kangaroo-jen

Freitag, 4. Mai 2012

Tramping on the Routeburn Track & Life at Rosie's Homestay

Hello everybody,

after a few weeks of work and a really bad cold I finally found the time to do one of the Great Walks here in New Zealand - the Routeburn Track. Two days of tramping and a cold night in a hut in the middle of nowhere...a great experience although I do have really sore muscels after this trip. Carrying a 14kg backpack didn't make it easier but you have to take clothes, your foodc and also a cooker for preparing some hot dinner in the hut. So it was all a quite new experience for me. Sleeping in a icecold bunkroom with 20 other people can be quite exhausting but at least I had a really warm sleeping bag so I didn't get too cold at night.
But you know it's worth the effort when you are standing on the mountain and having absolutely stunning views.
Here are some pictures so that you can share a little bit the beauty of the Fjordland here in New Zealand:

At the begining of the track

My tramping friend Tim and me

a really high waterfall

stunning views...

inside the hut

water supply was ensured outside the hut with of course outside temperatures :-)

at Lake McKenzie

a beautiful morning at the hut

yes there was snow on the track...

...and even ice...so you can imagine how cold it was :-)

amazing views from the top

Here are some pictures from the hostel where I'm staying. We had some really nice dinners here and lots of fun:

on Lake Te Anau with Rosie and Alistar - my host family

Alistar

Rosie & Me

having a nice dinner

spanish Paella...very yummi :-)

Tim and Matthias preparing original "Kaiserschmarrn"

another evening...making yummi Schnitzel

always heaps of fun in the kitchen :-)

shared dinner with lots of good food

and a redwine cake for dessert :-)

Montag, 9. April 2012

Living and working in Te Anau

Hello everybody,
it's time to bring you up to date again I guess.
For two weeks now I've been living and working in this nice little town called Te Anau.
I was really lucky to get a job in a really nice Homestay Backpackers where I work in the mornings for my accommodation and food plus I found a job in a big restaurant in town where I work behind the bar 5-6 evenings a week.
So after over 2 months of travelling around and not staying longer than one or two nights at one place, it's really nice to finally settle down for a while. I've got my own little room outside the house in the garden and Rosie and Alistair (my Host-Family) are really nice and I feel so lucky to be here.
I'm making the beds in the mornings and clean the bathrooms and everything which usually takes me only 2-3 hours.
The place where I work in the evenings is a restaurant called "The Ranch Bar and Grill" and I'm behind the bar serving drinks. Its good fun but I do sometimes have long night where I work from 6pm to 2am in the morning so I'm always glad to have two days off a week to recharge my batteries :-) It's a lot I had to learn in the first two weeks, all the different beers and drinks etc...and of course the language doesn't make it any easier and sometimes its hard to understand the locals in the first place but it's getting better and better and I still learn everytime I go there. It gets quite busy there on the weekend and dealing with lots of drunken people can be quite exhausting. But, I can save some good money now which is good :-) And it's a new experience too.
After a week I had a whole day off and Rosie from the hostel organized a free seakajaking daytrip for me at Milford Sound and it was absolutely amazing. The weather was just perfect for kajaking and even though we had some clouds hiding the mountains in the morning it cleared off after a couple of hours and we had spectacular views and I enjoyed being in the kajak much more than being on a boat cruise. The dimensions are just so different when you are paddling in the Fjordland.

Here are some pictures from the kajak trip: