More than half a year had passed since I was crying with Luisa at the airport in Aukland flying back to Germany.
More than half a year had passed since I said goodbye to a year full of everything.
More than half a year had passed since I am back in my „real life“
…but there is hardly a single day not thinking about it..

There are so many times in the last months were my mind shifted to this trip, man. These amazing 11 months full of fun, love, excitement, pain, frustration, loneliness, awesome people, wired stuff and great times.

It´s a very strange feeling to write this now cause so many days had passed but I still feel certain moments when I remember things like leaving Beccy and Chris at Hanover train station on 29.12.2014, being completely lost the first time arriving in NZ, working on a farm for accomodation and food, meeting Tim, Elli, Class, Nessi, David, Luisa, Mehmet and so many more, attending awesome jam nights in picton, enjoying love in Tauranga, getting inspired by unknown people, singing songs while driving towards the sunset, feeling alive as never before, learning new stuff about life, feeling bad after leaving an awesome spot or a bunch of cool people, waking up to put breakfast for the hostel customer on the table, driving on the beach, chatting through nights, climbing on mother nature, missing friends and family, forgetting what I was looking for, doing stuff without expectations – I can easily list 100 more things which were great and I´m very thankfull for.

Last year in june/july I was struggling having fun due to the rainy and cold weather at the west coast. I was depressed and frustrated all day cause it was a tough time for myself beeing alone out there. I still feel the loneliness and the way my heart felt home sick. I just needed somebody… something…some sort of fun or people help me out of this…And eventually I did get some help!

But here I am right now. I am working in my second IT-job this year which I don´t like so much either. My regular income is good, the circumstances are not that bad, I have a warm house where I live in and my friends and family are not 20.000 miles far away but… there is still something missing.
The last months I felt myself in a sort of hole, that sort of hole when the trip of your life is over and reality is kicking in.
You have to imagine that you were a 10 on a happy scale, every day you were among people you know well, build relationships and from 100 to 0, somebody just takes it away from you…
I hate the thought never seeing some of these people again.

I realized that I love traveling, meeting new people and learning new stuff out there but as much as I like those things, I like a sense of security a financial background a foundation where everything is build on as well.
I think it will take a little while to find a way between both things but I´m happy too to have those opportunities and even more that I did now know another part in my life.

That is my status quo – But here is the last part of my aweseome trip.

I arrived late that day in Wellington after a 3 hours „ride“ with the fairy, I got a little sea sick…
But so many thoughts went through my head all of them related to the south island and of course the question „Is it possible getting even better than this so far?“
Wellington is a really beautiful city especially the water front, te papa museum, mt. victoria, macs brewbar…
I stayed there for two nights and felt pretty alone but my thoughts changed when I heard about a Job I applied for in Tauranga.
Getting a Job these days was pretty hard and if you were lucky enough to have one, you´ve gotta keep it, no matter what.

It took me a day driving along Tongariro National Park up to Lake Taupo where I met Ines again, a young girl which was also woofing in the Seqouia Lodge in Picton.
On the next day I drove through pretty shitty weather up to Tauranga, where I was supposed to work in the Bell Lodge Hostel. Here is a lucky circumstance.

I went to the office to register myself and to say hallo but the desk wasn´t occupied. Alrighty, so I went in the common room and checked out the kitchen.
I met two guys also from Germany and talked to them a couple of minutes relating to the job they have and just to get an opinion about the situation. It was not good news…
During the chat I got another e-mail telling me, that I can start immediately in another Job I applied for in Tauranga. Knowing that and the „warning words“ from these guys I decided in a matter of seconds that I´ll rather take a shot on the next job. „Can´t be worse than that“ I thought.

It was a rainy day when I got up to the next Hostel for which I was supposed to work on an
Orchard.
It was called Harbourside City Backpackers and I needed to pay 160$ for a week to start the job immediately. It was a 6 bed room with 5 girls. Sure, you can say „holy moly, did you say 5 chicks and you were the hen there?“.

Here is just a little impression how clean this room was (Girls are much more cleaner than men… sure thing… Maybe on the moon)
At first the german manager at the hostel was pretty cool and easy to talk to but later that turned out to be a crook though.
On the next day I met Nicole and Kevin, both germans which were having the same job ofer than me with one minor disadvantage. Or in other words – I just got the job due to my mobility having a car. So we were 3 germans and a kiwi guy in my car driving a day later to meet Peter, the owner of that kiwi orchard.

The job was pruning(again) but this time it was nothing like pruning cherry or apple trees. This job needed a whole new set of skills which Peter told us very quickly. After more or less 10 minutes of instructing us he asked us weather there were questions and if not that we should start immediately. You know this look in the eyes of group of people when they got taught something, the teacher just asked „everbody understood?“ and everybody just eying the other person next to you with this wired look „I have sooo no clue what he was talking about but I´m scared to ask – Meh, what the heck“. That was this kind of situation :)

After some days this kiwi guy quit the job and on same day later on in the kitchen I met Luisa. She was german(all over the good damn place were germans) and she was from Dresden.
I can´t help but I instantly liked her. She was a little frustrated and was also looking for a job so I tried and finally managed to get her the same job as we already had at Peter´s Orchard.
So now my car was full of germans
On the next day Luisa and I tried to get a beer in a little Restaurant but we were told that is permitted to take alcohol out of the restaurant. So much for this plan(This story is not a big deal but I love this memory^^)

So the next days we pruned a lot of kiwi trees and really enjoyed breaks.
Luisa and I got a very good connection and got smitten pretty quickly. We spend almost every minute with one another and it was soo cool. And most magnificent it never seemed that we needed time apart. Everything was just playing in our cards – the job, the social environment, playing board games, cooking, talking about problems or being frustrated.
Nicole, Kevin, Luisa and I did some stuff together as well. We went on hikes together and enjoyed the beach with a lot of
ice cream.

We stayed there almost two weeks and on a certain day all four of us checked some other jobs in Tauranga because the job on the orchard was over (it´s not soo important about why and how this ended..düptidu^^)

Eventually Nicole got a job offer near Hastings to work on a vineyard. It was still hard to find a job somewhere on the north island so she accepted it but she was also asked if she knows another female worker to work there as well. When I heard that I tried pretty much everything to find a job in or around hastings too. I didn´t get lucky but I followed both of them in a hoping attitude still trying to get something so I moved to the rotten apple backpackers in Hastings. what a crappy hostel boy, wow… but it was very cheap and that´s all I needed for the moment.

Luckily I found a job and guess what.. It was the same job both girls were working for.. on this very vineyard.
But in a word that job was just HORRIBLE.

I remember waking up in the night due to pain in my hand. The job was to cut a 20 branch vine tree with hand clippers keeping 4-5 good branches to tie them down on a wire. You got paid by trees you´ve done. I did about 100 trees a day that means 100 times 15 cutting branches and putting them on the wires. After the third day I wasn´t able to even make a fist, I was not able to do so! It felt numb and just painfull. But there we were. We needed a job and some serious money, we wanted to make experiences and keeping the company so we persevered. And we did good. We teamed up and got even over minimum wage(what a ironie with this pain)

Even after two or three days we finished the job we still got this pain in the palms and fingers. Holy Moly!
If somebody would ask me about my physically most painfull time, it would definitely be this.

Luisa and I continued traveling together, we did some woofing together, we traveled a lot especially the northern part of the north island to get another job working in an all star hostel/resort maintenaning the hostel in Coromoandel.
So in my opinion Coromandels Cathedral cave is one of the top five must do´s in
New Zealand. Coromandel Peninsula including Hot Water Beach is just beyond measure. It is soooo redicoulos beautiful. I saw dolphins swiming in a distance of five meters close to the beach, we were cayaking on the open water, we stayed in a house from which you see the motherf**** ocean, ey man, that was too much.

Together with other woofers we enjoyed this time pretty much and had a very cool friendship with one of the managers Glen(Schwein schwein).

After a few weeks we headed up to Aukland cause I applied for two jobs and got job interviews and Luisa was in a kind of mood „meh, what the heck, will see what happens next“. In a kind of night and fog action we went to Aukland where at first I started a job in a paper factory. On the next day Luisa was on the payroll as well, Hihi.
The following three weeks I guess, we cheated a lot to get free camping on a campsite not far away from the city of Aukland, what a great idea!
Again I was lucky to met people in the job which were so cool and we´re still chatting on facebook. I hope we meet again, Jacub aKa Mr.Tschurak and little mrs. cute nose :-).

In this time I tried so hard to sell my car but I got heavy problems with the WOF. I already blogged the story here, I won´t do it again. It was a happy end but a terrible path to it, oh boy.

There were soo many smaller things happened before and after this time but I can´t write them all.

After quitting in the paper factory Luisa and I split for some time cause she got some company from Germany and I wanted to use my last ten days to see Hobbiton and walking the Tongariro Crossing with Jacqueline, a german girl I met in hostel months ago and we kept in touch and cooked up the idea, if our paths would cross again, we would do Tongariro together and so we did.

Tongariro or other people might say Mt.Doom from the Lord of the rings again is on the top 5 must dos in New Zealand. It a serious hike through vulcanic environment with some superb views in the crater. Here and there it looked like beeing on the moon – georgous.
But to spend a word on Hobbiton: As a big Lord of the Rings fan I really enjoyed the tour in every detail. I got lucky with the weather and had such an amazing day spending in Matamata.

Two days before I left New Zealand I met Luisa in Aukland again and we spent time together cooking and enjoying until it was time to say goodbye at the airport in Aukland 5.am on the 23.11.2015 at that was when it hit me right in my heart.

This is it. The year is over now , Denis – Do you realize that? It is over!
You have to go back to Germany, Period.

It´s funny, even now I remember very good how sad I felt to say goodbye to Luisa and to one year New Zealand and right now I´m sitting in a dry office, four displays in front of me, listening to music and just try to recall the mood.

It might sound big so heroic,
so „I want to be special“
but maybe you get the chance someday to travel for a long period of time. It´s just the way it is

I spend three more days in Sydney which I was not capeable to enjoy because my mind was not open for new people or new storys to start either. I was still catched in my New Zealand journey and I couldn´t just pretend that everything is cool – new city new people new girls new storys, No sorry.
On the 27.11.2016 I arrived in Hanover where my parents just waited in front of the train station. It was very cool to be back and get arms around them.
Here is my very first thought which came to me when I arrived in Hanover and walked the first steps.
„Ah, cool… looks like nothing has changed…“

End of june Luisa was arriving in Germany and I couldn´t resist suprising her with my appearance at the airport and so we met again 😉

This is it. This was my year 2015 far away from my daily routine and I am so thankful and proud of this trip and every damn day. I hope I will learn not to look back to often, cause I have my life here… right now and I am free and can do what ever my fancy attracts. So let´s plan the next trip and enjoy being free!

J4l3n