New Zealand Pictures

NEW!!!! My final pictures of

my Contiki Tour around New Zealand and my time in Auckland and Honolulu

My trip to Fiordland in November Enjoy!

the sign says south pole, 4803 km! equator 5140km

That gives you a bit of an idea how close we are to Antarctica! You can fly there in 5 hours from Christchurch!

On this page are some pictures of New Zealand, my flat and Dunedin on the South Island, but first a little info about living "down-under"...

New Zealand is a small country, only 3 million people and 40 million sheep! The land is said to have 'the whole world in one country' since you can drive through forests, deserts, mountains, rainforests and more in a few hours. There are no wild animals, except for possums and sheep. There are a lot of spiders and strange (to me) insect, but its so cold in Dunedin I really have not many bugs. I've only seen bits of the south island (mt cook, queenstown, gore, timaru and the east coast) but hope to see more as the months go by. I went to Gore to Ice skate, as there are only 3 arena's in the whole south island! and 3 in the north! Strangely, the figure skating coaches were both canadian!

I have been getting the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road, although its still weird. I never know which way to look when I cross the street!

The City I live in is Dunedin, about as far down as you can go on the east coast of the South Island. I attend the University of Otago,the largest and oldest uni in nz. We are 5 hours south of Christchurch, and a few hours by plane from Auckland. I think it would take 2 days to drive to Auckland. We are 3 hours from Invercargill, the most southern point of NZ, with the exception of Stewart Island. You can fly to Antarctica in 4 hours and it snows here in the winter. Dunedin is about 100,000 people, and of that about 30,000 are students, so everywhere you go its students....Duendin is about 300 years old and is very scottish and has many old buidlings, very historic. There are penguin and albatross colonies and lots of surfing.

To help you get some idea of where the heck these places are, here is a map of the south island:

I also included some pictures from Queenstown, which is 3 hours west of Dunedin, in the Southern Alps.

see more from my collection of silly sheep pictures

You can also see my pictures from Cook Islands, Mount Cook and new pictures of the Catlins Coast but check back often as I might keep traveling around and adding pictures!

my pictures from my Adventure downunder in Australia! and the International Ball at Lanarch Castle, New Zealand's only Castle.

You can also see my pictures from cruise to Hawaii , and South Africa,

Pictures of Spring in Dunedin and my adventure to the Catlins where I stayed in a real kiwi "bach" during a spring snowstorm on the beach!

NEW!!!! My final picturesof

my Contiki Tour around New Zealand and my time in Auckland and Honolulu Enjoy!

my new home 481 A Great King Street

inside my "flat", and the sunflower in the window only lasted a week...not enough sun and too much rain, or maybe I just killed it with too much love.

and for those of you who think its all sun down here....it rains almost EVERY day and often its misty and foggy and looks like this...this is the view from my front window

Around Dunedin, this is George Street, the main road and shops

The Octagon is the centre of Dunedin, and the main area for clubs, musuems, restaurants, etc. you can see the live webcam in the octagon...you might see me!

My favorite beach, St Claire's, just a few minutes drive from my place...but the water is far too cold to swim without a wetsuit, but there is a lot of surfing there. I plan to try it in the summer....right now even the sand is cold! The beach is long and you can walk forever...

And here are some pictures of Christchurch, the next closest city. I went there in August to watch a figure skating competition...thats right, ice skating in New Zealand!

this is Christchurch Cathedral, a chruch built in the early 1800's. It was really incredible to be inside such an old building

And this is the Avon River, where they actually still do 'punting', going down the river in wooden boats like in venice

And this is the main square, with some of the old and new hotels

And finally, a rugby game between New Zealand and South Africa...the ALL BLACKS VS the SPRING BOKS at Carisbrook in Dunedin. Contrary to what I was told to expect, I didn't get peed on or hit in the head by a full beer can. New Zealand won the game....this first picture is some of the friends I met here, in this photo beside me is Sarah (New Zealand), Victoria (Sweden) and Amanda (USA)

This si the game, although its very hard to see, I did get to see "the haka", the tribal maori war dance all new zealand teams do before they play a game. they shout and chant, and roll their eyes and stick out their tongues!