December 2009

Just in time for x-mas…we arrived back in Frankfurt *smiley smiling*

Thank you to all our followers here – and especially the ones we met on the road!

After the extensive wedding celebration week in Melbourne it was finally time to leave Australia behind and head on to Hong Kong to meet old friends and indulge in some nice last-minute x-mas shopping rush

Our way from Melbourne to Sydney was a bit different than planned – all I say here: NEVER fly Tiger Airways, unless you wanna end up on a plane that gets cancelled without notice – but this way we both got the new experience of buying a ticket for a plane that leaves in only an hour directly at the airport :lol:

Sadly enough, there was another last-minute change…and Pete (an old friend of Iris) had to leave early back to Germany so we missed him *smiley crying* Nevertheless our special thanks to Pete for the most luxurious accommodation throughout our 6 months journey *smiley surprised*

Continue reading Last, but not least…Hong Kong, once again *smiley winking*

On the way back to Australia we discovered a new feature in Qantas’ board entertainment system…the seat-to-seat chat. For sure we extensively used it and Iris convinced me, not to send any flirt messages randomly around the cabin as the system tells you the seat number of the sender

After getting started for our “adventure” with the Sydney bus system (if you ever have some spare time, I am happy to listen to whoever feels confident to explain it to me) we spent some time exploring The Rock (no movie, just the city area close to the Harbour Bridge) an it’s surroundings…

Continue reading Sydney – all about water…

What happens if you don’t really plan in advance? Sure, we all know…but it happens anyway We had not enough time to really fully explore the north island of New Zealand after spending most of the one month in the beautiful and spectacular south!

Boarding the ferry on the south island in Picton gives you some very nice views of the northern fjords…

Continue reading North Island – in a rush…

After having fun, relaxing and refilling our sugar and energy reservoirs in Queenstown…

Continue reading Ice, ice baby and golden beaches

Kiwis (for those who don’t know yet, that’s how you call the locals here in New Zealand) tend to have the highest, finest, biggest, deepest, fastest, wettest, longest, steepest, … whatsoever. So we were not surprised to read about the Milford Track being described as “the finest walk in the world”. After walking it, we have to admit, this might be true

Let’s start with the beginning of the story in July this year. The Milford Track is one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks” where you have to book your mattress in the huts well in advance for the high season, as only 40 people (i.e. spaces in the huts, camping is not allowed) can walk the track each day and not only Kiwis want to walk it, but also lots of people from nearly everywhere. Especially for the Milford Track you need to make the booking more or less immediately when the booking for the season is opened, this year it was mid of July. Right, we have been at Galapagos Islands that time without internet access of course… So I asked HTM (= “high tech Mum” *smiley smiling*) to do the booking for us. And she really wanted to make sure that we get our hut passes, so she calculated the time difference and went with a glass of red wine (it was already late that day in Germany) to the computer. Unfortunately she was not the only one to do so, the server of the booking system was down / extremely slow due to the high demand and it took her much more than one hour (and more than one glass of wine) to complete the booking. Don’t ask who was sweating more – Mum when doing the booking or we when crossing the Mackinnon Pass

We left most of our things and our car in Te Anau (just had our sleping bags, some light weight, high nutrition food, a cooking set and a second set of cloths) and started the adventure…

Continue reading Dry feet on Milford Track – “the finest walk in the world"