Monday the 12th August 2019
On our first day, we had to get up early and meet at the school. We were 12 students, five from Germany, two from France, two from Japan, one from Italy, one from Finland and one from South Korea. We had a lot of stops, during the drive, where we took photos and enjoyed the fabulous view. Our first stop was at the playground whit the big donut statue. We already went there during the Rubicon Valley Trip, but we took some photos there again. Lake Lyndon was our next stop. I’ll just leave the photos here (: . We had lunch at, who will guess it? Right in the Winter wonderland from “Frozen”. After that, we had a short walk to a cave with a waterfall. After more stops for photos and a short walk in a forest, we finally arrived at our first accommodation where a few of us went to the hot pools. The dinner was as much Pizza that we could eat (: .
Tuesday the 13th August 2019
After a night with an earthquake (no one noticed, don’t worry it was a really small earthquake), we had to get up early again. We drove to our first stop the Franz Josef Glacier. Our bus driver – Eric- had a challenge for us. The “Waterfall-Challenge. Where you stay under water that is cold as ice, which is directly from the Glacier. It was too cold for me. The only one, who was brave enough, was Hannah.
The view at the Glacier was, how I expected, beautiful. After the Glacier, we drove to our lunch stop at the West Coast Treetop walk & Café. After a more boring than exciting walk around, as well as the lunch we drove to our second accommodation in Hokitika. We had some free time, so a few of us went to the beach, but it started to rain, so we went back. After the dinner there was a “mystery secret”. We drove to a little part of a forest. We had to use our flashlights because it was already dark, and you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We walked until a dead end and that was where the magic began. We turned off our flashlights and saw star-like lights directly in front of us. There were glow worms! It looked magical! Back at the accommodation we played some really funny games, which I’ll teach my friends in Germany!;)
Wednesday the 14th August 2019
Our first stop was at a place, which couldn’t be more beautiful. I’ll also just leave the photos. They speak for themselves. And yes, the water was blue, like on the photos and totally clear! Unfortunately, I can’t remember what this place called, but I call it the blue paradise :). We did some more photo stops through the drive to our third and last accommodation, which was also the best, and had lunch in Greymouth. Our third accommodation was a house just for us. It was pretty cool. Some girls had the fantastic idea to dye their hair for the formal on Saturday. Actually, it wasn’t a fail, and it looks really good.
Thursday the 15th August 2019
First we go for a walk at the Pancake-Rocks. The view was fabulous blah, blah, blah. Here are the photos.
I’m not kidding. I really can’t describe, what I saw. It was just breathtaking. On the last day, we got out of the bus, walked two minutes and saw a damn BLUE river. It was picture-perfect. The next day we did the same at the ocean. There were the biggest waves I saw in my life. It looked quite cool, when the waves hit the rocks with the sun, the endless horizon… oh my god. It was just amazing.
After that, we went kayaking on the Porarari River. It was really exhausting, but the view… it was worth it! I was too scared to take my camera or phone with me, so I have no photos, but Hannah did some, so I’ll upload the photos, when I get them ;). Because it was so exhausting and my arms hurt, I gave up and paddled back with Mina and Ludovica.
Back at the house, we had to cook our own lunch. Hannah, Lilly and I made some wraps, which were quite good.
After that we relaxed for a while, so Hannah and I played some games and went with Lilly to the Punakaiki Beach. We hoped for a sunset, but we didn’t get one…:/ However, we got really nice pictures and it was a lot of fun with them!
Friday 16th August 2019
On our last day we had to get up early again. We had a really long drive ahead of us, but made a few stops to take photos, to eat or just to get out of the bus. It wasn’t that exciting just amazing views like everyday. At the Truman Track, we saw the ocean for last time, which was, again, breath-taking. There were some cheeky, flightless birds, called Weka, which were looking for food. They were quite funny.
I think the best thing from the trip were definitely Tim Tams! Tim Tams are chocolate biscuits, covered in chocolate = Really good! But more it was, that we all got to know everyone a little bit better and had a great time together.
Finally, I can upload this post wuuh, also sorry for being late. I know it isn’t Wednesday and I know that it is already 2 weeks later. However, I have an excuse, I was sick and the Wi-Fi didn’t work well.
To catch up, the last week wasn’t really interesting anyway, so if the next week is more interesting I’ll write next weekend! (;
I thought Europe was a country!
Lauren Johnson (Host Sister)
My life in New Zealand 