Beautiful New Zealand

It's been a couple of awesome weeks so I haven't had much time to write about it, so I am going to give you some new photos and some stories now.

The trip to Mount Cook was incredible. We went there with a nice group of around 15 people. First day we hiked up to mount John observatory from where we had a nice view of turquoise lake Tekapo. All the lakes in that area are that color due to glacieral flour; rock grindings from the glaciers. After that we continued via huge lake Pukaiki to the hostel in Mount Cook village, which is quite small. The shop in town is what they sell behind the counter at the hostel.
The walks up to the glacier lakes (especially the one to mt Cook) are very nice. With amazing 360deg views all he time. And the final view at mt Cook is great as well.

On 5th of November NZ celebrates Guy Fawkes day. The guy who tried to blow up british parliament but failed. There was an amazing 11 minute firework show on the beach where I went with my a couple of my flatmates. They had fun in one of the rides at the carnival and the cotton candy was a nice thing to have after the beers and live music at the local bar.

On the 10th we had a Halloweenparty at our flat which was real succes. Apparently it lasted a lot longer than I thought. I was still drunk when I got up in the morning.

One of the people I got to know here is from Japan and she organised a sushi and Okonomiyaki (japanese savoury pancake) making evening. Learning to make sushi was very nice and getting to eat it was even better:).

Last weekend we had a 4 day roadtrip to Queenstown and Milford Sound. We had a really good time. Seeing the fjords, pinguins, waterfalls and seals at Milford Sound is definetly worth the 4 hour one way drive up there, since the drive is very nice as well. After Milford Sound we saw part of Waiau river that is use in the LOTR movies (first movie 2:53:47 on my version) and had fun with the hanging bridge.
In Queentown we had a blast racing on the luge (rodelbaan), eating Fergburgers (one of the best burgers you'll ever have) and joining in on the pub crawl whith the catchphrase: What happens in Queenstown....goes on facebook! Very nice.
On the trip back we had a stop at puzzling world. Definetely a place to check out with optical illusions, lots of puzzles and a giant 3D maze that you can walk. Suggestion: Do the advanced challenge.

Work at uni is coming to its conclusions and I'm starting to get data out. Unfortunately not as useful as my supervisor and colleague had hoped. So it's back to basics. I'll be finalising my work soon, and hopefully (probably) it will make a nice report anyway.

Sice my internship finishes at Christmas, which is only one month from now, I have been looking ino plans to travel th country. I may have found some other visiting researchers todo a roadtrip of the westcoast of the south island with, should be very nice.

Meanwhile the Lustrum of Thor is starting in the Netherlands and I am quite sad that I can't be there. Facebook keeps me posted, luckily. Have fun guys and keep up the good work over there!