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