Road trip, New Zealand

We did (actually, Alex did) a ton of driving during our New Zealand adventure (over 700 km!), which is more than we drive in a year. (almost)

Once we left Wanaka, we drove to the Fox Glacier, made an overnight stop in Hokitika and found our way to Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island. Here's a visual for you:

To keep myself entertained, I took lots of pictures along the way, mostly while we were moving. Ones taken out the side window were better because they avoided the pitfalls of windshield photos: dead bugs and dashboard reflections. And I could see myself to prove that I was the one doing the photography. See?

Can you see me?

The roads were mostly excellent for being so remotely located. New Zealand feels a lot like Ireland, only with lots of mountains, and so it was a huge relief to see roads that were much less scary than those in Ireland. I'm not sure I (much less Alex) could have handled driving on crazy scary roads on the wrong side for 700 km. But the roads did feature very long, one-way bridges. What's up with that? I mean, how do you repair a bridge when there's only one lane to begin with? Should we have worried that on some (not on the ones picture below, but on some) the pavement was sagging between the supports?

One-way bridges of doom

The scenery along the way was beautiful and varied. We drove through forests, around mountains and along beaches.

I'm convinced that if Ents exist, these are they
(And yes, I just referenced Tolkien characters in my blog - wanna make something of it?)

And to complete the just-like-Ireland picture, there are sheep everywhere, but you knew that, right? Even better, it was spring, so there were lambs too!

Little lamb

What are ewe looking at?
(Oh yeah, that just happened.)

The scenery was endless. And I could probably post 100 pictures here, but here are a few more of my favorites.


Tomorrow, I show you some pictures of Hokitika, the cute beachside town where we spent the night after hiking Fox Glacier.