In the glacier on west coast

So after mount cook with a vegetation rather dry, I get on the other side of the mountain just on west coast, it is very cool to see how different it is just on the other side of the mountain. The vegetation here is rain forest, very green heaps of huge trees, foam and fern trees everywhere!!

So I stayed 3 days in franz josef to see the glacier around.

The first day I went to see franz josef glacier but we couldn’t get close enough to see the glacier correctly and there was a lot of cloud so I was a bit disappointed. However I did find a trail for a hike going on the hill on the side of the glacier, so I decided to do that tramp before leaving to have a better view of the area.

The next day I went to fox glacier which is 15-30 min away by hitch hiking.

I went to see the glacier but like franz josef the track to get in front of the glacier don’t offer a nice view. But there is some other tracks that offer much better view with almost no one on it. I don’t understand why in both glacier heaps of people go on the track that goes in front of the glacier with a very bad view and almost no one goes on the other track that offer much better view…. Anyone it’s better for me, more quiet!!!

Next to fox glacier there is a small lake that supposed to offer an amazing view over the mountains with a perfect reflection on the lake, however once again, very cloudy so couldn’t see anything, so instead of getting there I just took pictures of the posters in the souvenir shops :) 

And for my last day around I did the big hike I’ve seen the first day to get an awesome view over the glacier, the tracks was very nice. I was expecting to spend 5-6h to get there and back, but I manage to do it in about 4h with a 1h break on top. So that was a shorter day than expected but really cool, still a lot of cloud but a bit less than the other days.

So after that I just went take my bag at the hotel and hitch hike to Hokitika a bit more north, by the time I get there it was raining a lot so didn't see much there, but anyway except “jade stones” I don’t think there is much to see there.

The next day the weather was awful all around so I decided to go directly to Christchurch...

Around mount cook

There we go, Thursday after a big hangover goodbye to my awesome flatmates, I left home, with a very weird feeling, just walking away from home with just my backpack and absolutely no reel plan, without even knowing where I’ll be sleeping. It is a very weird feeling but also an extremely big and indescribable feeling of freedom, I have by far never felt that much free in my whole life!! It is very exciting and a bit scary!!

I was planning to go to mount cook directly and I managed to get there without much trouble, 6 different car later I was in mount cook, the last person that took me was an American girl very nice, as mount cook village is really small we stayed at the same hostel, and the next morning we see each other before going visiting around and decide to go visiting everything together!

 First we went to see the Tasman glacier that was really cool

Then we went hiking close to the hooker valley (I don’t know why it’s called like that) and get an amazing view over the entire valley

 After a full day hiking all around, she was going to Queenstown and she offered me to drop me in Wanaka so I directly went to Wanaka, to be ready to continue my trip toward the west coast the next day…

C’est (re) parti !!

Dernière semaine dans ma maison à Queenstown faut se préparer à partir, et donc faire mon sac :

Le sac est prêt, mais a la différence de mon départ de Montréal, ma vie ne tien plus dans 25kg, mais plus que dans moins de 15kg

Et oui j’ai décidé de voyager lège et d’être sur de n’avoir absolument rien d’inutile je me suis donc séparer de beaucoup de mes affaires, j’ai décidé de vivre plus simplement J

Maintenant il est tant de dir au revoir a tout le monde, un petit BBQ de départ pour faire la fête une dernière fois, puis demain (si j’arrive a me lever) je part direct vers Wanaka ou Mont Cook !

Watching birds !!

Everyone know that the most famous bird in New Zealand is the Kiwi !! But…

In fact I haven't seen a kiwi yet and don’t know much about it, maybe I’ll post something about kiwis later if I find some.

I wanted to talk more about another New Zealand bird, the Kea !! It’s the only alpine parrot in the world, living mostly in the mountains. This parrot is amazing and very smart, apparently some scientist made some very hard puzzle to access some food and they did it in just few sec…
They can be very annoying sometimes; they can destroy your car by eating all the rubber around the doors, or the wipers … that’s funny to see how they can do that.



Also These birds can sometimes kill sheep !!!! just landing on there back, and eating the fat and reach the kidney, then the sheep die (sorry poupinette) … they have been almost all killed by sheep farmer because of that, but they are now protected, and I get the chance to see some many times in the mountains around queenstown

Making the most of my last days in Queenstown!!

So now that I’m about to leave Queenstown I focused on seeing most interesting things around, I did some amazing hike and went to milford sounds that is one of the most famous place in new Zealand!! It was really nice, but I clearly prefer the road to access Milford sound than the sounds itself

On the road to Milford sound:

 Milford sound:

And there is pictures I took during some hike I did very close to queenstown, the best one was hiking up to ben Lomond that is about 1750m high it take about 6h return and the view from up there is really incredible!!

  So now I have seen most interesting sight around Queenstown and avoided all touristic stuff that are highly promoted in Queenstown and in New Zealand, like all the bungy jumps, skydive, jetboat…..

Ready for the second part of my trip!!!

After living during the last 9 month in New Zealand, without really travelling, it’s now time to travel again!!

This time I will try to travel in a new way, try to stay away from the touristic industry and travelling more in a non-commercial way.

I will mostly hitch hiking, couch surfing and trying to get closer to the locals, instead of staying in touristic place with other tourists.

I will always try to find the most ecological, cheap and local way to eat, move around and visit interesting things.

Also, I want to stay completely free, I don’t have any plan with fixed date. I’ll take things as it comes so I’ll be free to stay as long as I want everywhere. And change my path if I find some other interesting things to do. I won’t book anything too much in advance.
I have updated the map above to show what I plan on doing, but as I said, nothing set in stone, it will depends on my experience in each places.

I'll leave Queenstown and hitch hike across all new Zealand, first the south island, then the north island before starting visiting Asia, I think about starting in Bali, and going up slowly visiting as much as I can on my way, to reach Nepal I would like to see Burma and Bhutan but it might be hard to get there.

After all that I'll go back to Argentina, maybe doing another WHV there maybe another winter maybe more depends on how things go over there !!

So after 9 month really quiet on this blog, I hope to be able to post much more amazing things on it very soon!!!

In the south!!

Now that winter is over I used my days off to travel a bit around.

So I went one time in Dunedin and one time in Invercargill and bluff, the southernmost city in New Zealand. I whent there by hitch hiking that work very well in New Zealand.

Dunedin is very nice, small city with a big university. In many ways it reminded me about Teesside, except that the city is very nice and very safe, unlike Middlesbrough!

You can find in Dunedin the steepest street in the world (according to them)

  And next to Dunedin the otago peninsula is a big area with a lot of wild life, some penguins and heaps of birds like some albatross

Invercargill is very small city with … not much to do. Don’t need to stay longer than one day. there is still a very big park that is really nice.

Bluff is just is about 20min south of Invercargill, and there is nothing there, just one shop and that’s the departure for the ferries to go to Stewarts island.