Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia, KLIA (International Airport) the main airport of Malaysia Airlines, and we had a 15-hour stop there. With KLIA Express we travelled into the city center and took the Hop-on-hop-off bus which took us around KL.

This album contains 14 images in 1 chapters - See more

After all that flying, we finally landed in Christchurch, biggest city of the south island and severely damaged by an earthquake some months earlier. We picked up our campervan, met with Marsela & Daniel, did the initial shopping and drove off to Akoara. After a night in that former French town, we decided to visit New Zealand's highest mountain, Aoraki Mt. Cook. The trip continued to the east coast, south to Dunedin and then finally into the Southland to Te Anau. To see the route follow this link.

This album contains 109 images in 5 chapters - See more

In Te Anau the choice whether to do Milford Sound or Doubtful Sound was made to do a Doubtful Sound overnight cruise. While we actually believed Milford Sound was a remote destination, the journey to reach our ship convinced us that Doubtful Sound was even more remote: from Manapouri we ferried across the Manapouri Lake to the former base station of the power plant there, took a bus to cross the Wilmot Pass to reach the vessel after an hour of driving. The ship took us through the whole sound to the open sea and back for the overnight stay. There also is some video footage from that trip.

This album contains 97 images in 2 chapters - See more

From Te Anau to Milford, it's a two hour or 120km ride, without any gas station or towns inbetween. A big part of the route leads through a national park. Milford itself seemed quite unspectacular to us, but we were there at the end of the day, so there was nothing going on there. We had a look around, and drove halfway back and camped at a DOC campground.

This album contains 29 images in 2 chapters - See more

In Te Anau we texted Marsela and Daniel and coordinated to meet in Queenstown, where we went eating burgers. The next day we continued to Wanaka, then headed to the glaciers Fox and Franz Josef. As wheather was not suitable to visit the glaciers at all, we had to skip that part and head further to the west coast, through some nice rain forest and heavy rain. Over Arthur's Pass we crossed the inner of the south island and hit the east coast again until. See the route here.

This album contains 35 images in 4 chapters - See more

More summerly temperatures have reached us in Kaikoura. Through nice, sunny wheather we made our way to the most northern parts of the south island. Passing Blenheim and Picton we drove to Kaiteriteri, the town nearest to the Abel Tasman National Park. There is amazingly spectacular video footage of us driving on that section.

This album contains 32 images in 3 chapters - See more

Because we accidentially took the Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton, it took us hours longer to reach Picton, the town where the Interislander ferry would depart. We just came in time to see all the vehicles prepare to board the ferry; the next morning we did board ourselves to cross the Cook Strait - a potentially quite rough trip. Due to the nice weather we were lucky, though, and did not suffer travel sickness:)

This album contains 32 images in 2 chapters - See more

We had travelled quite some way north from Wellington and finally arrived in the Tongariro National Park - the oldest park in NZ, where we had a spectacular place at the DOC camp and hit some nice views to the snow covered mountains.

This album contains 23 images in 2 chapters - See more

The area around Rotorua is a themally active area; lots of places you can see steam coming out of the ground - this is why it's also called "Hells Gate". We took time for a walk at a site with very much thermal activity where it was safe to walk on the wood-built track. This is our route.

This album contains 14 images in 1 chapters - See more

The Aranui Cave is a dropstone cove which is foot-accessible by some man-made hanging tracks. We had a view on lots of stalactites and underground rivers. In some places we were able to see glowworms - a very different kind from the European glowworms - and their sticky threads. Seeing and shooting is a different thing, though:) See our route here.

This album contains 18 images in 1 chapters - See more

Our last destination was Auckland; after heading from the coves up into Northland, seeing the oldest Kauri tree and returning to Waipo, we drove from Waipo Cove the last kilometers to the KEA depot in Auckland. All in all we have made almost 5000 km, and then finally dropped off the vehicle without any problems. The last night in New Zealand, we spent in Auckland's city center in a hotel near the Auckland Tower.

This album contains 28 images in 3 chapters - See more