Loosing a travel companion and a boiled foot in the garden

Hello hello again,

at the time of writing, I am in Christchurch again. Amanda left yesterday to Sydney Airport and I had to send out some more applications. The library here is awesome!

Anyway, it's already been a week again and there is a lot to tell you guys!

Here are two big, famous glaciers, the Franz Josef Glacier and the Fox Glacier, we wanted to see the Franz Josef one and had the worst luck with the weather - it was pouring rain..

As you already see in the picture above, I went past the sign.

Usually it is easy to cross this river. Now it has been a monstrous enormity with freezing cold water from the glacier. The rain even accelerated the melting process of the glacier.

We left, cranked the heater in the car all the way up and started drying our shoes. We considered going to the Fox Glacier but since it was raining so heavily, it would probably also be inaccessible, so we agreed on driving until the rain stopped.

Australia and New Zealand are famous for their meat pies. The most common one is mince (grounded beef) but there are all sorts of fancy variations. They are sold at gas stations for 4-5 NZ$ (3-3,5 euro). And they are amazing, totally digging these things.

While driving we saw a lonely soul walking on the roadside and offered her a ride. Sam turned out to be very interesting company and she came with us the day.

The rain eventually stopped and there were short walks just off the road, so we had some exercise for the day.

Ok, next stop were the blue pools. They are famous for their incredible turquoise color - even for New Zealands standards.

Anyway, the walk up there was nice. Sam decided to continue her walk without us. As we drove, we saw her again on the roadside and picked her up again. She wanted to go to the same city than us in the morning (it's called Wanaka) and we camped together. The campside was 15 minutes on a dirt road and would have been extremely challenging with a two wheel drive but Otto brought us there back and forth without any trouble!

Amanda got some friends in the region who are really into hiking. They wanted to go to a mountain called 'Isthmus Peak' which was also on my bucket list, so we got together the next morning and started hiking! Amanda chickened out tho and had a relaxed day with Otto. Can honestly highly relate to that but I wanted to see that mountain.

There are two huge lakes at the foot of the mountain. Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. You can see them both from the top. They don't really fit in one picture. One of the hiking gang had a drone, that will probably do it but I don't have the pictures yet - maybe I'll get my hands on them later.

The dude on the left turned out to be German and from my City. We studied at the same time at the same university (he did mechanical engineering tho), have friends in common and he lives 2 streets away from my mums place. The world is so small - even on some peaks on the other side of the world.

Amanda and I had to do some laundry, get a shower, maybe even have computer access (for my applications and the blog which didn't work in the end, which is why I'm in the library right now), so we searched for some dude on couchsurfing and found Wayne.

Oh. My. God. I mean, he was super friendly with us but he is also kinda crazy. So this is his story:
He is a motorbiker and deeply in love with Harley (he calls her his wife), had a big accident months ago and shredded one of his legs. He showed me pictures of the crash site and a close up of his leg. Not very yummy to look at. Then he was brought to a hospital where he got stitched up. His leg swelled to three times its diameter and looked like a huge sausage (I've seen pictures again). He then had the option for an amputation which he did. After the operation he asked the doctor where his legs would be and took them home where he threw them in a pot and boiled the flesh off from them (not kidding here, I saw a video. Don't ask.). After story time, he showed me his garden, where besides delicious tomatoes his foot rested, in a metal cage, so no predators would snack upon it.

Definitely my weirdest couch surfing experience so far... So yeah, that was Wayne.

Wayne was talking about the 'Skippers road', New Zealand's most dangerous road and that it would be very beautiful.

And of course, we went! With Otto being so reliable, we felt extremely confident. Right after the entry, we picked up a hitchhiker, Francois from France.

Wayne was right about the beauty of the road, and officially it IS New Zealand's most dangerous road, yet it is a joke compared to the small and windy roads I've seen in the Andes of Argentina.

You see all the pine trees being grey and dead in the picture above? That is because they have been poisoned by the government! No, this is not some weird ass conspiracy theory, pines are a big issue and a huge threat to indigenous trees because they take rapidly over their 'territory' and turn original Kiwi forests into pine monocultures. The tree was brought here by settlers and now costs millions to get rid of again.

The end of the road was a small historic school which is a museum nowadays and a camp ground. We really liked it there and decided to chill for the rest of the day.

Amanda and I had a chill camp close to Christchurch and celebrated our last evening with some beers. On the next morning, I drove her to the airport, happy for her to see Australia again, sad that she already left..

My adventure continues now alone again. I think I will go to see the North Island. Everyone said it's not as beautiful as the southern one, yet there are also some great hikes, the water is warmer, and there are almost no sandflies.

I'll keep you updated,

Love and peace,

Laurin