Wednesday, April 25, 2007

New Zealand: Milford Sound

Photo gallery: Milford Sound

Another part of our NZ’s holiday led to Fiordland. Milford Sound is one of NZ’s biggest tourist attractions.

We decided to visit the fjord on a boat. If there was sunshine we could catch a reflection of these peaks in the water. But unfortunately, downpour of water is almost guaranteed in this area, so we could admire just parts of high hills sticked out from the clouds.

Anyway, several hundred meters high cliffs grown up right away from the water was really amazing. The cliffs were adorned with many long waterfalls and funny seals together with incredibly low fog :).

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

New Zealand: Queenstown - Lake Wakatipu

Photo gallery: Queenstown - Lake Wakatipu

We spent an entire day on the way through the Queenstown region. Thanks to very good weather we could enjoy magnificent mountains rising up to the sky from fascinating blue lakes. We were stopping unusually many times just to take pictures, we couldn’t miss anything!

Although Queenstown is quite small, it is a centre of this region and its mountains are famous for excellent skiing conditions. We liked the town a lot due to many nice small streets fringed by pubs, cafes, boutiques and neighbouring scenery as well. We consider it to be the most beautiful town we have seen in NZ, maybe because it’s very similar to Alpine’s villages.

Then we continued along large Lake Wakatipu to the West. With a length of 80 kilometres, it is New Zealand's longest lake (and third largest). It is at an altitude of 310 metres.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Living on Bondi Beach - Summer 2006/07

Photo gallery: Living on Bondi Beach - Summer 2006/07

I published several photos from Bondi Beach that were taken during the summer.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Olympic Australia Tour 2007

Photo gallery: Olympic Australia Tour 2007

Here are several shots from the concert of the Czech legendary rock band in Sydney.

New Zealand: Franz Josef Glacier & Fox Glacier - Lake Matheson - Lake Wanaka

Photo gallery: Franz Josef Glacier & Fox Glacier - Lake Matheson - Lake Wanaka

During travelling to the south we passed by two magnificent glaciers: Franz Josef Glacier (12 km long) and Fox Glacier.

The weather was pretty bad that time so we moved on to the Lake Matheson, which is a great place well-known for the reflections of Mt. Cook on its surface. We managed to walk around it but instead of the highest mountain in NZ we saw cloudy sky.

Another part of our journey led around Lake Hawea to Lake Wanaka where we stayed overnight in our lovely tent again :)

New Zealand: Wellington - Picton - Nelson - Hokitika

Photo gallery: Wellington - Picton - Nelson - Hokitika

Several first pictures were taken in the amazingly green and formed country in the south of the North Island. We drove through it to Wellington to catch an early morning ferry to the South Island. After we arrived in Picton we drove to the town of Nelson and further inland to stay overnight in a campsite by two charming lakes in St. Arnautts.

The next day we reached the west cost and continued to the south. We visited Hokitika, a small town famous for its traditional source of Jade (also known as Nephrite, Greenstone, and Pounamua). There we found many artisans carving Jade into contemporary carvings of traditional NZ designs, modern designs or simple, beautiful jewels.

We also visited interesting Glow Worm Dell. Glow-worm is a common name for various different groups of insect larvae and adult larviform females that glow through bioluminescence. Simply, when you go to the dell you can see only small shinning dots in the dark :)