Lass mal werden, wer wir sein wollen.

Hey everyone! :) I'm Fabian, 19 years old, from Germany. Welcome to my Work and Travel blog. I'm travelling through New Zealand from August 2015. I post things that I experience during my trip and stuff I like in general or that makes up a special moment, like a moving song or a quote or something.

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Tue, 26/05/2016: Lake Tekapo to Christchurch

The last day of our South Island road trip together. Was pretty much over out of a sudden, quite unexpectedly. Quick stopover in Springfield at the huge doughnut. Sad to leave Christina and even sadder that I sold my babyBeyoncé in Christchurch. Such a home for eight months, horrible to let go of. Sounds stupid, but that's pretty much the only constant thing I had the entire time over here. Luckily could sell it super quickly (literally the next day) so I could continue travelling on my own relatively soon. Christchurch is simply ugly, there's no such thing as a city centre, everything is still destroyed by the earthquake in 2011. So I spent three days in Chch, had a couple of nice evenings of monopoly, drinks and chocolate with friends, got rid of my spare camping stuff out of the car and went straight back to Queenstown cause that city just got me immediately!

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Second part of Mon, 24/04/2016: Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo

The bright blue colour of these lakes apparently is caused by glacier rock particles that are in the water and break the sunlight. That night, we went back to the Church of the Good Shepherd to watch the stars, but it was way too crowded and not dark enough to see more than usually.

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Mon, 24/04/2016: Aoraki/Mt. Cook

Definitely one of the highlights on the South Island. We were super lucky with the weather and did a 3 hour return track to a lake next to NZ’s highest mountain where there actually were icebergs there. Simply stunning! And that’s only one amazing thing we saw on that day.

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Sun, 24/04/2016: Dunedin to Omarama

As most of the days before, we drove a long distance that day. North of Dunedin at the East Coast, there are the Moeraki Boulders, basically just some round rocks in the sea. Further north in Oamaru there was a spot where you could watch penguins coming out of the water again as well as a stunning sunset.

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Sa, 23/04/2016: Dunedin

Main reason we came here: party. It’s a quite nice city though, a few beautiful buildings, especially the train station! And some interesting pieces of art as well as a weird looking car. Best thing was visiting Baldwin St, the officially steepest road where people live in the world. We found it might be a good idea to see how far a water bottle would roll down the street till it stops… it went very far, just for the record.

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Rest of Fri, 22/04/2016: Otago Peninsula

The peninsula next to Dunedin really is a treasure of beauty. Couldn't get my eyes off Sandfly Bay with it's sea lions, the way back up was horribly steep though. We also went to the Royal Albatross Center and drove past two lakes on roads so narrow that two cars could hardly pass, even driving slowly, and that either right next to water or a cliff. Fun... All in all an amazing day though.

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Fri, 22/04/2016: Sunrise at Tunnel Beach, Dunedin

Definitely worth a seperate post!

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Thu, 21/04/2016: Southland/The Catlins

Luckily nice weather and SUCH AN AMAZING COAST!! Literally too many things we've seen to put up photos of all of them. Shown are Curio Bay, Lake Wilkie, Florence Hill Lookout, Jack's Bay and Jack’s Blow Hole which is 55m deep I think and “blows” up water when waves smash the rocks and Nugget Point (I absolutely loved this spot!). On top of that we've been to three waterfalls, Roaring Bay (watching yellow-eyed penguins) and saw a stunning sunset on the way to Dunedin. Also getting to the point where you realise it's not long till I go back home. Today was a day when I permanently felt like I seriously can't leave this behind. I mean, look at it. How could you ever want to swap that for German “landscape”?!

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Wed, 20/04/2016: Southland/The Catlins

Very rainy, but it made it kind of fun, I learned a new rain song haha. Starting at Waipapa Point, we moved on to Slope Point, southernmost point of the South Island (and a good spot to wear sexy outfits, chase sheep and fall on your bum cause it's slippery). McLean Falls were a bit too wet to climb up unfortunately, at least we saw a penguin at Curio Bay at that night.

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Tue, 19/04/2016: Lake Monowai to Fortrose

In those days, we drove quite long distances and saw a lot of things in one day. Luckily, we saw Fiordland at sunshine. Lake Horokau (deepest lake of NZ, 462m!!), Bluecliffs Beach (death by sandflies), McCracken's Rest Lookout, Gemstone Beach, Monkey Island (literally a small rock close to the beach), Colac Bay, Stirling Point in Bluff.

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A few more impressions of that day, on the way from Milford Sound southbound to Fiordland National Park: Lake Te Anau, Frasers Beach and a beautiful peace of scenery on the way.

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Mo, 18/04/2016: Milford Sound

When we woke up that morning it was literally freezing (had to free the windscreen from ice) and we had been standing in the middle of a cloud the entire night. Never frozen that much. The cruise on Milford Sound wasn't much better temperaturewise, but it was so much worth it! A fiord surrounded by huge mountains (1600m?), waterfalls with rainbows, leading into the sea... simply stunning!

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Of course, we did some activities in and around Queenstown. Canjoning on the 13th, hanggliding on the 14th and jetboat riding on the 15th (unfortunately no photos of that one). And that’s not even close to everything you can do there! Still, definitely had a couple of awesome and adventurous days! Especially the canjoning... when you wake up at 7°C and are about to spend two hours in glacier water... yay!

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12/04/2016: day trip to Glenorchy

This is one of my favourite places on the South Island. Really couldn't get enough of that lake and its colour, it was just insane. Could've stayed there for hours.

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10/04 - 16/04: Queenstown Had this view at the lakefront at least every second night, seeing the sun set behind the mountains.

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09/04/2016: Roy's Peak, Wanaka

Question: What's the best thing to do after a night of partying hard when you went to bed at 5am?

Answer: Getting up at 11am and do a 5hr super steep hike! Makes sense. So glad that I was fine eventually, just incredibly tired. Definitely worth the view anyway, one of the best things on the South Island!

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08/04/2016: Wanaka

This little town is really beautiful. A nice lakefront with restaurants and just an amazing atmosphere. Sitting there with a hot chocolate looking onto the lake: priceless. We went out for the first time in quite a while, too.

And of course, a visit at the famous lone tree in Lake Wanaka is mandatory.