Time to move on...

I delivered my final report last week, just before the Christmas holidays. Finishing my report also meant the beginning of the end of my New Zealand experience so I there are some mixed feelings there. My supervisors seemed quite happy with my work so that is positive. I'll just have to see what the final grade will be when I get back in Februari. By then I will also have to make arrangements for my Master thesis.

Tonight is my last night in Christchurch. Since it will be more difficult to update my blog while on the road, this might be the last big update until my return to the Netherlands.

Last weekend I did a rerun of my trip through central Christchurch, which I did during the first weekend I got here. In summer the botanical garden is even more beautiful en the city is more alive than in winter. It was a good day to drive around on my bike while saying goodbye to the city that has been my host for the last couple of months. I even found one of the biggest trees I have seen in my life (check out the pictures). The world cup rugby ball that has travelled the world has been transformed in the city centre to serve as a bar, so I had to check that out as well.

On sunday we went on a daytrip to Arthur's Pass, a travelroute that goes throught the mountains and connects the east to the west of the south island. It is renowned for its beautiful nature such as the rocks of castle hill and the devil's punchbowl waterfall. Naturally we went to see these natural phenomena up close. Note: getting close to a large waterfall gets you wet, even if you are not under it.:P
The cave stream is a small stream that has created a path throught limestone rock. If you have some small gear you can go caving through it. Unfortunately we did not have any gear (such as a flashlight) at all so we just got to see the entrance and exit of it. If I would have more time this would be a cool thing to go back to. On our return we pass through a town called springfield. They did not forget to market this name, which is known from the Simpsons tv-show and put up a giant Homer donut and a place where they sell them. They were pretty good:)

To celebrate Christmas with other people that were far away from there relatives, we had a nice Christmas at the beach on the 24th. Although it was windy and cloudy it was a good day with a nice bbq that ended in a nice pub.

On the 25th I was invited at my flatmates house for Christmas with her family, they were all very nice people and I had an awesome day there. Since there family has Dutch roots I got to play the cardgame 'Jokeren' which I hadn't played in quite some time.

Tommorrow we leave for the west coast in the morning. It will be a busy month with a lot of activities planned but also a lot of time to spendwith what comes on my path. Time to leave my internship behind and move on to new experiences! See you in 2013!