Vorletzte Woche und Neuseeland

Last week and New Zealand.

On Friday after I came back, I decided to drive to Nelson in the evening. I slept on the side of the road at night and then continued driving in the morning. When I reached the sea and saw the sunrise, I knew again why I like Nelson so much. The sea was mirror-smooth and the sunrise was incredibly beautiful. At noon, I booked the hostel for Los Angeles at the library.

The next morning, I couldn't start the engine, the battery was dead. It had been announced for a long time, but now the time was up. So I went to a store and bought a new one. Since I couldn't drive there, I had to carry the not so light battery back for 1.5 kilometers. Back at the car, I jumpstarted it with the new battery and went to a tool store to get tools for changing the battery. With the tools and the new battery, I drove to a parking lot to exchange them there. The reason I didn't want to go to a workshop is that the battery is installed under the passenger seat and the mechanics I had spoken to before had complained about the design. Besides, I like to tinker myself. After an hour of tinkering, I managed to change the battery. The difference was noticeable immediately, as the engine started much faster than in the whole past year.

On Thursday, I drove to French Pass, which is located far to the northeast. It went over a very winding, partly unpaved road to the campsite. French Pass is a small town, but the view is incredibly beautiful. When it was dark, I lay down on the pier because you could see an incredible number of stars with the new moon and the distance from any big city. I also tried to capture the stars in photos, but it didn't really work. On the photos, you could see about 3 of the countless stars of the Milky Way.

In the morning, before sunrise, I went back to the pier to make a time-lapse video of the sunrise. That worked really well, you can see how it gets brighter and the boats in the water move back and forth. After breakfast, I drove back to Blenheim, where I transferred all the pictures to the hard drive and got tickets for the attractions in LA. Then I went to the campsite, where I finally could take a shower.

Now to the reason why there are no pictures:

I got ready on Friday morning and packed my things to go to the library. That's when I realized that my hard drive was missing. I searched the car, all the places where I usually put it, but found nothing. Then it occurred to me that I was at the library, and I suspected that I left it there. So at 10 o'clock when the library opened, I drove there and asked, but no one had turned it in. After that, I went to a parking lot outside of town to turn the entire car upside down, but that was unsuccessful too. So now I'm missing my hard drive with all the photos of the trip, from Singapore, the time in Auckland, the trip with Robin, and the time I worked. Even though I posted photos on the blog, there was still more on it. I have posted missing posters at the campsite, but I estimate the chances of someone contacting me as rather low. I will spend a few more days in Blenheim than planned and hope that someone will contact me.