Day 88: Neverending exploration, neverending fascination

No matter how long you stay in NZ, I think your fascination about the beauty and diversity of this country never ends. Even after traveling around for more than three months now, I discovered a new form of vegetation that pretty much reminded me on my time in Mongolia: the grasslands surrounding Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki. Endless views, shadows of clouds, only very few single trees. It seems you're never done traveling here.

#newzealand #southernisland #laketekapo

Day 87: Inclined trees

Those trees were hilarious, because obviously there were heavily shaped by the wind of the Southland, but they still keep growing. They were all over the place, but only in the very Southern part of NZ. They became quite characteristic for my time down there, because they told me from which direction I can expect the gusts.

#newzealand #southernisland #southland

Day 86: Dolphins in the waves

Not kidding. I took this picture in Curio Bay, in Southern New Zealand, just 5 minutes after I got to beach. Yes, there are dolphins in the waves in front of me - dolphins! One, two, three of them...probably more that I missed. Just there! In the waves! I couldn't believe it.

#newzealand #southernisland #curiobay

Day 85: The rare Yellow-eyed Penguin

The Yellow-eyed Penguin is the rarest penguin species in the world. Only 209 couples remain. Thus, it's a great honour for me I was given the chance to watch them in their natural environment twice. Even more so, because they used to be my favourite animals when I was a child. Such sweet encounters make you smile for the rest of the day.

#newzealand #southernisland #oamaru

Day 84: Mind crossing surfer children

My second favourite traffic sign (after the Kiwi one) is this one. Mind the two children with their surfboards crossing the road. Clearly there for good reason in Riverton.

#newzealand #southernisland #riverton

Day 83: NZ portion sizes

It was a long, endless drive from Hokitika to Haast, but we made the whole thing by 10pm, catching a lovely clear Westcoast sunset. We didn't have much hope finding any places to grab a late dinner, but surprisingly there was this one pub that was still open with lots of noisy, drunken tourists inside. We decided to go for potatoe wedges, expecting maybe 10-15 pieces to keep us filled for the rest of the day. What we got though was this BUCKET of deep fried potatoe wedges with ketchup and mayonaise. Thank god this is a holiday, so we didn't need any excuses.

#newzealand #southernisland #haast

Day 82: Hokitika in a nutshell

The Westcoast of NZ was one of my favourite destinations. Aside from the the nature being just beautiful and unique, the citys have a somewhat rough, basic, workering class attitude which I liked a lot. Everything's more pragmatic, rather then beautiful. There are not many people living there, and there is even less work, leaving lots of houses empty, and a lot of windows broken.

#newzealand #southernisland #hokitika