Finally… it is the new year again. Isnt it nice? Well we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year’s party, we for sure did.

News News News. Laura got her first ever promotion. Kiwis are wild about her work abilities hehe, so now she is working less days for more money – why didn’t we think about that before?

After having passed a nice, quiet and uneventful Christmas we really needed a break.

So a week on the South Island (still New Zealand…but….different, kinda) was just what we were waiting for. We decided on having a look at the beautiful Abel Tasman National Park, Golden Bay and the Marlborough wine region.

Holidays started off pretty… hm… bad. The second we stepped out of the door to walk to our bus it started raining, but not only like a few drops or so, no of course it had to pour down and we are not talking about a nice warm summer rain, no way this water came straight from the freezer. Normally the 200 m to the bus are no problem but I am sure you can imagine how soaked we were when we finally arrived at the bus. Lovely start, we were all in the mood, for holidays –grrr.

Having dried out on the ferry – which was so packed with people that they kept on saying: please no bags on seats, we are fully booked and everyone wants a seat – we hardly survived the wavy trip (at least we can swim… hopefully don’t have to find that one out…). Luckily picking up our rental car was no problem (just because good Germans as we are we booked in advance – HOLIDAY SEASON, all I say) whereas a young Asian couple was laughed at when they told the car rental agency that they would like to rent a car now – Just saying HOLIDAY SEASON…

As we had booked some nights in advance in motels along the way to the Golden Bay our first stop was Blenheim which is situated in the middle of the wine region of Marlborough. And guess what our first activity was… of course some fancy wine tasting. Unfortunately we didn’t had any lunch and when we arrived at 2 pm at our motel we were just in time to jump into the bus and be on our way to the wineries. There were a couple of other people with us and we managed to get to 6 wineries (Imagine: each winery serves you anything from 4 to 12 wines to try, mostly white wine but not only, no food with that….obviously.. but at least some crackers) well lets say we had a fabulous time! … and no problems with sleep that night, hehe

Off it was the next day to Nelson, one of the loveliest cities we have seen on the South Island. Very happy and sunny atmosphere, people are nice and you actually get a slightly crowded feeling (the most people we have seen ever in one place in New Zealand). Nice old style houses as well and the Jazz centre in early January when everyone turns up for some jazz sessions along the streets of Nelson. We also enjoyed the local market greatly when we found a German butcher, who sells real German sausages and cold meat, just the way you don’t find anywhere else.

Another day another adventure. We decided we needed some sportive activity and as we already booked a kayaking tour for the next day for the Abel Tasman Naional Park we thought we need some practice and did some kayaking around Cable Bay, which was exhausting, but great. Ok admittedly Laura didn’t do a lot of kayaking due to lack of muscles in her arms but she really enjoyed the view from the front of the kayak J Check out the pictures they are gorgeous. Next day kayaking we were looking forward with somewhat mixed feelings, good ones for seeing the park and coastline of the famous Abel Tasman, bad ones for the rather sore feeling in our arms and bums. Well lets say it was absolutely great, ok we were completely knackered after doing 6 hours kayaking and around 8.5 km coastline, but we saw beautiful beaches, wonderful changes with the scenery looks due to high tide and low tide, seals, fish, funny people, strange people, trees, more trees but not very exciting trees, very very strange tourists, backpackers, backpackers in groups, more kayakers and a tiny little penguin… yes just this one penguin (must be a tourist). But what can I say, the pictures speak for themselves.

New Year’s Eve was passing with a blast. We could see all the fireworks on the beaches, heard some bad Elvis imitations (well he was the star that night) whereas the rest of the night passed rather fast.

For New Year’s day, being our…. !!!3 year anniversary!!!… we hadn’t planned anything specific except for visiting the Golden Bay and Farewell Spit (huge sand peninsula and bird sanctuary), passing by the famous Mussel In and enjoying a nice dinner. We saw some nice seals, Alex fighting with some seals, a big huge dead sun fish (never seen a bigger fish in my life… like in person… hm in fish or however you say that). It is absolutely stunning there, wonderful beaches, amazing coastlines and beautiful little park with walks.

After all this excitement we definitely needed a day at the beach, especially Laura who finally wanted to tan some more, than just her ears in the kayak. Near to Pohara Beach and the           Abel Tasman Park we found this wonderful deserted beach (well our part of it was deserted and a bit more up towards Pohara and the cliffs you didn’t want to be if you weren’t, kind of male and especially naked, man we were kind of surprised when we walked there in our quest for the nicest place and we saw two naked men on a rock staring into the ocean, kinda shocking having shiny red bums waving you a big hello. Well we found our special place and also took a nice long bath, beautiful water I can tell you. Now we were minding our own business, Alex trying not to get sunburned in the shade, Laura trying to get tanned in the sun, when sth blond came along the beach waving at us. Guess who it was: one of Laura’s working colleagues. The world is small!

Next day we were back to Wellington, just stopping by in Nelson for a short break and to make some pictures of a lonely mailbox standing in the middle of nowhere. Our holiday is over, but we are coming back for more, that’s for sure!!! If you ever are in need for a relaxing beach holiday you know where to go!

So now, what’s new with you guys? J