...I drive to the cottage of my friends, who are staying at the same town, and we have a proper European breakfast consisting of surprisingly good pastries (croissants and such) bought locally...we decide to spend the day with Astrid and Razvam by driving to the nearby town Tekapo on the lake of the same name: the name is beautiful and so is the drive with some amazing sunny weather...we climb a small hill to a local observatory and then go down and spend the res...

...I drive to Arthur's Pass on the last of my gas and make the car drive 100km and climb 900m after the low gas light comes on. There's simply no gas station open in the early morning in Moana and I decide to risk the trip to save time. On the final ascent the car has almost no power but I do make it to Arthur's Pass!...I stop on the way there in a little inn at Otira where I try something called lolly cake. Weird. It quite good....I consult the visi...

...I woke up in the car a little cold despite having spent the night on a beach in the summer :D...I drove to the nearest town of any size (2 hours) for breakfast, passing a string of similar sounding villages (Takaka, East Takaka, Upper Takaka, Takaka Hill etc.) spread over a distance of 100 km or so...I pass a sign reminding people to "drive on the left" like many times before but this time it was accompanied by a message "and always kph!"; I guess now I know w...

...I wake up to a very frosty morning and after boiling some tea I start walking back. I came here down the valley route, this time the sky is cloudless and majestic, so I take the crest route to go back....a girl I meet in the hut last night catches up with me on the return ascent and walks ahead. I try to keep up but she's really fast. She gets on my ambition and after an hour of chase I catch up to her and we talk. A very nice traveler from Holland with an...

...rental guys in Picton can't fix my mirror other than by duct tape and they promise to charge me big bucks for it if they can't find a second hand replacement. Oh well, lets hope they do....weather is stunningly amazing or amazingly stunning as I drive to my next trek at St. Arnaud. It's called Lake Angelus trail, takes two days to finish and is in the Nelson Lakes National Park. I make frequent photo stops, the South Island is just too beautiful no...