South Island Tour Day 7-14

I don´t really know why but I´m feeling like writing in English now. Dont ask me why. I still have to complete the post about my South Island Trip, so that´s what I´m doing now.

Day 7
We woke up at our usual time and made our way to Milford Sound. It was a really long drive with only a few stops.

Mirror Lakes, not really mirror like, because it was raining

some of 10000+ waterfalls and Maija

our tour guide Nick and a nz native kea

 

Of course it rained, what else is the weather supposed to be like in the forth rainiest spot in the world. We even saw some dolphins during the boat cruise, but I couldn´t take a picture of them. After the cruise, we drove back to Te Anau, where we stayed the night. In single rooms. Not fighting about plugs. That was really amazing. And I think I saw the biggest bug I´ve ever seen.

Day 8

This day, we drove to Invercargill and visited the Museum of Tuatara. Tuatara are the closestliving relatives to dinosaurs and only live in New Zealand. They can live as long as humans and are actually quite cute. We also drove to Bluff, the (nearly) most southern point of New Zealand.

We didn´t really do much this day. More driving into the Catlins and played quite funny games in our Lodge. (Maija be thankful, I thought about uploading the picture with the cream in your face.) We all slept in the great hall on mattresses in front of the big fire because the lodge we stayed in didn´t have heatings.

Day 9
We had to get up at 5AM and nobody was really excited about that. After a quick and quiet breakfast, we drove to a penguin spot. Sadly, the penguins were really far and we couldn´t really see them. They were yellow eyed penguins - the rarest penguins in the world - by the way. After that kinda disappointing activity, we had surfing classes. Something I´ve never done before. Now I know that I don´t really enjoy surfing. But to make it all better, we had dolphins swimming among us. That was really great. They were like 30cm away and I could nearly touch them. When the surfing experience was finished, we drove back to our lodge. Half of the group (including me) had a sleep in the afternoon. I really needed it.We did another night walk at night and some people even went swimming. All safe, guys.

Day 10
We finally left our lodge and I was happy about that. I didn´t really enjoy it there. We drove to Dunedin. Passing some lighthouses and sea lions. Sadly my camera was dead that day, so I don´t really have photos. In Dunedin we had free time. I used it to go shopping. Shame on me. We drove further and stopped at those crazy rocks. There are 23 of those nearly round rocks. Nobody knows why they are there. I believe in aliens. No really, they were cool. Our group tried to beat the record of getting as many people as possible on the biggest rock. And we made it. 14 people.

When we arrived at our Backpackers in Oumaru, we had dinner and at 11PM, we went to see some penguins. We certainly did.

Day 11
Day 11 brought us to NZ´s second biggest city, Christchurch. It still is really detroyed because of the earthquakes in 2011 and 2012. It´s unbelievable that only around 200 people died. We continued our way to Hanmer Springs and visited, you guessed it right, the hot pools. The only thing Hanmer Springs is famous for.

Day 12
In the morning, we drove to Kaikoura and had some free time in the town centre. I was actually gonna say village but Kaikoura isn´t that small. After Lunch, we went Whale Whatching and it was so amazing. I saw two Sperm Whales (Pottwal), Hector Dolphins and Seals.

It was just stunning.

Day 13
This was actually the first day where I could´ve slept in. However, I couldn´t because somebody (you know if I´m talking about you) "lost" her wallet and had to run into the room and scream. The others went swimming with the dolphins and I am really jealous of that.

We continued our way to Picton and stopped at a seal nursery. There weren´t any seal pubs in there because we came to late in the year. It was still a nice waterfall though. There was a festival on in Picton and it finished with fireworks. What a perfect ending for our trip.

Day 14
We had to say Good Bye to the people living in Motueka and then boarded the Interislander Ferry back to Wellington. When we arrived there, we all had to say good-bye to each other and the group split. I went home and was expected by all my Christmas and Birthday parcels from Germany and the US. That was the only positive thing about that day. I had a wonderful time (maybe the best time of my life) and didn´t want the trip to ever end.

*Whenever you're around
I always seem to smile
And people ask me how
Well you're the reason why
I'm dancing in the mirror and singing in the shower* 

Thanks to everybody making that tour so awesome