AUCKLAND (FIN)

Lundi 22 décembre

To my English speaking friends :

Elita, Madeleine, David, Petr, my English teachers Melina and Duncan and my mates of the English class and Françoise...

Thank You for your message...
I remember I promissed you to write sometimes in English but I didn't. Sorry! May be it's because I needed 2 hours every day to write, pass photos and maps in the blog.
I always succeeded in making me understand and saying what I want even if I guess my English was not always fluent and good. Fortunately NZders are very kind and friendly people.
The most difficult was to understand what they said even if for me they tried to speack slowly. One day we were at a bank and I didn't recognize the numbers while the woman there was counting ! Sometimes I was able to have great chats with people and that was very good.
Anyway what was this trip for me ? What should I remember ?
Green ! NZ is green everywhere (because it's always raining !). All kinds of green: from dark green to yellow and white green, spotted with the white of sheep. Sheep everywhere ! They seem to be in the wild !
All this country is very hilly except south Alps which are very similar to French ones. I was amazed by the shape of those hills. It is not regular but looks like stairs, green stairs...because of tectonic ?
Great moments were for me : walking on a fault, above the boiling water of a lake, seeing a small eruption of the Tongariro, talking and having pictures with the Maoris, kissing the beak of a Kiwi even if there was a glass between us, seeing a Kiwi in the wild on my own, seeing a man jumping from the Sky Tower, seeing on my own glow worms in a cave and in the forest, seeing Tuatura, this reptile of another age and also those parrots who used to attack cars ! And those geant trees, the Kauri which look like towers! They seem so powerful and nevertheless they are so weak because threatened by deseases !
But the weather was awful. So much rain ! A lot of rain everywhere. Aotearoa ("long white cloud" that is the name given to NZ by the Maori) was for us fog which very often hid the landscape. What a pity ! But by chance the rain always stopped for us to go where we have planned and nevertheless we enjoyed our trip very much.
I wish you à Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year. All the best for every one and I look forward to hearing from you.
« To the happy few »...See you soon !

(sorry for the mistakes but you know me...)

Aujourd'hui le temps a l'air clément et donc nous décidons d'une dernière sortie avec ferry à Devonport.

Titou qui a l'art des sandwichs nous en concocte deux avec tous nos restes...pas très nombreux!

Nous débarquons à 9H15 avec pour projet l'ascension des 2 volcans dont on nous a vanté la qualité du point de vue sur toute la région depuis le sommet.

En 8 km, nous avons pu tout voir, tout apprécié et finalement constatons que nos aptitudes à la marche se sont considérablement améliorées. Dommage que ça s'arrête surtout avec le beau temps revenu!

Les sandwichs sont effectivement délicieux et nous terminerons par des smoothies (banane, fraises, cerises, poires, framboises) que nous siroterons en bronzant !!!!! Mais Titoune vous la connaissez, elle revient en France avec un sérieux coup de soleil malgré la crème. C'est pas le comble ça ?

Et nous avons dit "adieu" à la Nouvelle Zélande...

Encore un grand merci à tous pour vos messages soit via le blog soit par mail, et qui font si chaud au cœur quand on est si loin.

Nous vous souhaitons un très joyeux Noël, de très bonnes fêtes de fin d'année et que celle qui arrive vous apporte essentiellement la santé et l'enthousiasme.