From Queenstown my first plan was to head to Invercargill to dive with the great white sharks. This was something I was looking forward to for a long time, until I received bad news... The day before heading to Invercargill I got a message from that the weather conditions were really bad so sadly this activity didn’t happen.

After another beautiful bus trip where we crossed some stunning viewpoints I reached Queenstown. The bus trips on the southern island are really focused on showing how beautiful New Zealand is. Compared to the northern island, where the bus will just bring you from A to B, I really enjoyed the trips here.

After my visit to Abel Tasman national park I spent one night in Nelson before taking the bus to Fox Glacier. Normally, this will take you about 6 hours, but with all the stops in between it was an 8 hour drive. We crossed some stunning coastal scenery’s, which made the 2 extra hours totally worth it. At one point we had a lunchbreak at the pancake rocks which were pretty nice to see.

From New Plymouth we drive a couple of hours inland and we arrive in a tiny village called national park. From here we will discover the Tongariro national park, famous for one of the most popular day hikes of the world, the Tongariro crossing. This town looked a bit abandoned and there was not much to do. The hostel was pretty nice and there was a mini golf court at the other side of the road where I played two times in four days. Besides the day activities I enjoyed the good weather and read a bit.

From the fifth of January it was time for my solo journey. I said goodbye to Auckland and my family and took the bus to New Plymouth. The drive took around 7 hours and I arrived in New Plymouth around 4 P.M. I checked in at the hostel and went out for a walk and had dinner. Not much later it was bedtime because the next morning I had to wake up pretty early to take a cab to Mount Egmont national park, which is also known as mount Taranaki.

After a relaxing four hour flight from the paradise of Fiji, I finally reached the main destination of my journey. My aunt and uncle were waiting for me at the terminal and it was good to see them after eight years. They live in Auckland and they took me to their cozy place where I stayed for about two weeks.