The next day we took off and drove to Kaikoura (1½ hour drive). In Kaikoura I had my  first experience of eating a feijoa. The taste is similiar to a lemon and you have to eat it like a kiwi.:)

It tasted quite good and I almost forgot about the really bad weather (stormy and heavy rain). The weather conditions were so bad that we decided to continue to Christchurch to get a job there.

In Christchurch we didn’t want to check in in at a hostel and so we spent the night sleeping in our car. 🙂

The next morning we drove to Tradestaff and applied for jobs. I got a job for the day at AVIS again, because one of the guys I had worked with before had cancelled and so I got his shift and Tim Lars and I got a job together on a construction site for the following day. I had worked that day from 11:30 till 22:00 and then Tim Lars picked me up at 24:00 in front of AVIS. We drove to a street near our working place for the next day and slept in our car again.

The last few days Tim Lars and I spent our time in Blenheim searching for a job (because the expected contractor didn’t appear to pick us up). Every day we got up at 6 o’clock, phoned a lot with different contractors and really stayed accurate for our jobsearch. The rest of the days we spent enjoying our journey and getting to know different people, who gave us a lot of telephone numbers of different contractors in the area.

Today we finally got a job and started to work. We got up at 6:00 o’clock and waited in front of KFC for our pick up. A nice woman came and we had to fill in our forms. We had to pick the green grapes and leave the red ones on the plants. We had to work really fast and the supervisor was very strict. :/

We had worked for 8 hours and were really happy when we  had finished without having been fired. 🙂

Tomorrow we will have to work again from 7:30 am.

By the way Happy Birthday to my sister

Today we got up at 8 o’clock. We had spent the night sleeping in our car on a carpark in Richmond, and at about eight o’clock the shops opened and the first customers arrived.

We decided to walk downtown to the library and to explore some parts of Richmond. After we had spent a pretty long time in the local library we decided to go to Nelson, because I had arranged to meet Luke there this day.

the library

So we drove to Nelson and met Luke. We enjoyed an awesome time with him and after we had been at a really nice pub, he invited us to his house to take a shower. We were really pleased with that and then we sat on his balcony, enjoying some ordered Indian food. I took chicken Tikka Masala and can really recommend it. It just tasted awesome. 🙂

“It was such a nice day, Luke, I really enjoyed spending time with you in New-Zealand. Good luck with your studies and hopefully we will meet up in Germany or in some other parts of the world some day. “

Chicken Tikka Masala

good time with my mates

At seven o’clock after some good conversations and a goodbye to Luke we took off and continued our trip to Blenheim (one and a half hour drive). We arrived there at night and slept in a dark street in our car.

Yesterday we had spent some time in the Abel-Tasman Nationalpark and went for some walks after we had booked our kayaks for the following day. 🙂 We found some beautiful mussels and shells on the beach, it was low-tide and so we could walk in the sand. 🙂

The night we slept in our car again. 🙂

Today we got up at 7:00 o’clock, prepared everything for our kayak tour and met our instructor at 8:15.. 🙂 She gave us some important safety instructions.

When she was finished Tim Lars and me started our kayaking-tour.

our view

behind me the islands

Tim Lars paddling

just beautiful

Our first destination was Appletree Bay. That is a nice lonely beach, where we spent half of our day,  tanned and went swimming. 🙂 After lunch ( self-prepared sandwiches) we paddled to the nearest island hoping to see some seals, but unfortunately didn’t see any. 🙁 Then we just enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the sea and all the small islands around us in the Abel-Tasman Nationalpark. 🙂

our kayak lonely on the beach

me paddling

After having returned to Mahanau beach (from where we had started) we continued our trip to Nelson. We could possibly stay there at Luke’s, a friend of mine, whom I  had met in the meditation course). 🙂

Today we got up at 10:00 am. Again we had spent a night at a free campinground. 🙂 We had watched a good movie and enjoyed a funny night. 🙂 We continued our trip to a lookout from where we could see Mount Cook.

Then we fueled up our car and drove to Punakaiki (3 hours drive). On the way we stopped at some beaches to jump into the water, got tanned and ate something for lunch. 🙂

In Punakaiki we visited the Pancake Rocks and the Blowholes. 🙂

It is just awesome to see how the rocks have been formed by the power of the water. 🙂

At 5:00 pm we continued to Westport where we wanted to stay for the night, to charge our devices and to skype with our parents.

🙂 By the way Happy Birthday Mum ! 😀

Today I got up at 7:00 am and was picked up by the van at 7:45 am. 🙂 This time I knew that I would jump, because the sky looked just blue and the wind was calm. 🙂 So I put on my really sexy jumpsuit and all my equipment (oxygen mask, helmet, gloves and glasses) 🙂

Then I met my jump instructor. He was called Boris and I had already met him yesterday and had a good conversation with him about what it is like to be a skydive instructor. 🙂 I felt very safe and happy when I entered the plane. 🙂

Boris and me 

On the way to the plane I had a short interview with my cameraman and a small talk with Boris. 🙂 After the plane had taken off I enjoyed a really nice view of the scenery beyond me ( sun was shining, some beautiful clouds) and after ten minutes we were at 9000 ft. high. I had to pull over my oxygen mask. At 10.000 ft. the first skydivers had to jump out of the plane. 🙂 It was funny to watch them fall out of the plane and I had another interview with my cameraman. 🙂 At 12.000 ft we stopped again and some more jumped out of the plane. 🙂

I was the only skydiver left in the plane because my jump was from 15.000 ft and from second to second I got more nervous. Boris strapped me to himself and I sat on his laps. Then we reached 15.000 ft, Boris, the cameraman and I did a HiFi-interview and took some photos and then I had to go to the edge of the plane and had to sit down. 🙂

I thought that this would be the hardest seconds but I felt pretty safe and really wanted to jump. 🙂 So Boris and I jumped after a crazy picture.

The first minute was just awesome. 🙂 60 seconds of freefalling through clouds, the earth getting closer and enjoying the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. 🙂

just flying…

.

During my freefall my eyes began to get wet and my mouth was trembling because of the 200 kpH high speed. 🙂 It was really hard to breath and in some seconds I didn’t only have pressure on my ears but also had the feeling of being unable to breathe at all. :/ But I enjoyed the fascinating view and had really much fun with Boris who entertained me by some funny stuff on our  way down. 🙂 It was like riding a rollercoaster, I was so light and free, it was just amazing. 🙂 Then Boris opened the parachute and a wonderful lovely feeling returned to my stomach, I was drifting through the air, enjoying the view and finally knowing, that everything went all right. 🙂

parachute worked

Then Boris said „Let’s do some crazy stuff“ and so we were floating through the air, in circles, getting faster and closer to the ground. 🙂 I enjoyed the adrenaline rushing through my body and craved for more. 😛 Before we landed I had to lift up my feet, and  then Boris landed us safely on the ground. 🙂

just happy

I thanked him for this really great experience and that he has saved my life. 😛 Then I went back to the lounge – happy of just having been through the skydive of my life – where the lovely skydive assistents were waiting for me and where I could watch my video. 🙂

In the video you can see  that I really enjoyed the view… I almost never looked straight into the camera but to the ground which was coming closer (probably that was more important for me than looking good )

At  about one o’clock Lars Tim and I continued our roadtrip to Haast. There we relaxed on the beach and had some lunch. Then we went on to the Fox Glacier. We arrived there after a short drive and after  a short walk ( 1,1 km) we enjoyed an awesome view.

Fox Glacier

That is me with new shirt

Then we drove to the Franz Josef Glacier and there again we enjoyed a spectacular view of the glacier. It’s just fascinating,  that this is a glacier from the iceage.

just being crazy in front of Franz Josef Glacier

This day we woke up at 7:00 o’clock after we had slept in the car after the theatre yesterday. 🙂 I hoped that I would have my skydive today and so  I was really excited.  I started my first trial   to my skydive at 8:15. An orange van picked me up and a lovely lady showed me an introduction video and explained everything to me. 🙂

On the way to the airport of the skydive we picked up another Chinese woman, who also wanted to jump today. 🙂 I couldn’t talk much to her, because her English wasn’t too good and I was just enjoying the landscape. 🙂 When we arrived at the airport we got the message, that the skydive was cancelled, because of bad weather ( cloudy and steamy). So I was driven back to town. 🙂 There Tim Lars and I decided to try some mountain-biking.

🙂 It was really extreme mountain-biking in the sticky Forest. It was just awesome to race downhill these small hiking tracks to jump over stones, trunks and wood. 🙂

Pure adrenaline rushed through my body. One jump was really awesome, I was flying for 2 seconds and I was relieved feeling  my backwheel safely touching the ground again.   I challenged myself a lot but still on some mountains I had to give up (we took the intermediate and professional tracks). It really was a funny and exhausting experience passing lots of beautiful look-outs of the Lake Wanaka. 🙂

We returned at 12:00 because my second attempt to do the skydive was at 12:30. The same van picked me up and I was driven to my skydive-centre. 🙂 But it was cancelled again :/ So Tim Lars and I went mountain-biking again. This time we decided to drive seperately because I wanted to jump and to try some extreme stuff and Tim Lars wanted to drive in a more easy going way, take some pictures and didn’t want to jump. So I went on by myself.

just jumping…

After we had returned at 5:30 pm and had given back the bikes we prepared our dinner. Pasta with tomato sauce and sausages.

This morning we continued our roadtrip to Wanaka (1 hour drive)

Lake Wanaka

After we had arrived there we wanted to buy some tickets for a theatre play, that we wanted to see and went to the building where we thought we could buy the tickets. We went into a bar, and the people  were really nice and said, that we could use the elevator on the right. So we did. 🙂 We got out and a huge alarm bell started to ring :/ we didn’t know what was going on and just realized that we were locked in the building then.  We tried to use the elevator again to get back  but the alarm system stopped all the other systems and it didn’t work. :/

trapped ^^

We were trapped in a locked building. After 10 or 15 minutes the owner of the theatre club opened the front-door and we told him our story. He laughed and said, that we can purchase the tickets at 4:00 pm. 🙂 We were really happy to get out of this weird situation and went on sightseeing  Wanaka. 🙂 At 4 o’clock we purchased the tickets for the theatre. Tomorrow at 7 pm we have to be in the Gin and Raspbery Bar.

the play

the bar

on the beach

Lake Wanaka

our campingground

  The weather had changed to sunny by then and we spent the rest of the day on the beach. At 6 pm we drove to our campingground and parked there. I  instantly fell asleep.

Today we got up at 9 o’clock and started to walk back to Te Anau (two and a half hour walk),

where we had left our car.:)

 From there we continued our roadtrip to Queenstown. We took the 94 Highway and enjoyed the view of the magical scenery  around us: mountains, rivers, awesome trees and so much untouched countryside, it was unbelievable. There were moments I felt like being in a dream but then again I realized this spectacular surrounding was real: Just beautiful. 🙂

We also drove alongside beautiful lakes, and I’m not able to describe neither in words nor by photos how beautiful it really is. But nevertheless enjoy the photos …

In Queenstown at first we went to a library to get our accounts and internet communication organized. Bad luck!  There is no free wifi available at all in Queenstown, even not in a public library :0. Luckily I could use my mobile as a hotspot. Then we watched some guys playing rugby, went to the supermarket and enjoyed some sightseeing in Queenstown. It is a really nice town, where a lot of outdoor-adventure-activities are offered around the beautiful Lake Wakatipu.

Today we got up at 9 o’clock and started to drive back to Invercargill. The night was really cold and I didn’t sleep well and was really overtired.

On our drive to Invercargill we decided to visit the Art Gallery over there.  It wasn’t actually an outstanding gallery – I prefer more creative artwork – but we had good fun puzzling out what the artist may have intended to express by one or another piece of art. 🙂

After the art gallery we decided to walk through the Queens Park. It is a really beautiful park just located next to the museum. We went to the playground and did some workout. 😛

At about one o’clock we started our trip to Te Anau (2 hours drive). On our way  we enjoyed the beautiful scenery next to the highway, we were sorrounded by huge mountains. 🙂

It was just magical. 🙂 In Te Anau we went to the lake, had a tasty snack there, went swimming and sunbathed on the beach. It was a really sunny day and so we decided to prepare our dinner on the gascooker.

Today we had pasta with tomatoe sauce, onions and parmesan cheese.

When we had finished our dinner, we washed our dishes and started at 20:30 to go for a hike.

(Free camping is not allowed in Te Anau ). So we left the car behind us and walked through the dark for 2 and a half hours. It was really adventurous and there were some moments were I definitely felt scared, walking along with only one friend by my side through a dark forest, along the lakeside in a country I don’t know. :/ But it happened to be the best experience for the day and maybe in my entire life, walking in the dark, not seeing the earth beneath us just trusting your ears and nose and feelings. 🙂 As we arrived at a spot where we could camp, we built up our tent and sat down in front of the fire, enjoying good conversation and being proud of ourselves that we did it.

🙂 Tomorrow we will continue our roadtrip to Queenstown. 🙂