Montag, 28. Februar 2011

11.0.1 - 26.01. Gerolstein & Westcoast: Karamea to Hokitika

Vera, Darcy & I
New starter: let´s find a place to stay. Our first woofing place. Guess where? YES, a horse farm!!! I was/am still soooo happy about this! Wendy and Kurt are very kind and it feels similar to coming home, everytime when we come back to the farm. What we did there? Well, much of "shit shoveling", sometimes collecting branches (like today -->we´re are back) and most of the time enjoying our time here! They also took us to some races and even put us on a cart, yeah ; )
However, when you´re travelling you always have to say goodbye and that was what we did, after 2 weeks. We went on over the Lewis-Pass (stunning scenery!!) to Westport and stayed one night at a DOC-Campsite in Karamea. It´s not worth a visti, believe me! Everywhere Sandflies! Uagh!

next Stop: Lake Brunner, lovely! Sightseeing at the Brunner mine (the biggest mine disaster in the New Zealand history happened here) and off we went, meeting Sophia in Greymouth. It gives you such a great feeling to see your traveling friends again! Greymouth is quite nice, though, and we had a good afternoon there.


Now it gets exciting again: 
Next Woofing Place = Hokitika



On our way were the Pancakerocks (very touristic!), where we unfortunately missed low tied. Therefore we didn´t see the blowwhole effect, but it was still quite impressive.

Donnerstag, 24. Februar 2011

26.12. - 11.01. goodbye North Island, Hello Soutisland!

written 4 weeks ago.....

Ok, guys, it happened so much!!!!
amazing!!!
We´re sitting in a McDonalds in Queenstown (free WiFi, whooohooo^^) and we´ll have for lunch one of the great Burgers from Ferg Burgers, I´m really looking forward to it!!!

Looking back at the last weeks, I have to say, that there were many downs.... However, I would like to tell you the ups ;P

Mr.McMinn, the unsheepy sheep, Meyner & I
a heart for Lisa <3
Christmas BBQ
I´m soooo sorry, girls ;P










But at first I have to say, that it was really hard to celebrate Christmas without you guys.... I always had to stop myself thinking about home.... Like my (;P) girls are together in Church, singing "Stern über Bethlehem" or my family, sitting together at home, only I was not there.....
Anyway, we had a nice Christmas, I think, as nice as possible, so far away from home and in summer. Honestly, it´s NOT Christmas without at least cold temperatures!!!! ;P

I flew with Vera to Christchurch (26.12.) and we had to stay there for almost 2 weeks until we found a van... We almost had 2 before the one, we´ve now, but the owners told us (1/2 h!!!) before the change of ownership, that they still need it, or that someone else had give them 100 $ more.... Right now we´ve got a Mitshubishi L300 (uncle Tom;P) and we already had to do some repairs AND we try tro sell him again... But for now we´re still travelling with him and we had our first wildcamping night at a "strictly no camping" bay, hihi ;P

New Years eve...

mess... ;P












We met many nice people in Christchurch. A couple from Berchtesgarden (I was soooooo glad about hearing the bavarian dialect again!) Susi, a couple from Seatle, one guy form Israel (Eilan) and Maritn, another German guy. We already met most of them again, only Martin is missing.

YES, I AM crazy!
May I introduce? Uncle Tom

Akaroa, Lighthouse

view out of Uncle Toms´ window, first morning



Little blue Penguin
Ok, after we bought the van, we traveled to Akaro to swim with Dolphines. Hector Dolphines, the smallest Dolphines in the world. They are very tiny, almost like a cuddly toy, very cute! Akaroa itself is a nice town, actually it´s called the frenchest town of New Zealand and we exploerd the area together with the Israleli, who joined us for 3 days.

Than: back to Christchurch to get a new starter for the car. I´m still surprised how nice the Kiwi mechanics are! they tell you, just straight away, well, go to that and that garage, it is cheaper for you! And that happened at several garages (yeah, we know quite a lot by now...^^)

Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2011

23.12. - 26.12. back in Wellington --> Home.....

Isambard, the new haircut & the heart
Jeremy and Meyner picked me up and Michaela gave me a big hug, as we arived at home. Meyner told me, very excited, that we´ll have a little Christmas celebration tonight, just for me, what made me very happy. It also increased my feeling of coming "home". Besides this, I got great, selfmade gingerbread from the kids, Isambard even made a heart for me.d Aaaaand, there was a parcel from Germany with Christmas presents. Afterwards I thougth, mhhh, maybe I should have opened it with my parents together, but I wanted to do it right now and meyner wanted to see it, too^^

Thank you so much for the cards and the unsheepy sheep!



Mr. McMinn, Meyner, the unsheepy sheep and I