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 =)