Traveling half the island in 7 days ...

We don't have much further to go until we have traveled half of the South Island, and we have only been here for 7 days. In Kaikoura, we actually planned to do the whale watching tour. But that would have cost us $150, and since both of us are not doing so great financially at the moment, we postponed it for now. However, the campsite had a very nice view of the Alps and the sunset.

Since Hannah is only in New Zealand until mid-May, we decided to plunder our German bank accounts, travel the island, and then work for the rest of her stay. This way, we won't have the stress of finding a job quickly and still want to visit some cities. Looking for a job here is not as easy as expected and we have been searching for quite a while. Anyway, with the new plan, we headed to Christchurch.

You can still see the result of the 2011 earthquake here. On the one hand, the church is still not rebuilt (which they supposedly plan to do, but I think you can rebuild a church in 7 years ...) but the city is also very architecturally mixed. Next to old buildings, there are new ones. The shopping center has now moved into containers because it was also destroyed in the earthquake. I don't know if I like the city or not. It's not an ugly city, but I have been in prettier ones.

After one night in Christchurch, we continued to Oamaru. It's a really cute place. The steampunk style is very present there. We were also there on St. Patrick's Day, so there was a kind of street festival.

In Oamaru, there should also be penguins, but they wanted to charge an entrance fee, and since we are on a budget, we decided not to go and hope to see them somewhere else for free. But we did see seals there again.

We only spent one night there and then continued to Dunedin. And it's really beautiful here. The city is a bit like the less beautiful version of Edinburgh - and I love Edinburgh! On the way here, we also stopped at the Moeraki Boulders, but they weren't that spectacular.

In Dunedin itself, we first looked for a parking space (terrible road layout here... one-way streets everywhere) and then walked through the city. Besides very beautiful buildings that partly reminded us of the buildings in Napier, there is also a lot of street art here.

The Ed Sheeran mural was actually made because he is playing three concerts here at the end of March/beginning of April. The people here in Dunedin are obviously very proud of that. As far as I have heard, only artists who have not yet made a breakthrough or are on the way to oblivion usually play here.

What we treated ourselves to was a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory, which is the only candy we eat here. The tour was not as we had hoped, but we got a lot of chocolate as gifts and felt a bit like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Our plan was to only stay in Dunedin for one day. But then in the evening, a girl we met at the hostel in New Plymouth messaged us. She was also in Dunedin and her car was out of oil and she needed new oil. So we bought new oil and looked for her on the highway. The fact is, when we arrived, the police and tow truck were already there, and something very broken and she didn't need any more oil, it wouldn't have improved anything. Now she had extra costs because of the tow service. We then decided to stay longer in Dunedin and finally bring my car to the workshop. It has been making strange noises and not running properly for months. It's a bit like driving in fifth gear at 20 km/h, but I'm driving a manual. Now we have been here for the third day and finally got an appointment for tomorrow. Hopefully, it's just a small issue and not too expensive. Otherwise, we have to become street musicians.