North Island Tour part 2

Krissy:
As Kathy already said, the tour was soooo awesome and we had a lot of fun.
But I want you to watch these cool pictures so you can imagine how amazing it was!!!

North island tour

I just arrived back from the amazing north island tour we went to for the last 11 days.:



Day 1: We arrived at the Wellington airport yester day evening and today we did a parliament visit in the Parliament of Wellington then a shopping tour through Wellington and afterwords a visit in the famous Te Papa Museum. Tonight we had a free night, where we went to the movies.


 Day 2:We are a group of 46 people and with our managers 50, who come from Hong Kong, Italy, Sweden, Finnland, Brasil, Japan, Thaiwan, New Zealand and so on. Quite big but after a time learning names wasn't that hard anymore. The group is divided into 5 cooking groups. I am an elefant. Today we went from Wellington to Taupo where a few guys had theire Bungy Jump.On the way we saw a active vulcano. At the evening when it was already dark we went to hot water pools, which are like boiling.

Day 3:Today was awesome. We could sleep till 8 o'clock, which fells quite long for us. It was 'pick a German'-Day so everybody had to sit next to a German in the coach. We were being at the Mud Pools, which look like lakes but full over mud instead of water.





They smell trrible and the whole town called Roturua smells after this pools, but you get used to this smell after a while. In Roturua we did Luge, which is like cart riding, but without gas and just down the hill. it was so much fun. Because I am in the elefant group i had to help in the kitchen today.

Day 4: Today some of our group did white water rafting. It was amazing and so scary. When we went there they told us, that it's grade 5 from 6 and that there is a 7 meters waterfall is. How you can imagin this WAS quite scary.

In the evening we went to a typical Maori festifal  with an Hangi and this typical Maori song and dance thing. It was so awesome and I loved it.
Day 5:Today we had to get up early. After breakfast we started our 9 hour drive trough Auckland to Paihia. We arrived for dinnertime and so we could have our tea directly.After this the girls learned two Maori songs and the boys the Haka. Then we performed this at the beach, which was amazing, because it already was dark and couldn't actually see anything.Afterwords we played group games which was so much fun.
Day 6:Today we went to the 'swimming with the dolphins' cruise and although we weren't allowed to swim with them because there were so many baby dolphins, it was awesome just to see them. I the afternoon did parasailing with a sail on the boat. And because this area is called 'Bay of islands' I could see heaps of them from above. It was amazing and I could do this all day, just hanging around in the air:-D
Day 6: on this day we had our trip to the nothest point of the North Island: Cape Reinga. unforunaly it rained likeit was the end of the world and when we did sand boarding on an amazing huge sand dune, we all got totally wet and were covered in sand. So we had to go to the see having a quick cleaning up swim. It was very cold after that, because everything was already wet, but we had heaps of fun. Cape Reinga was awesome because the two seas Tasman and Pacific meet there and because i was so windi. Actually it's a place of death because people normally come there for thinking about theire dead loveones.

 Day 8: This day was awesome. We went on an boat trip to small islands for go snorkeling and kajaking there. Sadly some people had to throw up and couldn't enjoy the trip because of the stormy wetter and waves. We also went to Auckland with the coach, where we went to town and where I had the best ice cream i have ever eaten.
Day 9: Today was our last day. We went to the sky tower in the morning, where we had an amazing view of the city although it was really cloudy. After that we had a free day in Auckland and in the night we had our goodbye party with signs, group fotos, buddy gifts, pizza, and a lot of hugs.

This trip was amazing!!!!!

South Island Adventure Tour!

The last 10 days I have been travelling around the South island together with Britta and Anne from this blog. It was awesome to see more of New Zealand. The landscape is just stunning. We started in Christchurch where we met all the other students that were travelling with us. We were 47 pupils in total, 42 of them were Germans, 3 were Japanese and 2 were Brazilians.  So nearly all of us were Germans. We couldn’t stay in Christchurch, because of the earthquake in February. So a bus took all of us directly to Kaikoura.

Kaikoura is famous for going Whale watching or for Swimming with dolphins, but sadly the weather was not that good, so that the boats couldn’t go out on the open sea. That is why we watched a seal colony that day. They had a lot of cute Puppies and they were sitting just two metres away from us.

Then we drove up too Motueka, which is a little town close to the Abel Tasman National Park. We did a professional Group Picture in the morning and then we went Sea kayaking in the Abel Tasman. It was really easy for me, because I had done it before as you may know. The Abel Tasman was looking like the Paradise again, so it was nice to be there again.

On the next day we drove along the stunning West Coast. We stopped at one of my highlights. The Pancake Rocks! On pictures they look just like rocks, but when I saw them life they were so fantastic. When we finally arrived at our Accommodation I did my first optional activity. I took a helicopter flight up too the top of Franz Josef Glacier. It was really cool to see the Glacier from above. While the Glacier looks dirty at the bottom, it is so white and clean at the top. After dinner we could relax in pure hot water glacier pools.

The next day we drove to Wanaka, where we visited Puzzling world. This was so funny. You could go through rooms where thousands of faces were watching you or you could explore techniques they used in the Lord of the Rings. By the way, the whole time we were in the bus, we watched Lord of the Rings, which was really cool, because at the same time you were driving through nearly the same landscape.

My personal highlight was Doubtful Sound. We arrived there the next day. Doubtful Sound is a huge Fjord. We slept on a boat in the middle of the Sound for one night. We had a really nice buffet in the evening and it was so much fun on the boat.

We spent our last three days in Queenstown. On the first day we visited the famous Kawarau Bridge, where we could do an optional bungy, but I was to scared J

On our second day we took a ride on a Shotover Jet Boat. It was so cool. They Boats were super fast and suddenly they turned around by 360° or they really close to the stone walls around you.

Afterwards I went horse riding, which was amazing. I haven’t been on a horse for 3 months, so I was super excited. My horses name was Earnie. We were riding through “The Lord of the Rings “- landscape the whole time. The guide could always tell us where they shoot a scene of the film. We were cantering a lot, so it was not boring at all.

On the last day of the whole trip we took the Gondola in Queenstown. You had an amazing view over the whole town, which is so beautiful. On the top of the mountain we took the Luge, which is a bit like a “Sommerrodelbahn” in Germany.

In the evening we had a Farewell Party and everyone got the group picture we took in Motueka. It was a nice time and I am so happy that I could see more of the stunning South island! Sorry that the text is so long, but I simply had so much to write.

On the boat

The amazing Doubtful Sound

Me on Earnie

The Pancake Rocks

Sealcolony in Kaikoura

Cathedral in Nelson, where we had a lunchstop.

Kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park (again).

Helicopter flight to Franz Joseph Glacier.

Jule with her horse.

Some pigs at the farm.

Me enjoying horseriding. ;)

South Island Tour

Ann: I´ll tell you something about our south island tour.
We were three japanese girls, one brasil boy and girl and all the rest were germans. There were just nine boys and 37 girls. We had one leader and two other adults to take care of us and they all were female, too.
Our tour took 11 days. We met in Christchurch and went up the east coast through Kaikoura, Motueka, where we went kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park, where Marie, Bees; Kathy and I were with our PE-class before and then we went down the west coast to Franz Joseph, where I did a helicopter flight. After that we went to Wanaka and to Milford Sound and we were one day and one night on a boat in Doubtful Sound. From there we went down to Queenstown, where we stayed 3 days and our tour ended. Sadly we couldn´t stay in Christchurch because of the earthquake, so we straightly went to Kaikoura, where we wanted to go whale watching and swimming with dolfins, but the weather was too bad, so we couldn´t do that eather. The first days were a bit borind then, but so we had enough time to get to know all the others and never the less the trip was awesome!!
 In Queenstown we went jet boating and took the gondola up a hill, where we did two lugerides. The rest of the time in Queenstown we went shopping or did some optional activities.I want to tell you something about the optional activities I did now.
I did a 20 minutes helicopter flight up to the Franz Joseph Glacier with snow landing, which was very cool.
We could walk on the Glacier and of course we took some photos!
I also went 2 hours horseriding through some places where the lord of the rings was made. It was very nice, the nature is amazing! We were 8 people, Jule and I and some other people we don´t know. Jule and I were the only ones that have been horseriding before, so we just did 3 trabs and 4 or 5 gallops - or counters, how they say here - which was a bit boring, but I really enjoyed it and it was good to do horseriding again. We also saw a horse that played in the lord of the rings!!

Easter Holidays!!!

Today the easter holidays have started!!! We can recover from school for weeks...we could...but of cause there is nothing like recover for us;-D today my sister and me, will fly to Wellington, where our trip through the nord island will start. I am very exited about that and wish you all wonderful holidays and fantastic eastern...see you in two weeks then...when we all come back from our trip:-D

Last Weekend!

Marie: Even when it is already in the middle of the week, I want to write about my last weekend. On Saturday we wanted to do a barbecue. So we went to the super market and we bought some really yummy stuff. Then we went to a barbecue place close to my home, but sadly it didn’t work. Krissi and I went all the way back to cook everything at my homestay. In the end we had a nice meal, but it was already four o’clock and we ate lunch J

On Sunday we went to the museum here in Dunedin. It was really cool. In the Discovery centre, which was just 5$, you could do a lot of cool things. You could try out funny experiments and then you could go into a butterfly centre, where you could see a lot of different kinds of butterflies.

Netball

Ann: Yesterday my hostmum, her daughter, my two hostsisters and I first went shopping and then we went to a netball game. It was quite cool. It was a women competition and our team won! Netball is a quite important game in new zealand, many kids at school play it and many people watch it. It was a very cool game, we had a lot of fun!

SHOPPING SHOES

bees: You may already know that St. Hilda´s has a formal in a few weeks and of course we are all going to go. That´s why we now all need dresses and/or shoes. So today I went shopping with my homestay mum and her sister who is in my year group at St. Hilda´s. I´ve found some pretty cool shoes. They´re blue (of course) and perfectly match my black dress :)                                                                                  

Ou-ed Mt. Cargill

Lena: Yesterday we went with Outdoor Education for a walk down Mt. Cargill. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best. But never the less we had some really amazing views.
We went down the Bethune Track, which was really cool,  and saw where the mountain bikers do their biking.
It was a really funny and we had some good german snacks :D  But we had to were so many wool clothes and polyprop tops and a lot of other clothes, because at the top of Mt. Cargill it was so windy! :D

Visitors & School trips

Marie: As you may already have noticed, the school in New Zealand is totally different from school in Germany. In the lastccouple weeks, all the classes did a lot of field trips or got visitor. I want to write a bit more about what exactly we do.
For example, we went to the beach with our Bioclass. There we counted cockles (a special kind of mussels). About this we now have to write an essay. In Germany, you never do that much field trips.
As I already said, we get a lot of visitors in the classes. In Health Education, we first had a doctor visiting us for two lessons and now we have a police women, how is talking about drugs and all this stuff.
From other classes, I know that they do field trips and so on as well. You go rock climbing, golfing or to the aquarium.

I really like that we get that much visitors and that we do field trips. It makes school a bit more interesting and varied.

Asian Food

Today we were at an Asian food restaurant with all internationals from our school. It was really cool and a lot of fun!!! I ate so much because this asian staff is defenetly one of the best things I have ever eaten. I love it although eating with chopstics is't a easy thing that's why it took a million years to eat one bowl of rice!!!

"Goodbye Picnic" at the beach

Lena: Yesterday Katharina (both), Jule, Krissi, Anne, Britta, Sophia and I organised a "surprise picnic" at the beach for Kyra. We told her we would meet in town and would do something together. But instead Jule and Kathy went to Kyra's house and picked her up. They told her a lot of lies which she believed and they went to the beach without any anticipation. Then we had our picnic and after that we run down some steep dunes. This was so fun :D The last time we all ran down together, but we were too fast and fall all over. :D

It was a really nice day :)