I'm back guys!!!
To be honest with you I felt like quitting blogging for a while because I didn't feel like writing anymore, I don't know why I was just not in the mood and being back to France was hard and I didn't have any inspiration to write this post.
But I am back and ready to write, so I hope you'll like what I have to say about New Zealand!!
This was the first time I took an airplane alone for so long, 36hours on my own, I thought it would be scary but in the end, I was pretty proud of myself.
I know that it's not as amazing as all those great women that do solo travels but I consider this to be my baby steps toward solo traveling.
LAYOVERS
The longest time was in Doha, I had to wait for 9,50hours in the airport.
If you stay in Doha for more than 5hours, there is a free touristic bus tour to the city, so don't make the same mistake I did and go to the information center and to visit the city, instead of waiting for the time to pass in the airport eating and shopping to kill the time.
I've met some incredible people during my layovers, including a woman named Dean in DOHA, she was from South Africa, and was telling me her story, she was going for an interview in Nz, hoping to get a full-time job there and therefore changing her and her little daughter's life for the best.
When in Sydney (where I had to wait for 7h) I met one couple, they were super cute, going on their Honeymoon in Europe and Africa, first Spain then Morocco. The woman was soooo lovely, we talked pretty much the entire flight...her poor husband, he had to hear us talk about travels and cats for pretty much 5 hours haha!
That one of my favorites, meeting people and hear their stories from across the world.
GETTING THERE
So I left with QATAR AIRWAYS, one of the best companies in the world and they really owe this title, my flights when so smoothly and the service was amazing.
I could choose my meal (which is not possible in every plane), I try to go gluten free because I always have heartburn with plane food but that was a mistake I'll never do again in an airplane haha.
Gluten-free food in airplanes is not that good and when I saw that my dessert was gluten free bread and that my seat neighbors had chocolate mousse I was soooo disgusted haha.
Then between Auckland and Queenstown, my final destination I took JETSTAR (I don't even want to talk about that Company, still the worst I have ever taken)
When I finally arrived in Nz I was beyond excited, the air was warm and humid quite like in Australia.
I had finally calmed down from the airport stress and I landed in Queenstown, the first thing I saw when I went out on the tarmac was the REMARKABLES, the famous mountains of Queenstown, also used in the Lord of the ring movies.
The Roadtrip can begin!
SOUTH ISLAND
QUEENSTOWN AND SURROUNDINGS
we started with a hike in MONT COOK, the highest mountain in Nz. Lucky for us the sun was there, and it was absolutely beautiful. It's obviously a MUST DO on the South Island!
Try if you want to and if you have the money, take a Helicopter tour above the Mont Cook, the view is apparently amazing from there.
Then if you drive there is a free camping not far from Mont Cook, take the app Campermate on your phone to find the free camping, the low cost one or even the more expensive ones, every camping for every kind of campers!
In QUEENSTOWN you can do so many things, it is THE TOWN for extreme activities, you have BUNGEE JUMP, PARAGLIDING, SHOT-OVER JET, SKYLINE LUGE AND ZIP-LINE, SHARK BOAT, KAYAK ETC ETC... You have pretty much anything you want, I haven't tried them all but still, you can't get bored in Queenstown...You even have a market!!! you know I love markets haha.
Now most important the FOOD!!! Yes I know I am a walking stomach, the best place you can go if you like chocolate is PATAGONIA, it's a chocolaterie not that expensive and soooo damn GOOD, they have chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate ice cream well just every kind of chocolate but if you want to feel healthy they also prepare HOME JUICE and trust me I've tested pretty much all of them, they're insanely good, you can even create your own juice or smoothie.
If you're more of a salty person, what is known as the best BURGER of New Zealand is in this town the FERGBURUGER, YES it's really good but if you want to eat there you better plan nothing else for that day, for each command you can wait for 1h or more, everybody goes there so plenty or people means plenty of time to wait just to eat a burger...Shame there is no BURGERFUEL in QUEENSTOWN because I personally think that it is the BEST BURGER OF New Zealand and you don't have to wait for 1h to eat it.
CHRISTCHURCH AND AROUND
Then we drove pretty much straight to CHRISTCHURCH, I was beyond excited to go there, it's one of the city I had to see by myself, I've heard so much about it and I wasn't disappointed at all, it's a rather big city, not as big as Auckland or Wellington but still!
We went to the Botanic Garden, ate at the Burgerfuel (best burger of NZ), then had a Frozen Yogurt at SOYO and finally we pretty much just walk around the city.
If you like Farmers markets there's a nice little one in Littleton by the docks... it's a very nice town near Christchurch, not much to do there besides the market but the view is great.
ABEL TASMAN - NELSON AND SURROUNDINGS
To tell you the truth after that all we did was driving to ABEL TASMAN. Unfortunately for us there was a storm that destroyed most of the road to Abel Tasman and we had to take another way to go there, not exactly how we planned it, we had to stay at Motueka (were there is nothing to do!) lucky we new a woman there and had one free ice cream.
Then in Abel Tasman, It was super hard to find the GOLDEN BAY since we didn't take the main road but we found it, and that was amazing!! we went to the Separation Point and the beautiful beach of WHARARIKI BEACH where you can see baby SEALS.
Nelson is a cute little town except that there's nothing to do there, we just had plenty of time before we go to Picton to take our ferry so we strolled there, you have a very nice cafe called SWEET AS CAFE, I had the best hot chocolate ever!!!!!
And then Picton to get our Ferry (Don't ever take the Bluebridge company they're never on time, we had a 5H delay and they didn't even do anything about it, we had to send them an email to make things right) for the North Island.
What we discovered in between Nelson and Picton was probably the best part of New Zealand!
Ever heard of the FRENCH PASS?
This was the best decision we actually made while having so much time to kill before Picton! THIS WAS GORGEOUS!!!!
The weather made it even more tragic! It was nature at its best, we drove for like two or three hours but it was so worth it, just pure nature, dirt road, no faster than 30km, strong wind and finally cliffs showing a kind of fjord I would say, best if I show you!
So here is what I visited in the South Island of New Zealand, yes I know!!! What about Milford Sounds, Fjordland and Dunedin??? Well, I didn't have enough time and money to do it all, unfortunately, I had choices to make in the matter. But it's a very good excuse to go back there haha
Ever been to New Zealand? Which place did you prefer??
KA KITE ANO AND PLEINS DES BISOUS
