Around Wanaka and at the Spot

This tuesday I had to wake early again for the International Department was taking students that didn't write exams and me (because I didn't have exams that week) to Wanaka.
Tim gave me a ride to school. They didn't tell Julia I was going because she wouldn't have let me. I found that so cute !
It felt weird to come to school without uniform and see al the other students preparing for their exams whilst we were taking the bus to Lake Tekapo with a stop in Geraldine where I showed Katarina another geocache I had found before.
In the afternoon of the 20th of November 2012 we finally arrived at our destination. It was just beautiful ! Over the clear and bright blue water (bluer than the sky !) one could see the top of the famous Mt. Cook (New Zealand's highest mountain, called Aoraki in Maori language which means "The Cloudpiercer"), as always wrathed in clouds.

Mt Cook begind Lake Tekapo

For dinner we had hot Nachos with bean sauce (another food I had never eaten before I came to NZ, but it's great !) and straight afterwards I studied for my Maths Exam in my workbook. Being the only one here to write exams I got a few awkward looks, for all the others went reading or going outside.
However, in the evening we had a tour to the St. Johns Observatory. We saw NZ's largest telescope, watched a beautiful sunset and got to see stars although it was still light and you couldn't see any without telescope ! It was just AMAZING, the colourful dancing stars and star clusters, Mars, Oreon, the Southern Cross... and then we put our cameras on a telescope and zoomed in on the moon !
When we were back at the hostel we still didn't have enough so a few  of us went down to the lake shore with our sleeping bags and watched the bright stars till midnight. I almost fell asleep down there and didn't see any of the shooting stars...

The next morning we had 1 hour in town and whilst it was raining in Christchurch we had a lot of sun down here !
We went to the beach with rented kayaks where I started a fun water war. I knew this place, because I had been here at my south island trip. It was still great !
In the evening most of the others watched a movie, but I didn't like it so I went to study and read my book as reward after each page of exercises.
Mrs Brodie gave her baby bunny (called Fluffybum) to its new owners. What a shame, he is so cute and... fluffy !
Our group left the hostel at 9am and so the long drive to Wanaka began. A bit later we walked up to a glacier lake (more than 2h). After a short break we started back down again. Mr Smythe even raced me on the last bit ! We were pretty much the same speed. That was fun ! He wanted to take Kata, Alina and me tramping because we were the fastest (and youngest), but we won't have a lot of time left to do that now.

Aoraki, Mt. Cook

Katarina and Alina

a break of walking

To relax we watched 3 short movies about Mt. Cook, the stars and Primeval NZ at the Sir Edmund Hillary Centre. Did you for example know, that even Kiwis, Moas and many other New Zealand animals originally came from Australia ? Sad, isn't it ?
And now, here is another example of the friendliness of the Kiwi's: This evening I finished my book, "Daughters of Fire", and it was so sad that I cried a little bit. Now a woman who sat across from me simply came and hugged me.
I thought that was so cute !!!
After that I went on studying till 11pm.
On friday we all had to wake up at 6am to reach the tiny Mt. Cook village at about 9am. Once there we did a little walk to the Tasman glacier lake (biggest glacier in NZ) and went on a little boat to see (and eat) icebergs. That was cool, a bit like jetboating.

an iceberg

the glacier

In Christchurch we arrived at 4pm the same day (and found 2 caches on the way). At home Kata and I repacked for the christmas sleepover with our friends (called the "Spot") where we had a lot of fun with our secret santa and movies like "The lucky One" and "Snowwhite and the Huntsman". I went to bed at 1am and was still one of the firsts ! And the last to wake up at 9am...
That was my last journey around middle-earth although I still had a lot to do in the next days... in Christchurch and region.