The CK Tournament

We won our tournament on the weekend. Friday was a crazy day, I left at 7.45 in the morning and got back home by 11.45 at night. We left for our first game sometime after lunch and that game (2nd game of the day) already started 30mins late. Since our 2nd game was scheduled for 8.45pm (late already!!) we knew that we would be home late but the 2nd game started an hour late… Getting home this late and having to play at 10am the next morning really srewed the girls up, nontheless, they did a fabulous job on saturday, in their 3rd and 4th game and won the tournament! I don’t have the pictures yet, I will post them when I get them!

Snowshoing

Erica picked me up and I stayed with her over the weekend. We had chocolate fondue with the whole family on saturday which was lots of fun! We had a real fountain, and the desciption said it is very easy to clean. Well that’s a terrible lie!! The thing is so hard to clean, it takes forever and it is a waste of chocolate and kleenex! Next time we do it we will have a big party so we can eat longer than clean it up.
We were going to go to Halifax on sunday, Luke (oldest son) should have had a hockeygame in the Metrocentre (where the big guys play and the people who are watching don’t freeze in the rink because it is a huge arena!) and I wanted to meet up with a friend. We got lots of snow that night, probably about 15-20cm and everything got cancelled. Too bad but totally reasonable, you don’t want to drive on black ice for over an hour with a whole bunch of little kids in the car!
We went snowshoing (same here with the pictures) instead and had a great hike! And then we had a wonderful quiet day at home, especially great after two days in a loud and crazy basketballgym!

Exploratories

We have Exploratories for the grade 6-8′s three thursdays in a row. We went Geocashing last week and we are going Skiing tomorrow! Leaving school early to spend the day on the mountain cruising around in the snow! I am excited!!

Debating, Basketball, Football, Superbowl…

Lot’s of things to do in a small town like Middleton! I’ll start off with Debating. My Debating teacher David Stewart asked me to be a judge at the MRHS Debating Tournament. Actually, he asked Mr. Bower (bball coach) firts and he said, you can have her anytime as long as it doesn’t interfere with our basketball. So, of course it did interfere but I worked my way around it.

The Tournament

We had junior and seniors debating, we had five rounds and a big final round. Most of you have probably never seen a debate before (watch “The Great Debaters” , a fantastic movie!), we have two teams, affirmative and the opposition. There are a couple of judges and every member of each team presents a speech in which he or she tries to bring forth his/her points in order to convince the judge and win the debate. It could be a fun bill like “Be it resolved that Spiderman is better than Batman”. Affirmative speaks for Spiderman and the Opposition for Batman. Or we could get into politics like “This house will lower the voting age to 16″. One can make up any kind of bill. Sounds easy, maybe a little boring, but there is a lot more to it and it is lots of fun and nice to watch!

Basketball

I left in the middle of the tournament for a couple of hours to drive to our game. We played our next door rival West Kings and beat their butts. It was my first game to help coach and it turns out I much rather stand on the court and play myself than be on the outside and not be able to interfere in the game other than giving advice and talking to our players. It’s nervewrecking!

The winning team!

Superbowl sunday

Ever heard of a German girl, in Canada, playing Football on Superbowl sunday, in the snow of course, in hockey jerseys? Quite the combination, don’t you think??

Jamie, me & Framer (They are HUGE! Were the two strongest men in the Country. Check out the Strongmen competition, it’s crazy!
We went out on the field in winterboots (with my own pair of course, worked out great!) , snowpants, 4 layers of various kinds of t – and longsleeve shirts, a big winterjacket, hat and gloves. And then you are good to go!
We played for 2,5 hours out in the snow on a beautiful day! It was a whole lot of fun, quite different to the sports that I am used to, yet a great sport! When I got home I had a shower, changed into my PJs (at 5pm), laid down on the couch and could not move for the rest of the day.
And this wasn’t the worst.
The next couple of days (yesterday and today) were BAD! Everything hurts (for once because I ran so much with all those things on me and I dove in the snow (or shall I say ice?)), I can’t walk, run, walk up stairs… I feel like a granny!

me, Bruce & Karen (Bruce Beaton played professional football in the CFL (Canadian Football League) for 12 years! He is too,  HUGE!)

Basketball II

This week is going to be busy, played West Kings again yesterday (beat them again), hosting NKEC today, tomorrow I will be going to a Acadia University ladies basketball game playing Saint Maries University (Halifax) with Erica (my Resource teacher). Thursday is practice, and we participate in a tournament on the weekend. Lots of things that have to be done/won Let’s see how Latin fits in there…

People keep asking me, why do you come back to Middleton NOW?! It is cold, snowy, you can’t really do anything… There is only one right answer: The basketball season is coming to an end, of course I am coming right now and not in the summer time!

The region has only had one snowday (school gets cancelled because of snow/ice etc)  so far. Every year, doesn’t matter how many snowdays we have had, we have a snowday during exams which screws up the whole basketball schedule. Since one is not enough, we had another one today. You would think we have a whole bunch of snow, well… We don’t. We had about 5cm this morning and it is snowing again in the afternoon. Everybody is surprised and can’t believe it because one would think Canadians could handle a few centimetres of snow! It’s nice for the kids, I can sleep in and have a lazy day. Not too bad after all!

The winter has been quite strange. It is cold for a few days and then it will warm up to +5° and everything melts and the next day will be cold and snowy again. I wish the snow would stay, that would be beautiful!
School is going great, I am helping out with all sorts of things. I will be in Yogaclass next semester, helping out in Resource classes (doing things like reading to kids whose reading skills are not quite as good, go over homework with them, I even helped a kid with maths. I think that’s hilarious, considering my maths skills!)
I was with the Bower’s family for most of the weekend, playing basketball, working out in the gym (I think I have never been this sore! Never totally stop working out and start over again. It does not feel good and it makes you feel very old!)  playing with the boys and going shopping. I got myself my first pair of winterboots (on sale, 60€, which is excellent!), real nice!

Up and down side

Snowdays have their up and down side for me. You already know the “upside”, well here’s the downpart: I have to take a 7 week Latin crashcourse this summer in order to get my degree so I can get my Englishdegree. It is a little strange but since I have to do it I don’t have another choice and have to suck it up. And snowdays always give me the opportunity to catch up on my reading and studies. I think the History part is really interesting and I enjoy reading and learning about it but the grammarpart is not my piece of cake. It is frustrating to see that I don’t even know the German grammar… I hope once I get a feeling for it, it will be better!
I am off, to read a little bit and lay in bed and have a nice little nap… I know, I am having a rough life! It’s insane!

Left Fiji with at least 30°C and super humid and got to Halifax with -15°C. This was the coldest day of the year! It looked like winter wonderland, beautiful snow, all white, crispy cold air… Wonderful!
2 days later: 10°C and rain. This sounds like home!

School

It is very nice to be back at my old school. see all those familiar faces, especially teachers and quite a few students, kids off the basketballteam… And everybody is jealous of my rough-fiji-life and super-tan!
People are being very nice to me, giving me lots of space in what I would like to do during my time as an intern/volunteer/kid who helps wherever help is wanted and needed. It’s lots of fun, I am with Mrs Easton, the Resource teacher, she has disabled kids and a whole bunch who just need some extra time and help to get their work done. She supervises them, helps them read, do their homework and exams, writes for some and is just a nice person to talk to when you feel like talking to someone who does not give you a mark in class.  I am helping out there and spending quite a bit of time in various gym classes. Next semester I am going to participate in Yoga class! How cool is that?!

Basketball

Mr Bower, my coach and vice principle, is taking great care of me. I am helping out with the senior girls bball team (the team I was on and won the Provincial Championship with) and  the “Bowers boys” bball team. His boys (Dan&Rob) are twins, 7 years old and the cutest boys on earth. They started playing basketball (no surprise when both parents are crazy about basketball ) on a kids team and I am helping out there as well. It’s lots of fun, playing with a whole bunch of 6 and 7-year olds!

Even though we are still young, Philipp and I have seen many places already. On our trip we have spent nights on couches, in vans, on floors, in a 5* hotel, some beds more comfortable than others. We have met nice people, again, some nicer than others.

We are couchsurfing in Fiji, we live in a small village which is completely independent from the city life. People here don’t pay rent for their houses, they grow their own food, go fishing, Fi’s family has a little canteen to keep them going. They sell candy and instant food to the other villagers to keep them going. Since her Couchsurfers always fly in, she asks them to bring 2 bottles of Bounty dark rum, a fijian rum. In the duty free shop we get two bottles for 49$ and just yesterday she sold one of them for 100$. That’s how they make a living here, you can probably not believe it until you’ve seen it yourself.
Fi and her family are wonderful people, even though they don’t have a lot themselves, they like to share everything with their guests. The house is more like a lodge with cracks and holes all over the place. It is as hot and humid inside as it is outside, you don’t have and don’t need a blanket at night because it is hot enough already. And there are mosquitos EVERYWHERE! My friends know that I always get eaten alive by those buggers, they are driving me insane!

Which drink looks and tastes like mud?

–> Kava, the traditional Fiji drink that you have after dinner. They sit in a circle on the floor (women and men mostly separated) and have one cup after another. It is a powder (gained from the roots of a certain tree) that you mix with water and drink in a certain way. As I said, looks and tastes like mud and numbs your tounge! Again, a very good experience but we are very happy that beer is our national drink!
It is a wonderful experience to see people this happy even though they have such a simple life. Maybe it is because they don’t know anything to compare it to or maybe they are just happy the way it is for them right now. I think this is a beautiful attitude, being content and happy with the things you already have and not missing the ones you don’t have.
In fact, the way we live in Germany or Canada we should not ever complain about anything. We pretty much live in heaven on earth.

Welcome to paradise

• imagine a small island, white sandy beach, crystal clear blue water, the calming noise of small waves breaking, small lodges along the beach­­­­ and every little house has its own couple of benches on the beach, its own part of the beach because noone else is there, its own bathroom…

•     Sounds like paradise?! That’s exactly where we are!

• Got to Bounty Island first thing in the morning, two days of rain turned into blue sky and lots of sun!

• Since our journey has been so exhausting so far (haha) we think we truly deserve a 12 day vacation in paradise!

• We went snorkeling and saw some amazing fish and corals, took the kayak out and paddled around the island in about half an hour, went swimming, finished reading my amazing book (“The Choice” by Og Mandino, I can only recommend it!), went swimming in the really warm pacific ocean….

• Does it sound like paradise? It is! And we are enjoying ourselves very much! Being on almost our own island!

• What I think is really sad though is that people in the villages live by such a low standard and tourists spend so much money to be able to visit those beautiful islands which Fijians will never really be able to see unless they work on them. And like housekeeping in any hotel, this is not a nice job!

• How we spent the evening:

• watching the sunset

• laying in the hammock (on a mattress) watching a very nice movie (Rio)

• going for a swim in the moonlight

• listening to “Benjamin Blümchen als Müllmann” to fall asleep

• as you can read, a beautiful evening!

Seaspray Cruise

• catching  the boat to Mana Island in the morning

• jumping on the sailingboat (Seaspray)

• first stop: Remember the movie Cast away? That’s where we went! We almost saw Wilson, went snorkeling, ran around in the bushes and took a whole bunch of pictures

• we never thought we would ever see the island where Cast away was filmed! Absolutely stunning and also beautiful!

• we visited a small village on a different island and actually looked at those people. We didn’t like it very much because our group (all tourists of course) run around their home and took pictures. How would you like foreign people interfering in your privacy and taking pictures of yourself and your home? Because you have a different skin colour or live in a different way? We put the camera aside and were a little ashamed… Nontheless, it is crazy to see people living this way knowing how we live at home and not cherish it and actually complain about our situation! Ridiculous!

• Jumped off the boat for several times. Into the crystal clear, velvet and bathtub-warm water!

• Full moon tonight! I have never seen the moon this big!

• We got a really good tan today! I am quite excited to get to Canada and everybody will be jealous because I am tanned and they are NOT! Haha

Waya Lailai Resort

• new island – new charme!

• Bounty Island was really small, we could kayak around the island in less than 30 minutes, Waya Lailai is a lot bigger. There’s even a small village on the island which you can visit to have a look at.

• It is a beautiful island, not as flat as you would imagine, one big mountain which you can climb up at 5:30 in the morning. We tried to get up at 6am this morning but that didn’t quite happen so I don’t think getting up at 5am to climb up a mountain is going to happen either… I’d love to, but I know myself and I love my sleep in a big comfy bed before heading out to the reef to go snorkeling and feeding sharks!

• the reef snorkeling was fantastic! We saw (and Philipp touched) sharks and he says they feel really furry. Downside: SO MANY jelly fish! They were absolutely everywhere and we got stung all over the place. No wonder the locals wear long shorts and a shirt when they go out there!

• We learned how to weave and made our own bracelets, necklaces and bookmarks! Really cool! It’s not like we really needed those bookmarks, we were getting along just fine without them, but the ladies were so nice and talked us into it. “When you are done, take a nice long look around our tables (with more stuff), but for now: FIJI TIME! RELAXATION!”

Korovo Island

• The most beautiful sunset we have ever seen!

• Did you know that Philipp is a star at limbo dancing??! Me neither! He beat the locals and everyone else! Genius!

• We got a couple of sets of snorkeling gear and walked over to Honeymoon beach, over the top of the “mountain” and sat on the nicest beach! White sand, palms, crabs, hermaidcrabs and Philipp got me a coconut and I drank all the juice! Tastes really good and is apparently nice for your skin. Downpart: It attrackts those nasty flies even more!  It tasted wonderful! And of course – we went snorkeling!

Coral View

• Ever sat on a Jetski? Very cool! You get wet all over the place, it’s FAST, you can’t see because of all the spray in your face and since I still had a snotty nose, I had snot in my face as well, very attractive! It’s great fun, jumping over the waves, doing 360° and other tight turns… Like a rollercoaster, only 100% better (I hate rollercoasters!)

• What do you think of when you hear “blue lagoon”? That’s what we thought: deep & crystal clear water, colourful fish and corals, the most beautiful thing you have ever seen in your life. Well, apparently we are all wrong! The water was blue but very cloudy that one could not see the ground clearly, most corals were dead which means they are white and not so colourful. Same with the little fishies! A fish with teeth (weird?) bit Philipp in the finger and we both saw a seasnake which was cool. But not worth 30$ each! We were really disappointed about the blue lagoon …

• The cave trip was spectacular! Couldn’t take any pictures because, well it dark and the camera didn’t feel like working. Too bad! Jumped into an “open air cave” and dove into the pitch plack cave. Our boat driver said we should really rent one of his masks because we would have to dive for around 30 seconds. Turned out, we dove for exactly 1,985 seconds and didn’t need a mask because it was still pitch black. Stupid tourists believe everything the locals say! And so we paid 5$ each for the mask which we didn’t need. Good buisness for him! It was a beautiful cave and had a great echo! Especially “Who’s your daddy?!” sounds terrific!

• We experienced the storm of the year! (Not that it actually was, it felt that way though), pouring rain, not pouring Germany style, pouring rain tropical style! Plus lightning and thunder, sounded kind of scary but looked spectacular!

Manta Ray Resort …

… is where we did not get to go to. Very unfortunate! It is supposed to be the most beautiful and most expensive one! Like a 5* backpackers I was told.
Why we didn’t get to go? Awesome Adventures has three ferries, two of which are broken at all times, the third one runs on the motors instead of four. Surprise surprise that this one broke down as well and we had to stay at Coral View for another night. Not bad but Manta Ray would have been wonderful especially because everyone keeps telling us how wonderful it is!

Beachcomber …

• … is the biggest partyisland. It’s like Mallorca, lots of young people, just by looking at them you know they will be totally drunk at night, probably get pregnant because they can’t do anything anymore and be a homeless mum in 9 months… Okay, maybe not that bad, but those kind of people run around there.

• A beautiful island, just like Bounty (oh Bounty, we’ve missed you!)

• The food was absolutely amazing! We noticed, we’ve been living very healthy the past two weeks (beside the coke and cookies once in a while). Kind of strange, because there are certain times to eat, they basically tell you when you are allowed and not allowed to eat. What if I am hungry at 4 pm? That’s just sad! I like to be able to eat whenever I like!

• Thunder,lightning, wind and rain, here we go again! The thunderstorm was right above us, it was LOOOUUUUD!!! One lightning struck the jukebox and knocked it out for a few hours and scared the hell out of all the future mommys.Everyone left early, so no new babies made that night (we assume)… How exciting!

• It was extremely hot and humid! No wonder we had thunderstorms at night! They usually roll in in the afternoon, bang boom bang for a couple of hours and then it’s all good, clear blue (black with stars) sky.

General Review

Best food: Beachcomber
Friendliest staff: Korovo
Unfriendliest staff: Beachcomber
Best entertainment: Korovo
Best snorkeling: Bounty
Best lodge: Bounty
Best beach: Our own little beach on Bounty
Best activity: Jetsky & Cave on Coral View! & Seaspray
Best island for our wallet: Bounty (didn’t have to pay for water & Coke was cheap, snorkeling & kayaking was for free!)
Most expensive island: Beachcomber! (1,5l of water: $7,25 : 1,25l of coke: $8,15)
Best island overall: BOUNTY! We miss you! You are beautiful, nice and quiet, nice and funny staff, good food, beautiful lodge, AWESOME!

Funny, that our tour was called the AWEGASM Adventure. We think it is hilarious!
We had a wonderful and most spectacular time on the Yasawa Islands! The time went by way too quick and we want to come back for sure! Now it is time to say goodbye (really very sad!!!) because travelling together is actually lots of fun! As much as I liked travelling by myself, hopping the islands with a good friend is a lot nicer because you can share the moments! Don’t we say shared joy is double joy! That’s it – exactly! I can approve!
We love you Fiji, you have been AMAZING to us!

Brisbane is very similar to Sydney, as are all bigger cities along the eastcoast… Instead of walking around town we went down to Southbank which is kind of like a Lagoon. A small beach and a pool in the middle of the town and one doesn’t even have to pay an entrance fee. How cool is that?! In Germany we have to pay for every pool! We enjoyed the day laying in the sun, building sand castles and swimming! Beautiful!

Cedarcreek Falls

Our host Bill took us down to the Cedarcreek Falls, it is a waterfall and it has a variety of pools on different levels. Once again, we went swimming and I was standing underneath a waterfall for the first time in my life!

Byron Bay

I miss Monta! What I miss about it? The nude beach! We went to Byron Bay, laid (once again) in the sun on the beach and went nude surfing in the water. I never understood how it can be comfortable to swim in the ocean with a bathingsuite on! To wash off the salt, we went to a tea tree oil lake. The lake doesn’t look very appealing but it is supposed to be very healthy for your skin! Since tea tree oil is very expensive to buy we literally sat in a beauty salon for free!
Did something good for our bodies: check!
Off to eat the most unhealthy and best Nachos I ever had! With beans, beef, cheese sauce, salsa sauce, bbq sauce, melted cheese, lettuce, sour cream. Beautiful!

Australia in general

I didn’t really see a lot of nature which is unfortunate. I think I am quite spoiled after being in New Zealand for this long… Australia is a nice place, yet the cities are too big and there are too many Germans around! I still enjoyed it though but now Philipp and I are ready to go to Fiji! Speaking of which, I am not sure how it is going to work out with the Internet over there. I hope I can keep you guys up to date, if not, you will have to read a much longer article in a couple of weeks!
Talk soon! And I still love some updates from home since you always know what I am up to. That’s only fair, isn’t it?

Happy new year everyone! I wish you all the best, may your wishes and hopes come true!

We had the most wonderful New Years!

This is how our day started: The alarm went off at 5am, we jumped out of bed, drove into town to the Shareton Hotel (5*) where Conny and Tino are staying. We put our bathing suites on and went for a swim on the roof top while watching the sun rise over the city. Isn’t that a nice way to start the last day of the year?
We spent the day wandering around town, watching people hurry to their spots to reserve some space to get a good view of the fireworks. We tried to avoid the big crowds so we went out to Rose Bay (15min drive) where we had the best view of the bridge, the fireworks, Sydney and the harbour. The best thing was, there weren’t many people at all! Which means, we had a great and relaxed day in town and did not have to worry about finding a good spot in the morning and still had a great night on the beach with music in the background!
You all have probably seen the fireworks on tv, they are spectacular! The first one goes off at 9pm, after that every hour (10pm,11pm) and then at 11.30 , 11.45 and then the great big one at midnight which lasts 15 minutes! Just imagine how much money they spend on those fireworks! It’s absolutely crazy!!

Watson Bay

We took Philipp’s mom and her boyfriend out on the harbour cruise to Watson Bay which is actually really beautiful! It is quite touristy, I still like this side of Sydney a lot better! A nice beach and it seems more relaxed than Sydney downtown. It was a very hot day and we decided to jump in the ocean for a couple of minutes to cool down. We did know it was a nude beach but what we didn’t know is that it was a gay beach. Who would assume that knowing that the beach is called “Lady beach”? After the swim we were just standing in the sun, drying off since we didn’t bring any towels and Philipp sat down on a rock to have a smoke and the waves came in and hit his legs once in a while (the water was quite cold) and everytime they did he yelled out like a little girl and just a minute later a guy came over and hit on him. It was hilarious to watch!

January 1st, 2012

It is weird to write 2012! It will take some time to get used to it, as every year! We spent the night on the couch at the hotel and slept in and had a lovely breakfast in the morning! We went to the Sydney Aquarium which was amazing! We saw a whole bunch of weird looking fish, sharks and figures made of Lego! So cool!!
At night we went up the Westfield tower to have a 360° view of Sydney at night. Sydney is so big! You can’t even see the end of it! So many lights, streets, cars, buildings, people… Too big for my understanding!

We are off to Brisbane now. I still had a great time in Sydney even though it is not going to be my favorite city…

Once upon a time (it is actually 3 years ago!) I went to Canada to do a year as a foreign exchangestudent. STEPIN invites you to a preparation workshop right before you fly out of Frankfurt. There I met Nele from Hannover, we spent the day together and sat next to each other on the flight and she went to a school very close to Middleton (West Kings). We always tried to meet up in either Hannover or Bonn but it never seemed to work out. I had no idea that she is in Australia right now. As I walked down the stairs from a hostel where I used the internet to upload my last article we ran into each others arms and could not believe it! I mean, how rare is it that 2 people met 3 years ago, haven’t seen each other since and run into each other in Sydney on the other side of the world?! Really really cool I reckon!
We spent the day wandering around and laying in the sun in the botanic garden and chatted for a while. A nice surprise!!

Philipp’s mom Conny and her boyfriend Tino are coming tonight and we will wait for them at their very nice and quite expensive looking hotel (probably whilst snitching their internet )

I wish you all a happy new year and the best New Years ever!

Time is moving ridiculously fast! I am writing on Dec 23rd, so it is Christmas tomorrow already! That’s insane!! We are supposed to have 35-40°C and clear blue sky. It is bad enough that it is not winter and there is no snow out there, but it is barely 20°C and it is raining every day! That really sucks.

XMAS

The first wonderful day of the year! We slept in, had a nice breakfast, went on a sailing trip with Kai (The guy we are staying with, his girlfriends name is Kristy) and we went swimming in the Pacific Ocean and the water was really nice and warm! In the evening Kai drove us down to the beach with a bag of chips, a couple of drinks and a towel to sit on. Watching waves roll in and out and sit on the beach on christmas eve is a very strange feeling! Nontheless it was a different and great christmas!

Sydney

We live in Miranda, outside of Sydney which means we have to catch the train to the Central Station that takes 45minutes. Since Kai and Kristy left over the weekend we have the apartment to ourselves but also have to walk to the train station which takes another 45 minutes. You see it is quite an effort to to town! We have been saving up all the cool stuff for later on because Philipp’s mom and her boyfriend are coming on the 29th and then we are going to get a car! That is going to make it a lot easier for us. We can go back to being lazy butts
We found a German bakery!!! The best thing ever! I had a pretzel, a real Körnerbrötchen Sandwich and we got sunflower rye bread! They made my day!

Everyone, merry delayed christmas and a happy new year! I hope you enjoyed the last few days of the old year and begin the new year full of joy! All the best!

more photos as always: www.picasaweb.google.com/janimartinius

Before I get started… We spent 42 hours and 48 minutes driving in our car on the South Island! Crazy! All together 62 hours!

Wellington

As I already said, we were totally overwhelmed being in this big city after spending 2 or more months in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t really get to explore there, yet we did see quite a bit driving around and we did not really like it. It is big, a wee bit dirty, way too many people around and stressful. I am sure there are nice parts of it, but what we saw did not impress us.

The drive up North

Neither did the drive. I mean, the North Island is in a very difficult situation since the South Island was absolutely amazing. We gave it a chance but it did not live up to it. We stopped the car after 400km for the first time to actually look at something exciting. It is kind of nice, lots of green, many hills, it looks like Hobbitland but we get this kind of scenery at home in Germany as well.

Rotorua

We spent a day in Rotorua looking at volcanoes, thermal springs, mud pools and a geyser. It did look quite spectacular but the smell of it drove us absolutely crazy! Is smelled like bad eggs, having to smell it all day gave me a huge headache!

Hot water beach

There is a place on the east coast where you can dig your own hole in the beach and it will be like a hot pool! There is a spring 80m underneath the surface with 60-75°C hot water which rises up. We got up at 6:30am to experience it! Quite nice, but be careful, it is very easy to burn your feet and your bum.

Drive to & Auckland

Even more green hills! It was not a very exciting drive… Auckland is HUGE! It is just like another city, lots of people, cars, looks seems like a stressful life in a big city!

Overall

Folks, the first big part of my journey is over! Isn’t that crazy?! It feels like I only left last week! My trip has been absolutely amazing so far! I enjoyed every day of it! I am very happy I got to spend so much time on the South Island, because I think it is absolutely stunning! The North Island is not too bad, it seems like a whole different country and I did not like it as much. We still had a great time though!

Sydney

We are flying out tomorrow afternoon! Off to the next great big city! I am sure we will have a lovely time over Xmas and New Years, especially because we get to see a whole bunch of classmates which is quite nice!

Sydney is SO big! I am quite positive I will get totally lost…