty good speed for the last day.

We had heard some bad rumors about sandflies in their favorite place as the name told. After all they were not so bad there. We took our backpacks to the hut any way. I walked to the dock and made a clear decision. It was time to go to swim after the track! Vili and Juha joined me and we jumped to the nice warm water, at least after the last days. Small, but not bad, surprise was that water was still fresh and not salty fjord water. We changed some a little bit clear clothes on and ate our last snacks. We also saw the funny end gate of Milford Track with used hiking boots. Some of the boots were looking quite bad. There came also other trampers to Sandfly Point. And also our boat came, but it stayed quite far away and we had still to walk some hundreds of feet. Holly was also in time and could even catch the earlier ferry although she had the reservation for the next one at three pm. The girl was quite tired but happy after making the trail.

The boat took us to Milford Sound village through the great view of Milford Sound fjord. In the village the organizers were little bit missed. After asking many times we found our bus and driver. There was tens of buses, but nobody knew about the backpackers bus. Also organizing the bus transport had huge problems and the worst victims were our friends from Hamburg. Last night we were told that there will be enough room for everybody although you had a reservation for the later bus. But this was only the boat not the bus. The bus took also other trampers from other places and the couple from Hamburg had to stay in Milford Sound and wait for two hours for the next bus. This annoyed also us, because we had talked to meet at the Ranch and have a dinner there. The bus took such people so at least I was thinking that the driver was making some own business also.

The view on the road out from Milford Sound was gorgeous. The beginning of the bus trip we were watching those. We also drove through Homer Tunnel and the valley behind it was awesome. In the end point of Routeburn Track (another Great Walk) we took more passengers. They were looking and behaving so that I'm sure that they had walked four last days, just maximum one night. Everyone coming from Milford Track were looking like much stronger, but everyone of us were sleeping in the bus when new passengers were talking all way long to Te Anau. Worst of all, to the backseats with us came a group of Australians about twenty years old, who were behaving like fifteen years old: "our bus tomorrow leaves at half past seven so I can't drink more than two bottles of wine this night, hihihihi". I would change them rather to the German couple, especially, when there was any way people standing in the bus.

Coming to Te Anau was another show. The driver had promised to drive the Aussies to their lodge. When we got to the DOC, the driver mumbled something about driving to the lodge and nobody really understood what he was saying. We understood anyway that we will jump out here. After us almost everyone jumped out, because the driver wouldn't have taken them to their lodges any way. Also taking our bags from the bus was a big show, when they were not organized. We (means we, the driver didn't do anything) took all the backpacks out from the bus and then repacked those bags who were still staying in the bus. After this we walked to our car which was still staying in the grasspark of the Backpacker's lodge. Everything was ok there, although the car had been a couple of days alone there.

We made a radical decision. We wouldn't take any shower in Te Anay, because it was already late afternoon and we had still a long drive for today. We were not feeling too dirty, and we hoped that nobody else recognized anything at least not too much. Instead of shower we went to eat at the Ranch before we were going to drive to Invercargill. The food and drinks at the Ranch were unbelievable great. Especially, the service was very fast for the hungry backpackers. After the dinner we got also excellent desserts and the beer was even better after four days in the bush. The Ranch increased its rate even after the last visit and was A+ after this time.

After the dinner we were ready to drive to Invercargill. I took the front seat and the map, and kept Vili awake. The others were so tired during the bus trip, that we was voted to keep the driver awake. During the driving nobody was not sleeping too much, so there were not any special problems. From Te Anau we took the road south through Manapour using the Southern Scenic Route. The road was going on hills and valleys and after a couple of small towns we came to the southern coast of the South Island. The coast line was beautiful with the steep cliffs off the sea. There wasn't any scenic stops just by the road and we didn't want to make any sidetrips. We also called our motel that we'll arrive quite late. This was a useful call when we got also information that we really needed in the darkness. First of all, the motel was in Lorneville just outside Invercargill, but in the direction we were coming. We got also driving directions, so that take two miles from the road crossing. This was very useful, because during those two miles there nothing else but darkness, although it was a state way. After watching two miles in the trip meter, we saw the sign to the motel.

We got once again a nice three bedroom apartment for us. The we started the service. The laundry machines on and everyone to the shower. We got washed and far after the midnight also the last laundry machine watch got to the bed to sleep track tiredness away.

When coming to the motel in the total darkness we hadn't any idea what kind of place we had come. My wake alarm told that at least we were close to the sheep because it sounded just like sheep outside the window. Slowly everybody woke up and after the breakfast we collected our stuff and were ready to hit the road again. Before leaving we were watching sheeps in a fencing just on side other side of road from our rooms. We also tried to learn the sheep language by talking with them.

For the beginning of the day we drove to Bluff peninsula south from Invercargill. We saw a sign where distances to different towns all over the world were written. We were also walking on the beach. Then we tested engine of our car and drove up to the Bluff Hill. From the Bluff Hill tower there was a nice with both to the land and to the sea. We could even see Steward Island slightly misty. Then we drove back to Invercargill to get some more gas. At the gas station I bought also a single use camera if and when during the rest of the trip there will be something to take photos. We didn't stay Invercargill any longer, but drove on. We took again the Southern Scenic Route to the Catlins area. It was lunch time again, but finding a place was not such an easy thing. We found one place open, but it wasn't actually open. They promise to fix us something, but we decided to try to find another place. At Niagara Falls we found a place to get something to eat. Outside it just so cold that we didn't like to eat there. Inside the sun was shining and it was terrible hot there. Our next stop was Curio Bay petrified forest. The petrified forest has not any vertical trees but rocks, that actually are old trees. It was low tide, so we could go down to the beach to see this "forest". In beginning it was difficult to find any trees, but when we understood what to find we found some stumps and threes. We drove on through Catlins on the coastal cliffs and hills. The road was partly unpaved and Vili and the passengers didn't like this too much. Honestly, I have to say that calling Catlins as a nature wonder is overestimated. Maybe we had seen too much real wonders during last days. The nature was fine, but not any wonder.

We had a long driving day, so we limited the amount of stops. The second longer stop was at Nugget Point. When walking to the light house we saw sea lions down on the beach and we were following what the big animals were doing down there. They were quite far away and it was quite difficult too see those. From the light house there was a great view over the sea and we saw even more sea lions. On the other side of the peninsula there was a place to see penguins. It was not any penguin time, it was later in the evening. There was any way one yellow-eyed penguin on the beach. The yellow-eyed penguins are quite rare and there are only 6000 of those. The penguin was looking very funny, so we were thinking that a) it works with batteries or b) there is a warden in the bush and when he sees tourists he'll let the penguin go and catches it again when they are gone.

We had still over 100 kms to drive to Dunedin where we'll stay overnight so to the road again. After a long day we got to Dunedin, which was a bigger town, second biggest in the South Island after Christchurch. We found our Backpacker's Lodge easily. We got a ten-person room for six of us. Vili drove our car nice backwards up on a 30 feet hill. We really had enough space and everyone could get a low bed if we wanted. The room was rather cool, but with heat blowers we could warm it up. Unfortunately it was so late in the evening that we missed Speight's brewery tour. We were still hungry, so we walked to the downtown. Our map reader walked round the central square with many nice restaurants. Some of us wanted to eat sea food. We found a nice restaurant but we should have been waiting for more than hour. After looking at many places, for some unknown reason we decided to go to a Cambodzan restaurant. Well, the food was cheap. Compared to the price there was a lot to eat, but they also tasted as cheap as the price was. So nothing more about that, you can eat lighter every now and then. After the dinner we divided to two groups. Tiina and I walked to find an internet cafe and the other walked to a pub tour. We found an internet cafe at McDonald's and the connection was cheap again, 3 NZD/30 minutes. When returning to the lodge we didn't pass the central square and I was almost hungry enough to have another real dinner. The others came from the pub tour quite early and I heard that they had fun even at our lodge. I was sleeping happily and again couldn't hear anything.

At the breakfast Tiina and I heard the story of the last night. Partly the story was unclear, and that was not only our reason. What were the satellite plates Vili and Charles were yelling to each other with? Well, it doesn't matter if I don't understand always everything. It would be another long driving day, so we were up early again. First stop was at Dunedin downtown at a bank. Tiina, Juha and I visited also a Scottish souvenir store with kilts and bagpipes. Dunedin is actually an old Scottish town.

Then we drove a little bit backwards. We drove to Otago Peninsula which is famous for its nature and especially animals. The coastal road to the head of peninsula was very curvy, but the view was great. In the end of peninsula there is the royal albatross center and royal albatrosses we wanted to see. In the center we found out that the area is a special protection area and we were allowed to walk there only with a guide. The last tour had just started, but we could still take that one, although we were late. First we heard a short lesson about albatrosses, although we missed most of that. Then we walked up on the hill where was a observatory to watch albatrosses. There we could see nests of albatrosses. It was a nesting time, so one of the albatross couple was in the nest and other one on sea to get food to eat even for many days. The bird at the nest is sleeping most of time to save energy. So, it was more than peaceful in the nest. It was quite fun, when our guide got very excited when one of the birds opened its eye and turned its head a little bit: "it's awake, look, its awake". Closer to the sea there was a shag colony and there was much more movement. In the Milford Track we had already heard about the predator called stout. We were still discussing about the Finnish name, at least it's not the same as is said the dictionary. In New Zealand there is only two native mammals on the land, two different bats. Every other mammals is brought by humans. Stout was originally brought to destroy rabbits, but they have destroyed everything else, but not rabbits.

After the tour we started a real long drive. We were going to have more than 200 miles north to Akaroa on Banks Peninsula. We had a fueling and lunch break in Palmerstone. Food was good again and atmosphere very silent, when we were only customers in the restaurant. For the dessert we bought ice cream at the ice cream bar next door. And then on the road again. Next stop was quite soon the round boulders of Moeraki. They are totally round rocks, which are actually not rocks, but silica formations. Tide and erosion are eating the boulders and slowly the boulders are broken. We saw some boulders that were broken like oranges. The round boulders on the beach were quite amazing. They were also quite large, even seven feet diameter.

And back to the road again. There would have certainly a lot to see during the driving, but we had a long way to go still. The next stop was at Tin Shed wool cloth store in Geraldine. Geraldine was a ten minutes drive from our main road. We couldn't find the shop immediately. We were lucky to find a map in Val's guide book. It told that the shop wasn't in Geraldine but just close to the main road. We were worried when we noticed in the same guide book, that the shop was already closed when we were going to get there. We drove there and noticed that they were still open. They told us that they were still waiting for the last bus of today and that was why they were still open. We were looking at wool cloths and other products and made a lot of shopping too. There were also other customers like a huge pig, which the owners tried to get out from the shop. Also the bus of Japanese tourists came, but our six person group bought much more than the whole bus of Japanese, and their guide made most of their shopping any way. There was also a home animal zoo on the yard of the shop and we some certainly biggest chickens I have ever seen.

The night was so late, that in Ashburn we decided to have dinner. We were calculating that we would we in Akaroa not earlier than 10 pm and we wouldn't like to trust that we could find a place to have dinner so late. When the night was getting dark we took a short cut to Banks Peninsula and saw a great colorful sunset. In the darkness we drove towards Akaroa. The view would probably have been great, if we could have seen something. The road was curvy and there were some steep up and downhills too, so we had to drive quite slowly. Finally just after ten when came to Akaroa. We were going to spend two next nights in a motel, where we had again a three bedroom apartment. After getting to the motel, we four Finns decided to have still a small walk. Most of all we were looking for a cafe to have a breakfast before the dolphin swim tomorrow morning. We would a nice cafe just next door to our motel. We walked also round the whole Akaroa village. The Friday night was very silent and all the restaurants were closed at 11 pm. We could just one place for our night drinks. It was a bet bar which seems to be very popular in NZ. The customers there were quite young, probably all the young people from the village had collected to the same bar, only one which was open. After one beer we walked back to the motel. From the room of Americans there was already a huge timber work going on.

For this morning we made last night a reservation for swimming with dolphins. This morning we had a breakfast at the cafe just round the corner. The breakfast was large. And then we walked to the office of the dolphin tour. There we wear wet suites and got snorkels. Our guide told as also about Hector dolphins with which we were going to swim. Hector dolphins are rare, small dolphins that you can see almost only in Akaroa area. Our group was again very international, when among us six there were two Danes and South African father with two kids. After the guidance we took a boat to the Akaroa harbor. We didn't need to look for the dolphins for a long, when we saw first ones and we jumped into water. In the beginning dolphins were not interested in us, and we were going to change the place. But soon more dolphins came there. We were swimming in water and our guides in the boat yelled us where they saw dolphins. Dolphins are very curious and interested in everything that moves in water and makes sound. In water it was quite difficult to see dolphins, but every now and then we saw them closer and further. After a while I got tired in swimming and came back to the boat. From the boat it was easier to see the animals. And actually this time dolphins were more interested in the boat than the swimmers. Some dolphins were any way swimming very close around the people. There were altogether about twenty dolphins swimming around the boat. Soon, everyone else got up from water and we started our way back to Akaroa village. The trip was quite cool and we needed warm jackets after swimming in cold sea. Also warm shower after getting back was really nice.

After the dolphin tour we divided again into two groups. Tiina, Val and Charles stayed in Akaroa to make some shopping, Vili, Juha and I made a small day-hike. Vili found a brouchure in Akaroa information for a day-hike to Heritage Park in the hills outside Akaroa. There quite many hikes around Akaroa, but most of them were on private land and they were not free and also not a couple of hours day-hikes. The trail up was quite steep. The first barrier was also huge sheeps laying on the trail. The sheeps walked away when we got closer. Sheeps had also mined the trail quite effectively, so we had to be careful where to step. The steep trail went between the sheep fences in grass. The trail was not very popular, because sometimes it was difficult to see where the trail went next. Finally, we go up to the Heritage Park. It was very windy up there and we had to put our jackets on. There was a wooden statue of the god of the wind and we easily understood why it stood there. Otherwise there was different trees of New Zealand in the park. The park was quite new and trees were still small. After the park tour we walked back to the downhill. We were walking by the fir forest and were wondering the giant cones on the ground. Partly the downhill was on an open field with out any trail. We came down fast but a little bit uncontrolled. Close to the road there also strange aforisms that were difficult to understand, but maybe they were just for that: "chickens come from broken home". The rest of the trail we walked on the road and soon we were back in Akaroa village. A nice two hour walk, especially after long drive yesterday. We were also hungry and went to have a lunch in the same bar we visited last night, when we were passing it any way. At the same time there was a group of guys who obviously had been there also last night when they were waiting for their food laying on the counches and they only ate fries and meat, no veggies at all.

After the lunch we bet with Juha and Vili how long it will take before we'll meet the others in the village. It took four minutes. They were still doing some shopping and also we walked around some small boutiques. Finally, we finished our shopping and returned to the motel. The dinner restaurant was a small problem. The shopping group had had lunch in a nice seafood restaurant and made a reservation there. But our guidebook told the restaurant was formal in the evenings. We called there and they confirmed it. We hadn't any formal clothes. We decided to walk to some bar to have drinks and to try to find another restaurant. When passing the restaurant 71, we were just canceling our reservation when the waitresses told us that our clothing was just fine. So we hadn't any problem at all. The dinner at Seventyone was excellent and we had really fun time there. Especially the dessert was delicious when the new chef in the place was specialized to desserts. We ate a long dinner and really had fun there. After the dinner we decided to go back to the same pub as last night. Valerie went back to the motel quite soon, but all the other stayed there quite long time. The pub was quite wild and there was a lot of people too, included those guys who were having some kind of hangover earlier in the afternoon.

Sunday morning started, when we got "happy independence day messages" from back home in Finland. Here it was already the next day, but 11 hours time difference made that in our morning Finland has still celebrating its independence day. Packing again and to the road. Juha forgot his cell phone to the motel, so we turned back just after two miles drive. The road out from Akaroa was in daylight even more curvy than when we came there. Some of us had also carsickness, which was of course only due to the curves. Drinking last night had nothing to do with this. We were also fueling the car and noticed that we had left the cover of the tank in Palmerston some days ago. The gas station owner told us that it is quite common and gave us about 20 covers, which had been left in his station. We needed some engineering work and duck tape and we had a new cover.

I had a plan of my own for today. The others were going to drive two hours north from Christchurch to the hot springs. In my category hot springs are about in the same level with Japanese food and I didn't like to sit another four hours in the car because of those. So I decided to stay in Christchurch where we were going to stay our last night and the road to the springs went through the city in any way. So, I stayed alone in the capital of the South Island and the others drove to Hanmer Springs. The morning I spent by watching the shops and at least there were many souvenir shops with reasonable prices. Partly this was because they had ready the Christmas sale just two weeks before Christmas. The sale was feeling crazy, because I could wear also here just a T-shirt. The greatest news I got in the photo shop. Before dropping my digital camera into water I had taken some 150 photos and they were still fine on the memory card. Now they were burned on cd and they were in double safe now. The downtown of Christchurch is not too large and in couple of hours I could easily see everything there. There were again a lot of internet cafes and with $3 I could have used the internet for three hours if I have needed it for so long time. There were many tourists in the downtown, most of them Asian origin. The downtown was built around the Cathedral, so visited there too. The church was strange in that way, that they wanted to have money, if you liked to take photos inside.

After four hours in the downtown I walked to our Backpacker's house, which located about ten minutes walking from the downtown. The house was again over my expectations. We had hired a apartment which was located next door to the Backpacker's. The apartment had again three bedrooms, kitchen, living room fully equipped in three levels, we had even a garage again. Although this was not a house, just an apartment, this was very close to our house in Queenstown. I got a SMS message from Tiina that they will still in Hanmer Springs for a while. I didn't want to wait all the time in the house so I walked back to the down again and made also a short walk close to the house.

The others came from the hot springs about at seven pm. They were very hungry, so we went for a dinner right away. I had watched some restaurants earlier in the afternoon, and we walked to the Bohemian restaurant just five minutes walk from the hause. Again we had excellent food. I had venice, which was the best venice I have ever had. After the dinner Val, Juha and I walked to the bar street in the downtown. The was a private Christmas party going on in one bar. It was looking like different than ours in Finland, when people were on the terrace wearing Hawaii shirts and shorts late in the evening, Santa Claus was even black. We had one drinks at the Tap Room. They had nice toilets there with three tvs and everything was made from rock. There were not any signs in the doors, but the postcard paintings told if it was for ladies or gentlemen. The rest of the evening we spent by organizing our luggage because tomorrow would be the day to fly back home.

The last morning. The day begun with a terrible organizing although we had started it already yesterday. We succeed to get everything to the baggage, although I was feeling that someone had put bricks to my bags. As a breakfast we had all the leftovers, or we tried to eat everything, but there was still too much food left. Then we packed our car last time. Our strategy for the morning was to drive to the rental car company and left the car there, then we would walk in the downtown for a while and after that we would drive to the airport. Everyone had flights between three and half past four although we had different flights. The only problem was to find gas for the rental car, because we had promised to fill the tank before returning the rental car. Just finding a gas station close to the downtown was difficult. After driving for a while we finally found one and we were ready to return the car. We drove to the company which located just outside the downtown. We were allowed to left the car and our luggage there and we made a deal that they would drive us to the airport at the noon.

So we had about two hours to walk around in the downtown. I hadn't too much to see any more, when I was walking around the last day. I guided Juha and Vili to the poster store, where they finally found some nice New Zealand posters they had been looking for for two weeks. We divided this time quite effectively, we three Finnish men found us somehow at the Tap Room again. Tiina met the only Finns during two weeks in a big store. At noon we met each other again in the rental car company. Vili had been driving gently for two weeks, but he had to still drive us to the airport, where we could leave the car.

At the airport we went to the different flight company desks: Val, Charles and Vili to New Zealand Air domestic flights, Tiina its foreign flights, Juha to Quantas and I to Singapore Airlines. There was quite a line at the SIA. I really had some bricks in my luggage when they weighted 20 pounds more than when I came to NZ. The officer didn't like this and I had to take something out to my light hand luggage before she accepted my luggage. Then we were watching around for a while and went to have some lunch.

We took the final group photos at the airport and then it was my time to go to the gate. Those who were flying to the States had the route Christchurch - Auckland - Los Angles - Chicago. All the Finns had different routes: Tiina Chc - Sydney - Vienna - Helsinki, Juha Chc - Sydney - Bangok - Helsinki and I Chc - Singapore - Zürich - Helsinki. Even Tiina and Juha had different flights to Sydney although their departures were within half an hour.

I turned my brains off for the flights, because it took 34 hours from the departure from Christchurch to the arrival in Helsinki. That included less than four hours waiting in Singapore and more than three in Zürich. There is not too much to remember about the flights, just some flashes. Flash #1: The service in the Singapore Airlines was great and food was also good. Especially the pork in the flight Christchurch - Singapore was the best I have ever had in the plane. Flash #2: Electronics at Singapore Airport was cheap and I bought a new digital camera there. The old one was any way too old fashioned. Flash #3: The Zürich Airport was a total chaos when they had opened a new terminal and nobody knew nothing about anything. The waiting area was not better than before so I spent time by talking with Tiina who was waiting for her flight in Vienna. Flash #4: Stewardess of our Finnish flight company can be three hours without smiling even one time.

Finally the long flights were over. I was positively surprised when I got all my luggage at Helsinki Airport. I was 100% sure that they would stay at least in the chaos in Zürich. Unfortunately our excellent trip to the beginning of the summer in New Zealand was over and the dark Finland was waiting for me. But next time when I have vacation at right time and enough money, it's sure where I'm flying to!

At Christchurch Airport Tiina finished her videotape with the last interviews by asking the best (the best of the bests) moments during the trip. Surprisingly everyone had the different moment although we hadn't any deal not take the same one:

miikka.kaira@danisco.com tai/or/oder miikka.kaira@suomi24.fi