In New Zealand there used to be around 65 million sheep. Recently sheep farming goes out of fashion. This is partially due to the subsidies for agricultural products in Europe. Sheep farming without subsidies doews not pay anymore and farmers switch more and more to cattle or austrich and alpaka.

Feeding sheep with a milk bottle looks cute and seems romantic, but actually sheep farming is hard work and the farmers can barely make ends meet.

Bungee jumping was invented in New Zealand. This is one of my friends jumping off one of the tallest Bungee bridges in the country. The business is operated by the famous A.J. Hacket. For the Bungee jump I just went along as the photographer. When jumping here you can’t dip into the water because the water level is too shallow. At the Kawarau Bridge, however, you decide wether you want to dip into the water or not. Some time later I went jet boating on the river. This is as exciting as jumping and lasts a lot longer :-)

This is me and two of my friends hiking in the West Matukituiki valley. Gorgeous landscape! we had a lot of fun.... until we came to that mountain...... well.... then walking became hard work. When we finally got up there I was not quite sure whether I was dead or alive, but the view from up there was breathtaking. Sunset on Mt. Aspiring, the Matterhorn of the Southern Alps.

We camped up there in a tent and on the picture on the left you see the toilet with the most beatuiful view. And a drop of about 600 meters just past it.

In 1999 the water levels in the water reservoirs were very low due to several years of insufficient rainfall. The drought also led to a high risk of forest fires. Especially the gorse (yellow blossoms in the foreground) catches fire easily.