Sydneys short summary

In Sydney I stayed in a small hostel called the Dury House Backpackers. I stayed there for my entire time in Sydney and really enjoyed it! At first I wasn't too sure, because it seemed kind of dirty, the kitchen was small and the fridges (each room had its own) were always full and not clean either.
But in the end I just loved the company of the people in the hostel, enjoyed the evenings and didn't mind the superficial dirt. Ok - a big part was that it was really cheap and offered a lot for the money! (free rice, toast and jam around the clock!)

The wifi could have been (much!) better, but I was lucky and could reach the library wifi from my bed :D
I met many people, most lived there for a long time and others returned back after traveling around Australia or in other countries. Because I was staying in this place for a long time (I hadn't stayed in any place this long for over half a year) I think I grew very fond of everyone there and the hostel felt a bit like home.

During my stay I wanted to work, I settled for a job in labouring/ construction, because the teaching would have been a pain to get everything organised. I should have thought about that in Germany and already gotten all the forms, infos, proofs and translations. Now sending my friends and relatives on a hunt for my certificates seemed unneccesary. I did try and asked around in the department of Education and sent an application to an independent school, but they never answered. The Department of Ed. said I'd first have to file for different things (which all cost money) before my application would even be considered.
So I dropped it and did the easy White Card (an online questionaire for 40$) and then got a job soon after. I worked for a shipyard on Goat Island. An island in the Sydney Harbour which is actually all national park except for the shipyard which was founded in the early 1920s (I think).

On my way to the shipyard and a cruise ship is just arriving

I was working with these 2 famous characters: Kelso (Scrubs) and Sherlock - helped me alot on the shipyard!

The weather was really bad though. And because they needed to paint the car ferry, they couldn't because of all the rain. And so their painters did the job the normal labourers should have done and they didn't need us extra labourers (the painters belonged to the company directly, we were hired via an agency). So the weather made me loose my job.
Not a week later after I had applied for other agencies I got a call saying I could work on a construction site. I agreed and started the next day. It was much more physically challenging but was paid better. AND they wanted me to work overtime which was also nice, because then I of course got more money. I worked with different tools, like a grinder, jackhammer and drills, but mostly shoveling. Then after a week I was helping another guy with simple tasks so I hadn't my gloves with me. When they wanted me to jackhammer, I asked the office for some gloves got some and was walking out when the foreman came and he got angry, that I wanted their gloves and rudely told me to get my own. At the end of that day the foreman told I needn't come back. Later the agency told me he thought I wanted to steal some gloves and didn't want another stealing backpacker. Great...

View from the construction site in Sydney (you can see the bridge and Opera House in the background!)

I again went searching for a job. It was harder than I thought considering others were working 2 jobs and cheating to keep both. Then finally my first agency called me and told me I could go back to the shipyard. That is where I stayed till I left in the end of April. The car ferry was still on the island but slowly everthing was finished painted and we were tasked to fix everything together again, like handrails, doors and other things. Shortly before easter the ferry went into the water and luckily I was allowed to stay and helped work on the next big project, a fire tug boat from the sydney harbour authorities.
In between I had helped on smaller side projects, exchanging windows on a cruiseboat, waterblasting barnacles off pontoons and glueing other pontoons together. It actually was pretty cool working there, escpecially because it was a rather odd job (going on an island each day and working with boats was pretty awesome). Mainly the coworkers were really relaxed and friendly!

Small boat on the slit

Old boat propeller from the small boat(it should be nice and shiny!)

Big boat on the slit (the fire tug)

Happy Jakob on his last day on the bridge of the fire tug

Of course I did many other things while staying in Sydney. With the people from the hostel and other friends I went to the cinema, did different walks, visited several beaches, partied in different bars and clubs or just relaxed in the hostel with a beer. People celebrated birthdays, their last days in the hostel and then that day came for me too. Silja (the friend I visited in Auckland and with who I traveled Australia before) arrived in Australia and we planned to do the east coast. Together we went on a boat cruise in the harbour and walked in the blue mountains with my roommate John and his sister, who came to visit him before leaving Sydney.
Finally it was time to part ways with the dury gang and start traveling again!

The 3 sisters, big thing to see in the blue mountains

View over the blue mountain area

Panorama of the Opera House, Bridge and a cruise ship docked in Circular Quay (the founding spot of Sydney)

Ocean and pools at Bondi Beach

Panorama from the north coast (you can tell I like the panorama function on my phone)

I will write some more posts about this time, but wanted to summarize this quickly for most. Friday I arrived in Melbourne after doing different tours around the East Coast. Here I will stay about a week before flying to Perth.

Random pic of the day: Poor trees just might fail!

The resemblance is uncanny!

Another heads up

Unfortunately my App decided to drop my latest blog entries when I wanted to sync them, so instead I lost them. Great.
Anyway, here a short summery of what I was up to.
As you have noticed my Blogs entries are still back in February!

So I am in Australia at the moment and have been working on a shipyard in Sydney for over a month. Now I am traveling again. Till today (11.5.) Silja traveled with me from Sydney to Brisbane, from where I am writing this.

I am doing well and like being on the road again. Now Silja has left and I will be traveling up to Cairns (a city further north on the east coast) alone, or maybe I'll find someone to tag along =)

Have a great week/ weekend/ day and cheers mate!

These quite large lizards can be found in many places in Australia! This one was hanging around our hostel garden

Silja and me enjoying super hero ice cream :D

Hobbiton (~ Feb 6th)

New Zealand. A country, that got a huge boost for its tourism thanks to Lord of the Rings.
After the LotR movies - where they had built several smaller hobbit holes out of plastic etc. many people went on nerdy pilgrimages to see the locations of the movie. And people asked the farmer, whose farm land was used to film the shire, if they could visit the film site. He quickly saw an opportunity and talked with Peter Jackson and the others about making it a tourist location. They agreed and so the Hobbiton fever started.
There wasn't a lot to see back then, because they had torn down everything after finishing filming the movie. But when they started filming "The Hobbit", they decided to build Hobbiton with lasting materials, more wood and stone instead of plastics and hence the tourist location and village Hobbiton was born! Soon many bus tours were arranged, parking spots were built and a small visitors centre was built a the entrance to the farm, so people could buy merchandise, book tours who came by car and just get more information about this great place.

Of course I wanted to go there as well. Since I read the books and watched the movies I had been a great fan and when I had planned to visit New Zealand that was definitely on the top of my to-do list. So after the tour in Wellington and the hike to Mount Doom this was third big thing I did for my "nerdome".
I booked the tour from the tourist Information in Rotorua and went to the Hobbiton shop there the next morning. The bus was slowly getting fuller and left on time. The bus driver showed us a few clips of the LotR and The Hobbit movies and short movies about the place, one where Peter Jackson and the farmer himself welcomed us to this tourist attraction.
We had a short time at the visitors centre near the farm to do some shopping, I was quite disappointed that this break was so short. I would have liked to browse a little more and have more time to decide if I wanted something, but this way I spent much less money there, which was probably good :D

The tours are all very well planned. They probably start every 30 minutes. A bus drives from the visitor centre to the shires entrance and picks them up there once it's over. We could see many other groups walking around Hobbiton. But being in a group you can't really just walk around, relax and take it in as you like. Our guide always was couting us so no on gets lost and made many stops to keep us together. Of course all of them planned ahead and so everyone gets the same experience and no one can complain! Depending if you book a normal tour or a banquett tour you'd be there during the day or in the evening. I don't know if the banquett evening tour is worth it, I heard different stories, so I just did the normal walking tour. And I really enjoyed it!

The bus left the visitors centre with our guide for Hobbiton itself. Once we arrived at the entrance he welcomed us and started the tour talking about the scenes, the building process and other things about Hobbiton.

Welcome!

With our guide we entered Hobbiton =)

He showed us where many scenes were shot and told us of their tricks. There are some very small and some very big doors, depending if they'd make a scene with Gandalf or with hobbits! Of course Gandalf would stand infront of a small door while a hobbit would stand infront of a "normal sized" door.

I was amazed by all the details they had made. Basically it looked like they had just finished filming the movie and left everything just as it was. Just hobbits walking around were missing!

Clothes hanging out to dry, food in small stands, a pie cooling on a window sill - everything! Just fabulous. I loved it.

Really nice, how they built everything so detailed!

Post boxes, chairs, lanterns, so many small things! Amazing!

Gate to Bilbos famous house

Of course a highlight was Bilbos house with the big tree over it. That tree was actually a fake! It was made in Japan so it'd be evergreen (but it's made of metal!). Sometimes when there was a storm or heavy winds, they might have to make new leaves, because they can fall off, but so some lucky travelers might actually get to keep a leaf from Hobbiton!

We had a beautiful day, the sun was shining and it seemed a wonderful day for a party on the party grounds! If only Bilbo was celebrating again. We saw the house, which ended the Lord of the Rings movie - Sams home with his wife. The kids he was holding were actually children from him and another one of the actors. The baby might actually turn 18 in a year or 2! She'll then get the paycheck - should be an awesome birthday present ;-)

The tour ended in the famous green dragon Inn! Everyone had a choice of an ale or soft drink. The ales and beers are being brewed exclusively for the shire! They can only be bought here and maybe in a few official LotR fan shops around NZ. So it was very nice to relax there, sit where hobbits would and drink one of their beers! Fantastic!

The green dragon!

Our guide gathered us and led us back to the bus, where we got to see some more movie clips and a farewell message from the farmer and Peter Jackson.

Eh? What's all this fuss about outside?!

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

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?

The sea, sand, seals and shells (~ Dec 29th)

On the campsite I had to pay more than 20$ a night (almost the price as a bed in a hostel!) so I left and headed out to hitchhike to a place called Warrington. Ronja and Sönke told me it was a nice small free camping site close to the beach.

I made a cardboard sign and stood on one of the main roads north in Dunedin. It didn't take 5 minutes till someone stopped. At first I didn't notice, they passed me and stopped about 100 meters behind me and honked to get my attention. I got in. Didn't really fell too comfortable though... 2 men sitting in front, tats all over (some looking weirdly like the iron cross from Nazi germany?), no hair and speaking with a really really strong accent (I think something south british?). I couldn't tell or understand alot. I wondered if I should have waited a wee bit longer.
But it all worked out. They started talking to me when we were almost there and were apparently into techno and raves (hoping there'd be a party at the campsite on New Years). They dropped me off and said good bye.
I looked for a place to put up my tent and built it between several cars, but I noticed it was very windy again, almost like Wellington... Windy Warrington aswell?! I put my heavy bag inside and hoped the tent would survive (on the package it said the tent doesn't fare well against strong wind or rain... an indoor tent?!). But it said it was ideal for festivals. No idea who makes these tents... But I buy them^^
Anyway I headed out to walk a little around and looked at the nice nature around. Very nice land tongue, great beach with life guards alot of the time and apparently there are sea lions around! And supposedly penguins come into land at some point too, a wildlife paradise!
When I got back to go for a swim (I wanted to get me trunks etc) I realised all the cars were gone and my tent was almost hugging the ground. Now it looked bizarre, that my small orange tent was in the middle of the campsite... So I relocated to a place behind some trees and bushes (where it wasn't windy at all) and where some other people were staying. Then I headed out into the ocean.

Of course the wind didn't stop at the campsite but was blowing the sand all over the beach and onto to ocean aswell. I didn't mind and jumped into the water and went for a small swim, it was once again one of those beaches, wehere you can walk out a long way and not get too deep. I started swimming around, sort of exercising and when I turned to the beach I got a face full of sand! That's how strong the wind way, even 20 meters out I had sand in my mouth... Anyway I went back out and saw something getting attention further up on the beach. It was the sea lion! She just casually was strolling along, looking at the weird humans standing around. The life guard got a little worried, when she started moving towards a car and hoped, that the humans would behave. They did and the sea lion lost interest and eventually went back into the water. 

The Warrington beach

I chatted with the life guard, she was just 18 and finished school, thinking about what to do next. She had always lived in Warrington and knew the sea lion, her name was Joy and was coming to the Warrington beach for the past 3 years, to give birth to a cub. Problem was, that there are several humans around and the mating season of male sea lions is the same as the breeding time of the females. So they do not like it, if the female already has a kid and kill it (which happened to Joy and her first baby). The second time she found a better hiding spot, though it was in the middle of a bike trek, so it was cut off, because the ground was almost the colour of the sea lions. And then some idiot human killed that second cub. Unbelievable. Who would do such a thing?! I can't imagine what must have gone wrong in someones life to kill a little sea lion cub. (not 100% sure if it was in this order, but still one cub was shot by a human...)

But she was back and everyone was hoping, that she could find another good hiding spot and be protected from humans at the same time. Third times a charm!

I went back to my tent and chilled a little. Suddenly I saw something on the hill opposite on the campsite. It was Joy!! She started "barking" and then slid down the hill to the campsite and walked around. She came close to another persons tent and seemed to like it there. The guy stopped everything and gave her some space, but was actually in the middle of putting up his tent. His girlfriend was in the car and just stayed in there, almost trapped. About 10 minutes later Joy left again and walked towards the beach again.

Joy! Looking for a partner/ hiding spot on the campsite?

In the afternoon I went on a walk again and headed out to the end of the lagune and stumbled across some people taking their miniature horses for a walk, that was kind of cute. They also had a small dog along. I had heard that these small horses are very stubborn and not easy to control. And indeed, as soon as the people let 2 of them walk a little freely they sprinted away, so the third joined and got loose from the lady. A wild pursuit started. The horses "running" with their little stubby feet away along the dunes and the humans yelling at them and walking fast after them (they hadn't yet wanted to run after them). It was kinda cute how these short legged creatures ran around, free and all. The tiny dog didn't understand what was happening and just hurried after it's humans, though they had much longer legs and even the horses' legs were longer than the dogs, it could barely keep up. In the end the dog just stopped and eventually the owners caught the horses again and came past the dog again. Now our paths crossed and I simply walked behind them while they were walking through the dunes. On these were some plants, which hindered the sight of the tiny dog again, which suddenly lost sight of it's family and only saw me as a potential helper. I guided it back to it's humans so they could be united once again. Cute little pup ;-)

During the late afternoon I was in my tent again after another short swim and I heard some commotion happening outside. I realised people gathering again around the tent, where Joy was before. She had returned! This time she was relaxing in the shade and was being annoyed by kids and some other adults. Everyone wanted a picture of course and some got too close for that, making her get agitated and maybe a little aggressive, luckily no one was too close so she attacked or did something dangerous. I had planned to head out to the end of the lagune again and try and spy some penguins. 

Second time Joy arrived and just lay down in the shadow of a guys car

You can tell it's a female, because her skin is much lighter, a male would be much darker (info from the life guard)

Panorama of the beach in the late afternoon

Nice shells leaving traces in the sand after the tide

That's what I did. I waited. And waited. As it slowly got dark I got ready to head back home, because it had started raining and with that weather I really wasn't up to keep waiting in the dark aswell... So I gave up and went back into my tent.

Luckily I had my little plastic thing to cover up my tent, so nothing got wet inside, I actually didn't want to risk it, so I'm not sure if my tent is actually water proof or not. Because of the wind and rain the piece of plastic got torn so I threw it away the next day, though it only cost 3$, so I got a new one for the next camping experience!

In the morning some germans approached me and asked me where I got the plastic and if it worked, because they had bought similar tents and wanted to make them waterproof as well. So I told them and when they told me they'd be heading to Dunedin soon, I was able to hitch a hike with them back into the city. Sweet as!

Look at these wicked selfie skills!