The program is officially over and we had to say goodbye to each other yesterday already. I never thought that this would be so hard, but I had some tears in my eyes. During my last week abroad, I decided to fly back to Straya one more time, and spend some days on New Zealand’s South Island. This is how my days looked like:
Saturday (03/09): Since I flew to Sydney on that day, I had to get up at 4.30am. I took an Uber to the airport, sat more than 3 hours on the plane, which was nice because both seats next to me were empty, so I could spread out! Afterwards I took a shuttle to my hostel- the Village Glebe- before making my way to meet a friend of mine, whom I met in Cairns. She is an au-pair close to Sydney right now, so we decided to spend the weekend together and it was so much fun! We walked 35000 steps this day and saw so many typical spots: Chinatown, Darling Harbour, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House by night, and the Rocks. We got home late and both of us were so tired that we went straight to sleep.
Sunday (03/10): This day was a day to remember! Not only because I got sunburned really, really badly, but also because we took the ferry to Manly Beach. It took us about 20 minutes to go there, and the village located there is just so cute, with plenty of shops and restaurants. We then put our stuff on the beach and explored the ocean. Some waves there were crazy and the water was not as warm as expected, but we had a lot of fun! And when we had lunch at Criniti’s, I realized that my back hurt. I looked into a mirror and saw how red my entire backside was! The upcoming days were painful…
Monday(03/11): I had to say good-bye to my friend because she needed to get back to work again, which means I got to explore the city by myself. I took the bus, since walking hurt a lot, and got off at Hyde Park, where there is the ANZAC–Memorial and a fountain. From there, I walked past a pretty church, to the Art Gallery Museum and to a viewpoint from where you can see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Then I walked back through the Botanic Gardens and up to the Observatory. Those two attractions are free to visit, as well as the Art Gallery. Since I am a huge fan of Hard Rock Cafes, and Sydney actually has one in contrast to Melbourne or Auckland, I had an Aussie-Burger and a Cocktail there, before I took the tram back to my hostel and relaxed a bit with my sunburn.
Tuesday (03/12): Today I met another friend. I know him from Melbourne, where he was for vacation and since he lives in Sydney, he managed to make some time to meet me, which was fun, because he showed me some districts of the city. It was incredible hot that day, and I begged to stay out of the sun because I did not want my sunburn to get any worse!
Wednesday (03/13): The day had arrived, where I left Sydney again and flew to Queenstown, in New Zealand. I picked up a car, that I rented before, drove on the other side for the first time in my life, which was a bit scary at first, and made my way to the city. In about 2 hours, I explored every shop it has to offer and had dinner, so I was just waiting for my friend to come. When we found each other, we went to a shop and hired a tent and two sleeping bags, went to Countdown to get some groceries, and drove to our first campsite: the 12 Mile Delta. We could not find it at first, since it was dark, but after driving around some time, we did and we had to put up our tent in the dark. The sky was full of stars, which was amazing! I saw the Southern Cross and also the Milky way.
Thursday (03/14): I looked forward to that day since I booked the best experience I ever had: the world’s biggest swing- Nevis Swing. We checked in at the shop in the city center, got on a bus and drove to the mountains. There, the staff put a harness on me, and I walked across a bridge, to get to the point, where they would drop me from a height of ~170m. When it was my time and I just hung there, the guy made me count from 3 to 1 in German and then he pushed the button and I was falling!! It was an amazing experience and I am so happy I did it! I also bought a video of me falling; I just can not upload it here…Afterwards, we drove 3 hours to Mount Cook- to our next camping spot: the White Horse Hill. It is a great site with a lot of hiking trails. Unfortunately, it rained that night and it was freezing cold, so we both wrapped ourselves into our sleeping bags.
Friday (03/15): On that day, we had like 4 hours, before we had to drive back to the airport, to catch our flight back to Auckland, where we slept one more night. So we did some hiking and enjoyed the beautiful landscape.
Saturday (03/16): That day was basically just waiting and flying. We had to wait until 3pm, for the bus to pick us up. Then we had to wait at the airport for boarding. The flight was 11 hours and 30 minutes to San Francisco, where we had to go through customs and a security control again. The last flight to Seattle was only 2 hours, which went by so fast! And all of a sudden, we were back. It was so unreal. I still can not believe that it is over!!
Let the memories begin 