Ferry back to the Northern Island (Feb 2nd)

I hitched a ride to Picton to take a ferry to the north island  and stayed a night in Wellington before taking a bus to Taupo.
Nothing special.

Working on a Vineyard near Blenheim (-> Feb 1st)

Beautiful sky over the campersite

In Blenheim I refueled and then checked out the hostel, where Daniel, Fabian and Oliver were staying. I know thse 3 boys from back in Germany, so when I found out they'd be in NZ, I stayed in contact and we finally managed to meet up! They also had another friend with them: Victor. They met him in New Zealand and were travelling together for the last months. I payed a weeks rent and drove down to their campsite. After that we did some shopping and chatted about everything. They forgot to tell their boss another guys would like to join and apparently the boss didn't have any more capacity for new workers...
So I got ready to go searching for a job myself.
Because I booked the car for 2 days we were able to drive around the next day, which was sunday (so they didn't have to work). We drove to a bridge over a small river and jumped off the bridge, after seeing a maori guy do it.
After that we went to a beach and had some fun there. A bit later we returned to the hostel and relaxed at the campsite. Had some fun with other backpackers, singing and making music on our guitars/ guilele. My friends went to bed early to get up at 5am in the morning.
The next day I drove the car to the Blenheim Airport and returned it. I only had recently thought about how to get back from the airport, as it wasn't in town, but a few km outisde. I tried hitchhiking again, but no one stopped. After I waited a few minutes I walked a little and now and then stopped at possibly good spots, but no one was kind enough to give me a lift. In the end I walked all the way back to the backpackers and started my search for a job. And in between I tried saving my files (see the other post) with the help of Olivers laptop.
The next days I again phoned all places known to me for work but got nothing. I then usually walked around town and visited the library to use their wifi and internet to search for a job or just had a look at several shops, if anything turned up.
It ended up to be something like a routine for me. Then at the end of the week the boys also lost their job. They weren't fired but their boss just told them there was nothing to do for them, so "No work tomorrow!"
So we started searching for some job together. I had also been on the lookout for a place to stay and found a house, which was cheaper than the campsite and was perfect for the 5 of us! We moved in after the one week on the backpackers. SO now we were staying in an annex of a hjouse, which an elderly couple was renting to backpackers and other people. Probably not entirely legal, but I don't know the laws of New Zealand... We stayed in this small appartment with a kitchen, washing machine, good wifi and living room. From here we tried different things to find some work.
In the end someone mentioned it to our landlord who said he'd ask a friend for a favour. And sure enough we had work 2 days later. It was just enough to pay the rent and have some food, because we just worked there for 2 days, but that's what we needed.
Then the boys old boss called again and we started working for him again. This went on for another 2 weeks or so untill I left.

We had a fun time hanging out together, doing puzzles, playing games or just relaxing after work. Then in the beginning of February it was time for me to leave and head back north to Auckland.

The work was always on a vineyard. For the landlords friend we did some leave plucking. So we removed leaves from the vines, so the grapes were visible and could air and sun, to ripen faster (I think).
For the other boss the first week we did some wire lifting. The vines all grow on wires and we had to lift these, so the vines grow up and not in all directions. Also on some areas we had to reattach the wires to the poles, which were supposed to keep them up, because of alot of strong winds in the past few days. So alot of them were just dangling in the air, so our job was to keep the plants neatly behind the wires, so it looks good and the grapes are more accessible.
The last few days we also started plucking leaves for that boss. Though they didn't give us any info about  safety hazards or anything. The landlords friend gave us informationa bout the pestizides (it's chemicals, so wash your hands before you eat!!) and he gave us gloves.

That was my work in New Zealand. Unfortunately not as long as I had hoped, but apparently the weather was really bad for the grapes this year. No proper sun, or too much change, just not good. We were told some contractors had hired 20 hands last year and worked overtime. This year there barely was enough work for 10 people. That's why it was so hard. Also he told us the weather was no good for apples, we had already noticed the apples was really expensive! And mainly imported. Now we knew why.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of work, the few I made are all out of focus and I usually had my phone in the van while I was woking.

We found this "sound gun" on one of the farms, it makes a loud sound once in a while to scare away the birds

Back north to Blenheim (~ Jan 7th)

As mentioned I booked a bus to Christchurch and was on my way to Blenheim. Friends of mine had recently gotten jobs on a vineyard close by and I planned to meet them there to work together.
The bus left in the morning with a very chatty bus driver telling us many things about the towns we were passing and talking about the roads and so on. Other than that the ride was boring.
We finally arrived back in Chch and I had to understand how the new cool complex for public buses works. It had bays you could only enter, if a bus was there and the sections were numbered and had letters to somehow categorize them aswell. I finally found the bay I needed and took the bus to my hostel close to the airport. I chose that one, because I had gotten a relocation car from Chch Airport to Blenheim. Relocating means you don't pay a rental fee and take a car from A to B (where it's needed). Problem is, that the insurance has a high excess fee - so I payed extra to make that zero. And of course I had to return it with a full tank, so that cost as well. So not completely for free after all...
I stayed for a night in a very new hostel. They had "sleeping pods" and no bunk beds. So basically all beds were built into the wall and had many nice gadgets to play with. USB chargers, dimable lights and a fan/ AC which was horribly loud. And all beds had blinds to make it dark and not be disturbed by the outside. Also under each bed they had lockers which were lockable with a pin you could set yourself! That was neat, no key needed! And big enough to store my backpack and stuff. Nothing had to be laying around!
Unfortunately they were really long and in the back was no light. I used my phone and found a camera in the back! Apparently someone had fogotten it all the way in the back... I hope he or she gets it back and didn't leave New Zealand already! D=

I didn't forget anything there, but sadly my SD card "broke". I was using my tablet, then answered a text on my phone and suddenly my tablet said the card isn't readable... Whaaaat?!
I tried taking it out and putting it back in, putting it into my phone, nothing... damnit... Not good! Many fotos, music and stuff was on there. Luckily my dropbox sychronises all my fotos from my phone, so they are somewhat safe and not all lost. Still VERY annoying and uncool.
Later I was able to use the laptop of Oliver (one of the friends in Blenheim) and get some of the files, fotos and music back. But they were all renamed (into a series of letters and numbers), so it'll be fun to get them all sorted....

Other than the cool beds, the place had a big common room, which looked cool, was nicely designed, though the kitchen wasn't good. They had all sorts of neat tech in there (dishwashers and many cupboards), but the dishwashers were constantly full and no one bothered washing because there were dishwashers. The cupboards were almost all empty and only consisted of a few pans and pots, which were all small. So you couldn't make a bigger portion of pasta, if you were cooking for a group for example... And the fridges were also too small for the size of the hostel. But I managed. A nice touch was, that they had secured plenty of space for "free stuff".

After a night in the sleeping pod I went to the airport and picked up my ride. It was a big toyota, like an SUV. Crazy. So I rolled up to the hostel next to backpackers cars (all very used, some with ducttape holding parts together etc) and then my flashy big car, all new and shiny. I had hoped to find people to share the ride with, but it didn't work out. Apparently no one went up the same route at the same time as me...
So I drove alone. After making a few rounds in Christchurch to get fully used to the left hand drive again and to the big car, I headed out to the north once again taking the same road I had taken not even a month ago.

This is the car I drove up to Blenheim

In between I stopped somewhere to finally get the bluetooth working to enjoy my music and it worked! I was starting to head into the no radio zone so I needed some entertainment. Unfortunatly the roads in the centre of the island are all small and now of course overrun with cars, trucks and busses, since the coast highway was closed because of the earthquake last year. And some trucks drove very slowly through the terrain. Most of the time the roads were great and no issues other than sharp curves and the road going up and down all the time. I used the cruise control alot, which makes driving soooo much easier and relaxing. Additionally I had an automatic, so I didn't even have to shift gears.

On the way I did 2 short stops, one at the crossing between the road to the west coast and the other to the north, the second at a small waterfall. I did a short walk there and took a few fotos. Nothing big. I was more concerned into getting back on the road before I end up stuck behind a truck again!

The waterfall I stopped at on the way to Blenheim

After I walked down I got this view of the waterfall

About 4 hours after leaving Christchurch I finally arrived in Blenheim. The last hour was only flat terrain so everyone started speeding. Sometimes even big trucks started racing with over 110 km/h past me. The limit is 100 km/h in New Zealand. I was quite suprised but didn't want to go faster and just put on the cruise control and relaxed, singing along to my music!

Random pic of the day: Car I saw in the Christchurch - amazing license plate

Lumsden (~ Jan 5th)

After Marie left Dunedin, so did I. I still had about a month left, before flying to Australia.
I had made plans with Sönke to meet him in a small town called Lumsden, where he was going to camp for free, luckily I got a cheap bus and turned my back to Dunedin.

The bus stopped directly at the centre of town and the free camping place, which was a old train station and now turned into a park. Here many other backpackers were relaxing, enjoying their time and planning their next moves.
Ronja was on a hike with a friend, so Sönke was alone and we ganged up to drive around the south end of the southern island.
The weather wasn't that nice, but ok. We cooked and had a nice time with the some other campers. This free camping site was nice, because it had a roof to stay under in case of rain and showers were easily avaiable by going into a swimming pool after it's opening hours. Or you could go to a other camping site and use their showers.

Next day we drove down to Invercargill, a city at the south coast from where you can take a ferry to some of the smaller islands. We checked the weather and realised it wouldn't get any better and that a free camp site without a shelter etc wouldn't be nice, so we decided to stay in Lumsden for another night.
But we first explored Invercargill. We saw an old lizard, which sort of doesn't belong to the biological family of lizards, but is one or something (ask a biologist). Because of it's isolation on New Zealand it hasn't evolved like other lizards and stayed pretty much the same as all the years ago, when the islands of New Zealand were created. And because it was pretty much in a perfect environment no evolution had to happen or something like that. And it grows old! The lizard they have there was over 100 years old and started mating after being in that place for over 20 years. Now it has some offspring and the population of this lizard is growing again.

Other than that we also visited the "most southern spot" of Kiwiland. Well it's not really, but they have a lookout there and act like it is. The actual geographical south point is further away to the east and more or less in the middle of no where. And of course there are islands further south, but they don't count as the most southern point I guess...
Sönke and I did a small walk around the point and saw some old battlements made in the second world war, after Japan entered the war and Australia as well as New Zealand suddenly felt threatened. Though nothing ever happened. They had some weapons etc. on the coast in case something came, because the harbour was used as a transit point for the US and allied navies, but it never was attacked by an enemy.

Bluff, a very southern spot of the south island of New Zealand

This is the old lizard 

(supposedly it has a "third" eye or eye socket on it's forehead scientists are still trying to figure out why it's there...)

We went shopping in Invercargill and headed back to Lumsden. Again we spent the evening with other campers, some were there from the day before and of course there were new ones.

Next day we headed to another town to the west called Te Anau. That place is the gateway to the amazing and beautiful national park around the milfords sound. Many fjords and such in that area. From here you can do hikes, walks, do other crazy attractions (high speed boats, plane trips, cruises and things like that). This place didn't offer much, but was nice for a few hours. If we'd have had more time we could have headed on one of the walks, but most of them are over several days and you'd have to pay to do them (they aren't cheap!)

Takahe in Te Anau (the statue is way bigger than the actual bird) - but Birds this size actually walked around New Zealand 100s of years ago!

The Moa was hunted till extinction by the Maori and because of it's death the biggest eagle (Haast's eagle) died out (they hunted exclusively the Moa)

Lake of Te Anau - This plane just landed, you could do many sight seeing flights from here to see Milfords Sound of just the fjords around this area

Supposed to be a beautiful landscape with all the lakes, forests, waterfalls and so on

Again a panorama of the beautiful lake

After lunch we headed back to Lumsden again. We listened to a bearded guy band, played on our guilele and ukulele and had a nice last evening at the free camping site. I had booked a bus to Christchurch the next day in the morning and got a relocation car to Blenheim, where I'd meet my scout friends from Germany to finally do some working and earn money :D

Old train at the campsite in Lumsden. I put up my tent behind it under the trees you can see here

Tire train at the kids playground close to the campsite

Roja and Sönkes Spongebob car! :D

Our last day in Lumsden was rewarded with a rainbow =)

Dunedin with Marie (~ Jan 1st 2017)

After Warrington I hitched a hike with some young german guys back to Dunedin. I checked into the hostel where I'd meet Marie (I met her a few weeks back in Wellington). We stayed in contact and so I stayed in Dunedin for New Years, because Queenstown would have been too expensive.

We first headed into town to see some things and decided to walk to the steepest road in the world (I mentioned before). When we finally arrived I realised how different it looked by foot. We climbeed up. And up. And up.
When we arrived we made some fotos, cause it actually is really steep! Wow!

What a climb up! Wow...

I'm standing straight, this is probably the steepest part of the road

The "view" down

The next day was going to be new years eve, so we did some shopping for a big asian peanut curry and prepared. The day over it rained, so we tried doing indoor activities. Like a visiting the cadbury factory again (though we only went into the store) and then did a tour through the Speights Brewery. It was fun, the guide was old and had TONS of anecdotes to share and he appeared to have met every important person in the world (premier ministers, chancelors and kings of any country). And the way he talked you could think he was living since forever... "Oh you're from Germany? Merkel was heree a few months back! Interesting person, though her politics aren't that popular at the moment, right?" ... "Denmark? The royal family visited here a few years ago" ... "The big world fair in 1925/26 was amazing and put Dunedin on the map! Wonderful thing"
The beer tasting was a little short, because the next tour walked in... But of course drinking beer is always nice ;-)

Now we had our "fancy" dinner with new years gin! We then headed out with some others from the hostel to the "ocatagon", the centre of Dunedin to see the fireworks and celebrate. Wooooo! Happy new year! :D

The next day we had made a date with a dutch couple to do a wildlife tour. We were picked up from our hostel and got to know our guide, well not really, he didn't introduce himself, so found out what his name was.
BUT we found out, that he runs the tours for sereval years and has a small museum in his house. He is building his house for some years now and is hoping to be able to sublet it to some backpackers at one point. He used many parts from different places and sites in Dunedin, like doors from an old cinema, chairs from a theatre and stairs from a other old house (or something like that).
Then he showed us around in his home, it was quite nice, then we came into the "Museum". There were many "statues" standing around, built by him! All in different costumes, with different weapons and so on. He collected them all around the world, from different travels, bought them from different stores and so on. It was impressive. Mostly they were just busts, some actually had arms and an upper body. Other than that he had many other "artifacts" lying around in his home in shelfs and glass vitrines (?).
He actually had about 2 rooms full of these manikins. He told us about all of them, where they are from, which culture they represent etc.
After this small detour we headed out to the Otago Peninsula.

View from our guides house over the Dunedin beach!

The wildlife tour started! The guide told us about the different animals we would hopefully see: seals, sea lions, albatrosses and penguins. Maybe some others on the way. Our first destination was the albatross place at the very point of the peninsula.
On the way we stopped a few times to take some pictures of trees kneeling to the wind, sheep staring at weird humans and just the beautiful coastline and view over the landscape.

Calm down Marie!

View from a higher point on the Otago peninsula and of course sheep

This sheep was just staring at us making pictures of the landscape

Close to the Albatross centre was a small beach where seals were hanging around, it was now closed off and only a walkway lead down to the beach. In the evening it gets closed by the albatross centre, who then sells tickets, so people pay to see penguins, who supposedly come there in the evening. Incredible. Everything was about making money for them, they let people walk up to the albatross nests or resting grounds, but only for about 20 minutes, so if no albatross was flying in during that time, you basically wasted your money. And a sitting albatross just isn't as spectacular as a flying one.

Because the seals were quite far away I used the binoculours to "zoom in" :D

Worked quite well I'd say ;-)

Our guy of course knew all the tricks and walked with us towards the edge of the cliffs where a walkway was built. He's hoping this will stay free for everyone to use and not be charged as well, but you never know...
Anyway we waited there and he told us the best position to wait at and how the albatrosses would fly in. And they did! In all we saw 5 of these huge birds flying past us, some "snuck" up on us, others were visible for a longer period (flying in from the ocean). He had some binoculars with him, so we could scout ahead. And he would be on th elookout aswell and yell when we should get our cameras ready! I hope the pictures are good, it's hard to get flying birds on camera...

This is where the Albatross' will most probably fly up using the winds breaking on the cliffs, so they can just glide on it

And surely: Albatross flying by!

Albatross incoming!!

After these successful moments we went back to the car and the next stop was the penguin place. It was a beach, that was apparently a breeding and living spot for the yellow eyed penguin, which is one of the rarest penguins in the world, and at the same time pretty big!
He said he'd wait in the car, because he's old and his hip hurts when walking too much and told us where to be on the lookout. So we headed down to the beach. Before we seperated he looked with his good binoculars and actually spotted a penguin! He said, if anything, we can probably still see that one standing there.

We started climbing down the dunes and onto the beach. There were only a few other people walking around and a few sea lions lying on the ground. The dutch couple didn't see one of them and walked past it by only a couple meters, luckily it was asleep, so nothing happened, but they were suprised, that they did not see it lying on the ground! We took some fotos of them, being so close to these sleeping animals and went further to the end of the beach. We got closer to the penguin our guide had spotted and now we all were able to see it. We went in closer and then.... WHAT?!
No....
How could this be?!

It's a fake penguin?!?!?!

Someone apparently put up a wooden or cardboard penguin for some reason. And we fell for it... as did our guide. Wow... That was sad... The wind was hurling sand around and we were happy to be able to head up a small dune, where the wind wasn't able to throw sand into our faces.

Beneath the grassy rock, you should be able to make out a small penguinish figure (foto made though binoculors)

These sea lions were just relaxing on the beach and some people walked past them not noticing

Sea Lion selfie

Am I not fabulous?

View over the beach from all the way up

There we sat. We talked and waited to see some real penguins. At one point there weren't any humans on the beach any more, so we hoped the penguins might show up now, but they didn't. We were quiet for a while (wondering if they might have good ears and not come when people talked?) but that didn't help.
The weather got worse and we were wondering if we should keep waiting or not. I said we should, because the penguins probably come out of the water, when the sun has set and not earlier (I had been waiting for Penguins in Warrington after all). But at that point people started walking to our end of the beach again, some waited down at the water, between sea lions. I was wondering if the sealions might scare the penguins away or if it was the humans waiting at the water. But the weather got even worse and the wind stronger. It started drizzling a little bit and so we decided to head back to the car and not wait untill the sun sets completely. We didn't see and penguins that day, but many more people were on the way to the beach, so maybe we were there too early. We didn't bother going back with the approaching storm. Out guide was devestated, that it was a fake penguin and apologized many times to us and was also sad, that we didn't see any real penguins. 

He drove us back to Dunedin and dropped us back at the hostel.

The dutch couple left the next day, Marie and I planned to visit a place called Tunnel Beach. We got there with a bus and a 20 minute walk. We arrived there shortly before lunch time. There was a small food truck at the entrance of the walkway (again it was mostly gated and only a walkway lead down to the rocks and beach.

A glitch in the matrix? Nope, just me taking a panorama foto

2nd attempt on taking a panorama, this time over 360°! With 2 Maries :D

First we walked across the cliffs and took in the view and the landscape. Again very nice, it reminded me of the great ocean road with all it's stone pillars, cliffs and "bridges". Very nice, we took some fotos, many other people were also hanging around there and walking about.

Look at the square rock that broke out of the cliff!

View from the cliff down on tunnel beach

Next we headed down a small tunnel which was artificially made with steps to get down to the beach. Because it was really small it basically was a one-way street and you'd have to wait till you could finally cross. The beach itself wasn't much of a beach to go swimming. And interestingly the water just kept on crawling towards the cliffs. This was suprising for many people. They sometimes watched the water slowly creep towards them wondering when it'd stop and had to jump onto rocks in the last second because the water didn't stop as they expected! But those waves weren't that often.

View from tunnel beach up the cliff

This reminded me of the great ocean road witht the apostels, london bridge and so on

Cthulu's offspring? Nope, just a certain type of fast-growing Algae on the rocks which sometimes just break off and gets washed up on the shore

We spent some time there, looking at the people running from approaching water to not get their feet and shoes wet and climbing around the rocks ourselves. THen we started walking home and got a bus back again. That was our last evening together in Dunedin. Marie was leaving for Fiji in a few days and I left to meet Sönke, because Ronja was on a hike for a few days we could use the car together.

I wonder if the Village People did their shopping here?