My last days in New Zealand

My last week in New Zealand

19.02-27.02

On Sunday (19.02) after an 8-hour drive, we finally arrived in Hanmer Springs. We decided to extend our stay for another night because we liked the hostel so much. On Monday, we went to the city center and the library (to use the Wi-Fi and plan the next few days). After having dinner back at the hostel, we went to the Conical Hill lookout. Since Fritz wanted to fill up his memory card, we took hundreds of photos on the way. (Some of them turned out really cool😄)

The walk was quite challenging, but worth it.

On Tuesday, we went for a walk in the Hanmer Springs Forest before heading to Waipara to stay at a hostel. The weather was scorching hot, so we spent the whole day in the shade before driving to a nearby town for shopping.

The hostel grounds had a few old train wagons, and the kitchen was designed as a 'Railway Station.' It was actually a cool idea, but the execution was not great.

Wednesday was similar, and we started watching a new series (True Detective) that Max recommended to us in Nelson.

From Thursday to Saturday (23.02-25.02), we stayed at a holiday park in Rangiora. On the way there, we stopped at a beautiful beach where we watched surfers in the water and a kindergarten group doing running exercises with two lifeguards.

Fritz enjoyed his yogurt, and I had frozen blueberries before we continued our journey two hours later.

We sat in the library, and eventually, someone started playing the piano. We followed the music and found Edith Fischer and Jorge Pepi-Alos, a piano duo from Chile, practicing for their performance the next evening. We watched them for about half an hour before hunger struck, and we drove back to the campsite.

After a leisurely breakfast on Friday, we went back to the city (which is really beautiful, by the way), and Fritz went to the hairdresser. We also went back to the library, checked our social media pages, and had a discussion about our bank accounts before returning to the holiday park and spending the rest of the afternoon by the pool in the sun.

From Saturday to Monday, I spent my last days in New Zealand in Christchurch.

We completely emptied the car as Fritz planned to sell it in Christchurch. Then we went to the car wash and vacuumed it thoroughly.

We also went to the city center (there is a part where all the buildings are made of containers), which looks super cool. I definitely like Christchurch better than Auckland!

We spent Sunday watching the Hobbit movies and escaping from the rain.

Monday dragged on, as Fritz had decided to keep his car, sell it in April in Auckland, and go back up to Kerikeri to work.

Saying goodbye was harder than expected.

But no matter how much we got on each other's nerves in the last few weeks, we have already gotten used to each other in that long time...

Now I'm heading to Sydney for 8 days...